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Transcript

The News is Coming from Under the Desk… on TikTok (live from On Air Fest) · Question Everything

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: Hello, hello. Okay, so up next, we have a live
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: taping of Question Everything. We're walking a dive into journalistic
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: ethics and the future of media.
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: Hey, everybody.
• 0:23
  Speaker 3: Ryan here.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: We've got a special episode of the show today. We
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: recorded it live a couple weeks ago at an audio
• 0:28
  Speaker 2: and media festival in New York called On Air Fest.
• 0:31
  Speaker 3: It was fun.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: Got me out of my comfort zone, quite literally. As
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: you'll hear, I ended up climbing underneath a desk on
• 0:38
  Speaker 2: stage with my guest. But it also put me in
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: contact with someone I wanted to talk to for a while.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Someone who exists in a pretty different media world than
• 0:46
  Speaker 2: the one I'm used to and who calls himself a journalist,
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: even though some people disagree with that title. My guest
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: was this TikToker named V Spear. V has millions of followers.
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: I'm one of them.
• 0:59
  Speaker 2: And they deliver these short video news updates from under
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: their desk. They've become super popular. Just a couple days
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: before our live event, Pew Research Center came out with
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: a survey where they asked Americans who say that they
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: regularly get their news from influencers on social media to
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: name the first quote-unquote news influencer who came to mind.
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: It was an open-ended question, and so many people said
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: V in response that V made it in the top four.
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: More people named V than Joe Rogan. I wanted to
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: talk to V because I think a lot about how
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: trust in traditional news outlets has been tanking. And I
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: wanted to see what I could learn from what V does,
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: what their process is, and how they've gained the trust
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: and loyalty of millions of people. And then, not long ago,
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: V ended up in this pretty public dust-up with NPR
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: of all places, which is where I started my career.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: It was over, in part, how to classify V. NPR
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: referred to them with the term newsfluencer. which V found insulting.
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: And I thought, okay, maybe now is a good time
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: to talk to V. And we're better than in front
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: of a live audience with a mix of old and
• 2:09
  Speaker 2: new media people in attendance. So we took to the stage.
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: From KCRW and Placement Theory, I'm Brian Reed, live on
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: stage from On Air Fest in New York City. This
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: is Question Everything. Today we question a disgruntled interviewee. All right,
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: let's imagine there's going to be a pre-roll ad break here.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to say, stick around. A couple months ago,
• 2:42
  Speaker 2: a journalist I follow online posted a video to their
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: 3.4 million TikTok followers. They'd just done an interview on NPR,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: and they were not happy about it. Can we cue
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: this clip, please, the response to NPR?
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: This morning, I was featured on an episode of Weekend
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Update on NPR. And after what I tell you next,
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: I can promise you, you will never hear me on
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: NPR again. The topic was how influencers are impacting journalism.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: And it featured me and Summer Harlow from the Knight
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: School for Journalism. We taped for 30 minutes, but only
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: seven minutes of the interview aired. Summer was introduced by
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: all her credentials as she has earned them. And I
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: was introduced as V Spear newsfluencer, to which I said,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: what is a newsfluencer? I've never heard that term. I've
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: linked to the interview because I do want you to
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: listen to it for yourself. Specifically, I want you to
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: listen for me. You know my cadence.
• 3:32
  Speaker 4: You know how I speak.
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: And what you're going to hear in this interview is
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: a Frankensteining of my voice. Because this is a wonderful
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: example of, did I say these words? Yes. But did
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: they have that meaning? Were those the conclusions that I
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: came to when saying those words? Or did they cut
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: me off mid-sentence to reinforce their narrative? The narrative that
• 3:50
  Speaker 1: anyone who delivers the news online is somehow less than
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: or not a journalist or.
• 3:54
  Speaker 4: Not a professional.
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: So this is V Spear, creator of Under the Desk News,
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: which is exactly what it sounds like. Their shtick is
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: sticking their head out, as you can see, from under
• 4:04
  Speaker 2: their desk, and delivering basically something akin to an NPR newscast,
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: though with much more personality. They also do explainers. Last night,
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: they did a round of interviewees with Senate Democrats. I'm
• 4:18
  Speaker 2: a fan of V's. They're a pioneer in this realm
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: of social media creators who deliver news.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: They have a huge audience.
• 4:23
  Speaker 2: They've won awards, have built a media company, been to
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: White House briefings, met with President Biden, and they've been
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: active in fighting the TikTok ban. Makes sense why NPR
• 4:32
  Speaker 2: would want to talk to them. But from V's perspective,
• 4:35
  Speaker 2: this interview with NPR was a hot mess. And the
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: video I played you went on for six and a
• 4:40
  Speaker 2: half minutes with V critiquing everything they thought went wrong.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: V has a lot of followers, so their post got attention,
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: and NPR's public editor decided to investigate. The public editor,
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: if you don't know what that is, is like an ombudsman, basically.
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: They're supposed to be an independent check, like an advocate
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: for the audience and sources on NPR's work. The public
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: editor talked to everybody involved, including V, the host who
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: did the interview. They reviewed the raw transcript. They decided
• 5:05
  Speaker 2: that there were some things that NPR could have done better,
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: but that it wasn't as bad as V thought it was.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: I've spoken to the public editor, but the host who
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: did the interview declined to talk to me on the record.
• 5:14
  Speaker 2: And after kind of taking all this in, watching V's video,
• 5:18
  Speaker 2: listening to the NPR interview, reading the public editor's piece,
• 5:21
  Speaker 2: which had a lot of back and forth with V
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: and NPR staff about, like, did NPR technically introduced V
• 5:28
  Speaker 2: as a newsfluencer and how did NPR describe the interview
• 5:31
  Speaker 2: and the premise when booking it. Here's what kind of
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: my big takeaway was from this whole situation. I think
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: V left this interview feeling like, you know what, the
• 5:41
  Speaker 2: NPRs of the world, the quote unquote traditional media, they
• 5:44
  Speaker 2: don't get me. They don't get influencers. They don't get creators.
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: They don't get our world. They don't get what we do.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: They don't even know what to call us. They feel
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: the need to come up with new words like newsfluencer
• 5:53
  Speaker 2: rather than just call us journalists. I certainly consider myself
• 5:57
  Speaker 2: NPR adjacent. I got my start in NPR. I've worked
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: in public radio most of my career. This show that
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: we're recording right now, Question Everything, it's independent, but it's
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: made with a public radio station. I'm intrigued by what
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: V and others like them do, delivering news online. I'm
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: curious about it, but I would not claim to totally
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: get it. I'm much more on the traditional side of things.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: And more than curiosity, I think it's crucial to pay
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: attention to what journalists like V are doing, because more
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: and more, people are getting their news from social media,
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: and importantly, trusting it, while at the same time, trust
• 6:30
  Speaker 2: in traditional journalism is plummeting. NPR's audience is down 30%
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: from where it was in 2020.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: The Vs of the world are ascendant.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: So, I asked V if they'd be interested in attempting
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: a redo of their NPR interview here on Ninerfest in
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: front of a live audience, where we could hear out
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: what they wished they could have said about the journalism
• 6:51
  Speaker 2: they do in that interview, and I am very grateful
• 6:54
  Speaker 2: despite saying they would never go on NPR again, that
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: they said, yes, let's welcome V Spear. All right, V.
• 7:07
  Speaker 4: I brought stickers because, you know, influencer.
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: So there'll be stickers. Also, how awkward, right? NPR, I'm
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: a subscriber and have a tote. That's why it hurts
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: so bad.
• 7:18
  Speaker 2: All right, so I'm picturing this conversation in two parts.
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: First part, Let's try to do a redo. Let's let
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: you say what you wish you could have said.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: All right?
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: Second part, I want to ask you about your process
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: and kind of what we can learn from you. And
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: just I'm curious in how you do things. And then
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: we're going to do a little live demonstration at the
• 7:32
  Speaker 2: end of things.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: All right? Sound good?
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: Let's do it.
• 7:34
  Speaker 3: Yes.
• 7:34
  Speaker 4: But Brian, would you mind?
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess we should.
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: Let's do it. Let's do this on your terms.
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: So how does this work?
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: You just kind of, yeah. Okay. Okay. It's kind of humiliating,
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: but then you get here, and this angle is iconic.
• 7:50
  Speaker 3: Oh, you actually get to see yourself.
• 7:51
  Speaker 4: Yeah, look at how good you look on here, though,
• 7:53
  Speaker 4: because you're leaning forward.
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: Oh, man, and we got the light.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you get good light.
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: That's true, yeah.
• 7:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is all tricks of the trade, Brian.
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: This one's on me.
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: Is this why you did this?
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Yes, it's an attractive angle, and also I'm a very
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: scared person.
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: All right, so I would like to know, is there a.
• 8:12
  Speaker 2: Just story, anecdote about your work that you wished you
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: could have told in that interview.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so what I thought I was being interviewed for,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: and if your back starts hurting, then you do this.
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: You put your feet up.
• 8:23
  Speaker 4: See how it takes attention right off your back? It's nice.
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: A little bit.
• 8:26
  Speaker 4: A little bit.
• 8:28
  Speaker 2: But what's a story about your work that you wish
• 8:30
  Speaker 2: you could have said or told to get what you
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: do across?
• 8:33
  Speaker 4: So what we were trying to talk about was the
• 8:34
  Speaker 4: TikTok ban.
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: And what I was saying is that the TikTok ban
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: has been unfairly represented in the media because the media
• 8:39
  Speaker 1: has such a strong bias against TikTok. It's just this
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: thing that annoys them. So whatever they hear about it,
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: they're like, yep, that must be it. Must be a
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: threat to national security. Let's get rid of it. My
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: kids are constantly on TikTok. This would be great for me.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, parent better. I don't know. And so
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: when I was being asked about the TikTok ban, I've
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: been on the front lines of that for the whole
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: four years. I was there when Trump first tried to
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: ban TikTok. I was there when Mark Warner proposed the
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: Restrict Act, which was like Patriot Act 2.0 and would
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: have also banned TikTok. Every time they try to pass
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: a bill that bans TikTok, it would fail. until this
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: time when the media started saying things like, well, it's
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: got such big bipartisan support. It didn't. The humanitarian aid
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: package that the TikTok ban was couched in had support.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: So I kept trying to get people to tell the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: story right and talk about the 7 million small businesses
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: that are on there and the hundreds of creators that
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: are on there that make their living on TikTok and
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: what an economic apocalypse it would be in addition to
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: a destruction of community and a platform where truly it's
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: the only one where women, queer people, and black folks.
• 9:39
  Speaker 4: get most of the attention. We set the trends in
• 9:41
  Speaker 4: the culture.
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: I don't want to see it destroyed, but I've never
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: gotten to talk about that because they go, well, the Chinese.
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, who are they?
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: What are their names? Who are the Chinese?
• 9:53
  Speaker 4: And they're like, the Chinese won't sell it.
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: I'm like, who though?
• 9:55
  Speaker 4: And they're like, the Chinese. I'm like, the Chinese don't
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: own it. And they're like, yeah, they do.
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: And I'm like, no, 60% globally owned, mostly by the
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: richest man in Philadelphia, Mr. Jeffrey Yass. There's one Chinese
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: person involved in the ownership of ByteDance, the guy who
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: invented it, and he lives in Singapore.
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: Okay?
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: And the original app, the original ByteDance was funded by
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: with an investment from Jeffrey S.
• 10:19
  Speaker 4: And Sequoia Capital, both U.S.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: Companies. So how much more American do you want this
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: to be? And who has to get, what do you
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: mean divest? The 20% that's owned by the employees, do
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: they have to divest? Just the Chinese guy who lives
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: in Singapore, who are the Chinese? Like, please. And nobody
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: will answer because, again, it would force you to really
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: look at something that you hate and think is annoying
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: and stupid and realize that this is like, a huge
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: deal and a front to democracy in an attempt to
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: shut down a platform to look like you're doing something
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: that would cause great academic harm. And isn't that something
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: that we should talk about? So that's what I thought
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: I was going to get to talk about on NPR.
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: That's what you wished you could have said.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that was it.
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: All right, let's put it on the air. Clock it.
• 10:59
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: And I bet you all have more questions now, right?
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: You're like, why didn't I know that? Right?
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Do you.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Often have people, like, say you're not a journalist? Because
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: one of the inspirations for this show was I got sued,
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: and the lawsuit was claiming that I wasn't a journalist,
• 11:15
  Speaker 2: and that's what inspired this show, was kind of the
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: debate over what does this word even mean?
• 11:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: And we can't even agree on that. I'm sure you
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: have good stories. Like, can you tell me about a
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: time when someone refused to use that word, or.
• 11:27
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, they come up with all kinds of words
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: for me.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Mislabeled you?
• 11:29
  Speaker 4: All kinds of words for me. Some I can't say
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: on this.
• 11:32
  Speaker 2: Show, because.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: Yes, you can.
• 11:33
  Speaker 4: Okay.
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 11:36
  Speaker 4: Here's what I've come down to.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: I got a degree in theater, so I'm very used
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: to people being extremely rude to me in my face, okay?
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: About very vulnerable things, like my voice or the way
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: I do things. And I think that kind of helped
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: me in the beginning because I was really insecure about
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: what I was doing at first, too. And a lot
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: of folks would be like, you know, you're really good.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: You look like you have talent. But being under your
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: desk and doing the news, no one's going to take
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: you seriously. You'll never have a real career. And I
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: was like, okay, well... Nobody's hiring me anywhere else, so
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: I guess I'll just keep doing this.
• 12:04
  Speaker 4: And see how it goes.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: And then the Pew Research came out saying one in
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: three people or something get their news on social media.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Then all of a sudden I became the coolest thing
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: in the whole world and everybody wanted me, right? But
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: what I found was people did not want me to
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: be a journalist because they saw it as me skipping
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: the line somehow or that they had done things the
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: right way. I constantly get asked, what J school did
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: you go to? And I thought it meant Jewish day camp.
• 12:29
  Speaker 4: I am not kidding. I was like, St.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Mary's like because I didn't know but apparently for those
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: who also don't know it's journalism school so okay um
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: and then Bob Woodward asked me to come over for
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: breakfast one day.
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: Really yeah no okay how was that I got invited
• 12:46
  Speaker 3: to the.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: New York Times deal book summit and I was like
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: oh man I made it and then he was like
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: I'm so interested in you and what this is and
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: I was like okay great and then he invited me
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: over and I went to his house and we talked
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: about social media and it was really cool and he
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: told me that he did not go to J school
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: and I was like oh I'm going to use that
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: every single time somebody asks me where I went.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't go either.
• 13:06
  Speaker 4: So when did he become a journalist?
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: Was it when he wanted to start telling stories or
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: was it when he won his first Pulitzer Prize? Other
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: folks have told me journalism isn't a profession, it's an act.
• 13:18
  Speaker 4: You're doing an act of journalism, you're a journalist.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: And so the thing that I came to kind of
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: realize through this is it wasn't that people were necessarily
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: mad at me or I was some kind of poser.
• 13:27
  Speaker 1: It's that there is so much scarcity in this industry
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: that And it's a lot easier to look at someone
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: like me and be like, I hate that. I don't
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: want to do that because you thought you were doing
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: what you were supposed to and you're not getting rewarded.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: But that's not my fault. That's Jeff Bezos buying the
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: Washington Post, right? That's the conglomeration of all these news organizations.
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: That's people shutting down BuzzFeed and all the cool.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: Up and coming stuff.
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: That's these terrible tort lawsuits that take out companies like
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: Gawker even and continue to stifle us. And we're all
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: on that same side. So the scarcity is something that
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: scares me too. And I think We collectively can learn
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: from each other and do better journalism than trying.
• 14:02
  Speaker 4: To say, like, well, you're not a journalist. You're a
• 14:07
  Speaker 4: something else.
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: You're a newsfluencer. You're a hack.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: A person who communicates the news online.
• 14:14
  Speaker 1: You're a fluke. You're a joke.
• 14:15
  Speaker 4: You're a whatever. You're a flash in the pan. And
• 14:17
  Speaker 4: I'm like, okay.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: Do you ever use, like, do you ever take advantage
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: of the fact that you can also pretend to not
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: be a journalist?
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes. How?
• 14:25
  Speaker 4: Like, so when I get something wrong.
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: I'm not a journalist.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm just a TikToker. I don't know anything.
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: I didn't go to J school. I see. I see.
• 14:36
  Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean, every so often I'll do that.
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: Or sometimes like being a TikToker and being a public
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: figure can be hard sometimes. So sometimes I will appreciate
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: not being a journalist to some folks in certain circles
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: because it like gives me a break. Because if I
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: go to New York Times Dealbook Summit, nobody gives a
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: shit about me. I could just kind of be a
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: voyeur and not have to be the entertainer that day.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: So sometimes not being a journalist comes with breaks. Yeah.
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: So what's the deal with the shtick? Why are we
• 15:07
  Speaker 3: doing this?
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: Because we have to. Okay, so I started off... Look,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: I was a chef before and I worked in the
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: culinary industry.
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: And one thing that you will learn.
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: is like you may have a lot of really great
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: ideas for your menu, but your customers will tell you
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: what you're making, okay? Like it's not that way. And
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: I think it's the same way for news. People like
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: that we're under here. It creates a predictable universe. They
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: know where I am. They like the suits and the
• 15:29
  Speaker 1: hair and everything. It gives them something to look at.
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: It makes them feel like a whimsical moment in an
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: otherwise kind of like sad and dark day. And I
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: started under here, and the rules of TikTok are once
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: you do one thing successfully, you must only do that thing.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: You can never transition. If you started as a chef
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: on TikTok, they don't want to hear you sing. And
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: if I started under the desk, they get very uncomfortable
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: when I'm above the desk.
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: Really? Like, what kind of feedback do you get?
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: People are like, because I had to get, I got
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: top surgery, and literally they were putting the mask on
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: me for, like, to go out to get the surgery,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: and Nurse Wendy was like, I'm so sorry, you're not
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: going to be able to lean on your elbows for
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: like six weeks.
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: Good night.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: That is a huge occupational issue.
• 16:09
  Speaker 4: I was like, there's Wendy.
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: And she was, so then I woke up and they
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: were like, you're going to have to figure it out
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: because you can't lean on your elbows. And during that time,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: I was doing everything to like fake a desk over
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: my head to like pretend, you know, that it wasn't happening.
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: But now people are getting a little bit more used
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: to me being out in the world.
• 16:25
  Speaker 4: But I like it under here. Don't you feel kind
• 16:27
  Speaker 4: of cozy?
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's nice. My back hurts a little, but you know.
• 16:30
  Speaker 4: Do you want to go back up?
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: I do, yeah.
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, go ahead.
• 16:33
  Speaker 4: All right, everybody close your eyes. Yeah, and then you
• 16:41
  Speaker 4: kind of like, oh, yeah.
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: I have a broken foot as well.
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Oh, my God, Brian.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: It's healing. It's healing.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: Open your eyes again. Lights up.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Can we talk about how you make your stuff?
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah, let's do it.
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: All right.
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: Can we play the most recent clip, the TikTok clip
• 16:58
  Speaker 2: from Wednesday night? I believe this is from two nights ago. Yeah.
• 17:01
  Speaker 3: One of your videos?
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: Yep.
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: It's Wednesday night, and here's what happened. Cynthia Erivo will
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: play Jesus Christ in an upcoming summer production of.
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: Jesus Christ Superstar.
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: Cynthia Erivo is going to play Jesus Christ in a
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: Hollywood Bowl production of.
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: Jesus Christ Superstar.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: She's also going to host the Tonys, so lots of
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: good Cynthia Erivo news to start you off.
• 17:26
  Speaker 4: People are going to lose their fucking lives.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: In less good news, thousands of federal employees continue to
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: be unceremoniously fired by the Trump administration from their jobs.
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: And tomorrow they're set to fire like 7,000 IRS employees
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: just as we're getting into tax season. Trump today also
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: called the president of Ukraine a dictator who doesn't hold elections,
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: which is a direct from Putin talking point and really
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: shook up the GOP. Even some like super Trumpy Republicans
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: found this to be kind of too far. Not far
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: enough for them to hold him accountable in any way,
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: of course, but I don't know.
• 18:01
  Speaker 4: More cracks are showing. This is not normal. This is
• 18:05
  Speaker 4: not normal. This is not okay.
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: Like, for example, I learned today that if they defund
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the Department of Education, that'll take about 20% out of
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: school budgets. Every school in America gets about 20% of
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: their total.
• 18:16
  Speaker 4: School budget from the federal government.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: That 20% will need to be made up in some way.
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: And the way that they're going to make it up
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: is by raising property taxes.
• 18:25
  Speaker 4: That's the only other way they can do it.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: a whole lot of people who can afford for their
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: mortgage to go up 20%. Did I mention that Cynthia
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: Erivo was going to play Jesus Christ at the Hollywood Bowl?
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: I'll see you in the morning.
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: I just want to know, like, you know, I watch
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: these daily from you. Take me inside the process. Like,
• 18:46
  Speaker 2: I don't know anything about how it works. Do you
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: have a staff? Do you have a daily meeting? Do
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: you set an editorial agenda? Like, how do you figure
• 18:54
  Speaker 2: out what you're going to cover? Tell me how that happens.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: No, I straight wing it, like, based on my own
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: feelings and conversations with my mom and my MAGA dad,
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: especially if he's gone golfing. So my goal with doing
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: the news like this is so that I like to
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: think that I can give you stuff that you could
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: talk about that could help you, right?
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: And I can remain relatable to you.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And it kind of feels more like a conversation back
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: and forth than it feels like me as an authority
• 19:16
  Speaker 1: telling you a certain thing. So stuff like, did you
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: hear what I learned? I'm showing you that I'm still learning.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: Now you're learning. Now we're learning together. That if they
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: defund the Department of Education, they're going to make it
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: up on property taxes.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: That's not good.
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: I haven't heard anyone on the mainstream media sort of
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: connect that together as directly as that.
• 19:34
  Speaker 4: And that is something that I think is important.
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: And that is something that when I tested it against
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: somebody who would not normally be a subscriber if he
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: wasn't my father, he was like, for real, man?
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: I'm like, yeah, dad. He's like, fuck that. I'm like, yeah, no,
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: I know. He's like, well, then they should leave it
• 19:49
  Speaker 4: how it is. I'm like, no, I know, pop.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:51
  Speaker 4: Like, call your senator.
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: This is real.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: You actually had this conversation before making that.
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: This was a conversation.
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: This is the conversation we had because a lot of
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: it comes from and I get it, whether it's my
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: parents or my sister or DMs or the comments. People
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: have questions because stuff doesn't make sense. So when I
• 20:05
  Speaker 1: do the news, it's more trying to make sense of
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: what's going on or give you that second half of
• 20:09
  Speaker 1: the information so that you could be the smart person
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: in your friends group who gets to say, hey, I
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: just saw this thing and this is what I heard
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: about it. Get curious and investigate it more as opposed
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: to me trying to be like everybody's authority on something.
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: And where did you learn that?
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: Like, are you reporting on, you know, DOE cuts or,
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: you know, just.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: No, my J school was my mother, who was a
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: stay at home mom when I was little, which I
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: was very lucky for. And she used to listen to
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: the police scanner all day with her girlfriends and drink coffee.
• 20:35
  Speaker 4: And then we would come home from.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: School and like dash in the house and she'd be like,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: you have to wait till three because that's when my
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: dad got home. And then we would like, she would
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: lay out her notes and be like, Cindy called the
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: cops on Bill again.
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: That's these over here.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: All right. One more time, CPS is coming to the house.
• 20:51
  Speaker 4: That's what Vinny said on the line.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: And she would tell us everything about what happened in
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: our town every day. And so she was my original
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: citizen reporter. But her thing was always like, don't take
• 21:01
  Speaker 1: away from the story. Don't add to it. Just tell
• 21:03
  Speaker 1: me what happened. And try to make it something that
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: sort of feels worth listening to. It was sort of entertaining.
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: That's how I learned to tell stories, and that's how
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: I learned to do this.
• 21:13
  Speaker 2: I'm also curious specifically where you learned that information that
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: you then tested with your dad. Do you have beats
• 21:20
  Speaker 2: that you're following? Do you have a team that's like,
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: I'm interested in cuts of the DOE? You have to
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: actually put that together yourself before you can decide... that
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: it's worth reporting.
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: I'm an overly familiar, friendly person, and I think that
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: that's a rarity in D.C. So over the last four years,
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: being invited by the Biden administration so many times to
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: the White House or so many times to meet with
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: Congress people or senators or whatever, or be on these
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: briefing calls, I'm always like, just give me your cell
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: phone number, Senator, and I'll text you if I need
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: you or whatever. So I can text them like buddies, right?
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: And they don't think I'm a journalist, so it works
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: out because I'm just their friend. And so sometimes they'll
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: tell me stuff. That came from a call with Chuck Schumer.
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: I was like, I can't ever get Senate Democrats to
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: call me back. Can you do anything about that? Because
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: I get the House all the time, but the Democrats never...
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: And all this time, I've never had a senator other
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: than Cory Booker on, never, not once. And he was like, well,
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: what would you want to know? I was like, I
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: think people are freaked about the Department of Education. And
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: he's the one who said the way that they'll do
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: it is this property tax thing. So that's what made
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: it into the news that night. And then the next day,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: which if you watched me last night on the live,
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: Chuck Schumer.
• 22:24
  Speaker 4: Somehow, all of a sudden.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Got like 15 senators who were very ready to speak
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: to me for 15 minutes each, and they were on
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: a perfect schedule.
• 22:31
  Speaker 4: They wanted me to come down to D.C.
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: To do it. I'm not going on airplanes right now,
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: you know, for no reason. And so they put a
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: little laptop there, and the Senate dems, you know, whoever
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: does that. And for three hours last night, every 15 minutes,
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I had a new Democratic senator who told me a
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: new thing that was in the amendments that they're pushing.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: Now those amendments were getting announced on C-SPAN. Who's watching that?
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: Like maybe us because we're nerds, but like certainly not
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: the average person. And those amendments were things like, I'm
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: against you defunding the Department of Education. I want you
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: to tell people to raise their property taxes. But you
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: wouldn't know that because when they're in Senate doing their
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Senate game, they only got 30 seconds to say something.
• 23:09
  Speaker 4: They got to.
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: Explain their amendments on a live in a cool space
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: that people could tune into while they're cooking or doing
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: anything else at a normal time of night and explain
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: what they were holding the Republicans to. That's super powerful
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: and interesting. And it's a new way to deliver the
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: news that doesn't come from them sitting at a table
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: with Rachel Maddow, which is also important, but it's a
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: totally different delivery vehicle.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and what you're describing is reporting, basically. I mean,
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: do you do, like, this is off the record, on background?
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: Do you do that stuff, or are you kind of
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: playing the I'm not really a journalist card?
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: No, no, not for that. Sometimes they'll be like, this
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: is on background. And the first couple times I was like, okay.
• 23:43
  Speaker 1: I don't know what that means, but.
• 23:46
  Speaker 4: There was other people on the call, so I don't know.
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: No, I don't do anything off the record because I'm
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: not like that guy.
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: You know what I mean?
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: I think that's like a New York Times investigative long-term
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: reporter is going to be your off-the-record guy. I'm not
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: trying to be your secret friend like that. If you
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: tell me something, it's because I am a hunter-gatherer of facts,
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and I am bringing them to the TikTok.
• 24:03
  Speaker 4: We should have secrets, right? That's weird, and my audience
• 24:06
  Speaker 4: wouldn't like that.
• 24:07
  Speaker 3: It's not my thing.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: Also, I'm such a blabbermouth. I could never. Never trust
• 24:12
  Speaker 4: me with a secret like that.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: Hey, hey, it's Brian here again in the studio. I'm
• 24:19
  Speaker 2: back because I forgot to do this live on stage.
• 24:20
  Speaker 2: So I'm just breaking in to say we're going to
• 24:22
  Speaker 2: take a quick break for some ads, but stick around
• 24:25
  Speaker 2: to hear V and I reveal a secret that we
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: both share. And then some takeaways I had after this conversation.
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: Back in a sec. So Welcome back to Question Everything
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: and our live segment recorded recently in Brooklyn with V
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Spear of Under the Desk News. We pick back up
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: with a burning question from me. So wait, but do
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: you have a staff? Do you have story meetings?
• 24:58
  Speaker 3: No.
• 24:59
  Speaker 4: No, it's me.
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: So it's me when it comes to the scripts and
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: when it comes to the stories for everything TikTok and
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: social media. In the last like six or seven months,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: I took my TikTok money and was able to sort
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: of like professionalize in the way that I was like
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: If I'm going to do YouTube, it's expensive to do
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: YouTube because you've got to come up with 30 minutes
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: a couple times a week. So I hired this guy,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: Jed Bookout, who used to write for Dark History. He's
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: super smart, and he just talks like me, and he
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: really gets it. So we have a bunch of conversations,
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: and then I send him on his nerd quest, and
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: he finds all the facts, and he knows how to
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: footnote everything, and then we film the YouTubes. So I
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: have help on YouTube, and I have help on writing
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the sub stack because, again, dyslexia, baby. It's just writing
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: is not going to be my best thing.
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: So you don't have a researcher or a producer. You're like,
• 25:46
  Speaker 2: I'm interested in like what's in this bill.
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: Go take a look.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: No, I do it. Yeah. I have to do it
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: because it's like the way I see things is different
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: than other people. And I think that if I were
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: to outsource that in particular on the TikTok, people would
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: know and I would feel like it's not me. Like
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: TikTok is a very, they're there for me, the person,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: you know, and the way that I do, the way
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: that I see things. That's why when we did the YouTube,
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: I was honest up front. I was like, we have
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: helpers on this, and we're collaborators, and I talk about
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: that so they know what to expect, that this is
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: a bigger show. But TikTok is, for me, in the
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: dust bunnies. That's like a very one-on-one connection.
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: What do you think it would feel like or sound
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: like if you did? If you were just like, you
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: know what?
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: I'm busy today. I need help. I need some reporting
• 26:27
  Speaker 3: support on this bill.
• 26:28
  Speaker 2: And then, you know, they give you like a bunch
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: of bullet points and you can deliver it the way
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: you deliver it.
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: Like what would be different in the.
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: I would freak out because I don't, I would be like, wait,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: maybe you missed the part that I wanted to read though.
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: I should probably just read it. You know what I mean?
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: I understand.
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: It's like that.
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: When it's a big thing, I trust that Jed can
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: write those scripts for me. But when it's TikTok, it's
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: three minutes. It's at seven o'clock at night. People are
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: going to watch this when they're in bed or in
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: the bathroom. These are intimate times, Brian. I can't be
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: bringing anybody.
• 26:55
  Speaker 4: Else into those spaces with us.
• 26:56
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: Those are very special times. All right, I'm going to
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: be the heavy here for a minute.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 27:00
  Speaker 3: The trad journalist.
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: Like, I'm just genuinely curious. How do you think about
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: editorial standards? Do you think about them as you're building
• 27:09
  Speaker 2: a media company? And are you thinking about them differently
• 27:12
  Speaker 2: as things have grown, as this interaction with NPR has happened?
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: It's like I made a little short list, like the
• 27:17
  Speaker 2: things that come to mind for me. It's like you
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: check facts for accuracy. You correct things if you get
• 27:21
  Speaker 2: them wrong. You give everyone you're talking about unflatteringly like
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: a chance to respond correctly. These are the things that
• 27:27
  Speaker 2: are at least important kind of to my process and
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: places I've worked. You're transparent about your process, your funding,
• 27:33
  Speaker 2: who's making your decisions, whether or not you're independent. Like,
• 27:37
  Speaker 2: are those things important to you? Are some of them
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: more important than others? Yeah, I'm just curious to hear
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: your point of view on that stuff.
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: Yes on all of them except letting people I talk
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: shit about talk to me because I would never be
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: able to handle that kind of confrontation. Okay. So when
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: I talk about Nancy Mace being a menace to society,
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: I'm not going to call her and tell her I
• 27:55
  Speaker 1: said that. Or when I talk about how Nancy Pelosi
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: needs to retire, I'm not going to call her and
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: say that.
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: But all the other things on there, I do. And
• 28:02
  Speaker 4: I think for me.
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: There was a report that was done on me about, like,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: this journalist had followed me for an entire day, and
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: at the end of her thing, she was like, V
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: is who they say they are, but they don't report
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: to an editorial board, so will they ever fall off, right?
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: Or how would we know if they did? And you
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: would know because my editorial board is the audience. Again,
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: back to the cooking references. My brunch guests on Saturday
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: don't give a shit if my Friday night service was
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: a banger.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: Those eggs are cold. They don't care.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: And so I treat every single day like it is
• 28:33
  Speaker 1: the first day that I'm ever gaining their trust. And
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: I think that is what continues to motivate me. And
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: that's why I've been extra truthful, really worried about what
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: I say. If I get something wrong, correcting it. Not
• 28:44
  Speaker 1: to say I don't get things wrong, but the things
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: I'm doing on TikTok are not as like deep as
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: the things we do on Substack or YouTube, where I
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: think I could run into more of an issue because
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: you're talking for a longer amount of time, I've essentially
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: distilled it down to one or two sentences that are
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: definitively true. Yeah.
• 29:03
  Speaker 3: How do you deal with correcting things?
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: This was something that came up in the public editor piece,
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: and you guys might have noticed, like, you called the
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: show you were on on NPR Weekend Update, which is
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: SNL's parody of a new show, rather than Weekend Edition,
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: which is NPR's show. So they pointed that out, which
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: they were like, this is not a big deal But
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: also like.
• 29:23
  Speaker 3: At NPR, we would issue a correction.
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: Is that not a big deal to you? Is it
• 29:27
  Speaker 3: a big deal? I'm genuine.
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: I think something like that is not such a big
• 29:30
  Speaker 1: deal because I think we knew what I was talking
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: about and I linked to it. So I said weekend
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: update when it was weekend edition. I also thought I
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: was there to talk about the TikTok ban and it
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: wasn't anything about that.
• 29:39
  Speaker 4: So I think. the npr thing was.
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: Sort of do you think your audience cares about that stuff.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: No no they don't care because at the end of
• 29:46
  Speaker 1: the day it's like what is the bigger picture of
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: it versus the hyper details of it they care about
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the details certainly but with the npr thing The idea,
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: the bigger problem wasn't necessarily the details of it, but
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: was the fact that I felt like I was treated unfairly.
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: And I felt like the way that they cut it
• 30:02
  Speaker 1: off and the way that I was presented against Summer
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: was less than. And they're like, well, we think that
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: it wasn't as bad as you felt. And I'm like, well,
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: it's how I felt though. So it's like, you know,
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: how it went. In addition, there's been several videos since
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: where I've said, I am not advocating for you to
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: shit on NPR. This was an example of a time
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: that it didn't go good. I've supported NPR my entire life.
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: You have that driveway moment, whatever. But it was like,
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: it felt like, I know, I have the tote. It
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: felt like punching up and I had never done that.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: And so in some ways, punching up on what I
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: consider like something I care about was worth what it
• 30:43
  Speaker 1: has cost like all of this kind of business than
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: it is for me to say like, oh, I don't
• 30:47
  Speaker 1: like the way Rachel Maddow covered Trump today like I
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: wouldn't do that because I don't think that's that necessary.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: And why not just correct the weekend edition thing like
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: I don't know how you do it even like on
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: TikTok is it just like hard technically people.
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Would not oh you cannot go back and fix videos
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: you can't fix like is there.
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: A way you could do to the comment even.
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: Or something no you can't do anything I mean I
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: could put it in a comment but nobody's gonna see
• 31:07
  Speaker 1: it and for me to make a video saying oh
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: and that rant that you guys are all very upset
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: about the name of the show was actually weekend edition
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: not weekend update they're gonna be like V what the
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: fuck is this like your algorithm goes down because you've
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: made a stupid video that matters none and then they're
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: like Interesting.
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: Do you have anything better to tell me?
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: Like every time I get time from people online, I
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: try to make it the maximum worth their time.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Um, I think you mentioned to me that you've been
• 31:29
  Speaker 2: surprised at kind of the ideological makeup of your audience
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: a bit. Can you like, have, have you had some
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: interesting interactions with, um, people who are maybe surprising followers
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: of yours that you could tell me about?
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: I have, I had, I don't know if I still do,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: but I had Proud Boy followers. And I had a 30%
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: conservative audience.
• 31:49
  Speaker 4: Is what we estimated it to be.
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: My audience right now is 60-40 female-male, which I think
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: is also sort of unusual. And it isn't necessarily like
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: all kids on TikTok. It's sort of spanning out now
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: where the age doesn't matter as much. I'm still mostly
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: millennial Gen Z, but.
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: It's... Wait, go back to the Proud Boy followers.
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: Oh, yes.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: So what happened there?
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: Because people trust me and because they didn't feel like
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: I was judging them. And remember, I started during the
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: first Trump administration... they would come to me for corrections
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: on things, especially after January 6th. They were like, hey,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: I'm seeing this thing and I feel like it's not
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: what I want to do. And I feel like maybe
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: things are going too far. And I'm like, I think
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: you're making a good assumption there. I think it's okay
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: if you want to leave that. And I will get
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: messages from people who are in organizations that would never
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: maybe publicly admit that they follow me or that they
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: learned something from me. And then they feel safe enough
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: to write me a comment. And so I was like,
• 32:39
  Speaker 1: gentle parenting is you know, extremists for like a hot second.
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: And it's because I'm one of them, right? Like I'm
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: like a regular person, whatever they think I'm reasonable. I
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: never made fun of Trump people. I never talked down
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: on them. I just said, this is what happened. They
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: thought I was fair. And so when they were seeing
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: things that were going on in their world, they're like,
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: I think that this doesn't look right.
• 32:58
  Speaker 4: And I'm like, I think you're probably right. I think
• 33:00
  Speaker 4: you should.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: I mean, you will.
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: I mean, you're not shitting on Trump voters that I've seen,
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: but you will say like, this is not normal.
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: This is terrible.
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: You'll make a meme about the heritage foundation.
• 33:08
  Speaker 4: Well, I'm very different. Trump 2.0.
• 33:09
  Speaker 3: This is early days.
• 33:11
  Speaker 4: I've gotten spice here.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Got it. And has that changed?
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: No, I think that's what people want right now. I
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: think the idea of objectivity is lost in many ways
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: because it is so not normal. So trying to balance
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: like even throughout the campaign season of Kamala versus Trump,
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: it was like Trump could say and do whatever he wanted.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: And Kamala had to like raise the sun every day
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: for anybody to give her half an ounce of the
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: same kind of attention. And so that sucked. And I
• 33:36
  Speaker 1: think people got really frustrated with that, especially after the election.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: So when I say things like if you feel overwhelmed,
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: it's because this ain't normal. If you feel flat footed
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: by how many things he's gotten through already. Well, we
• 33:46
  Speaker 1: did tell you about Project 2025 yesterday. But remember that
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: a president is the most powerful in their first hundred days.
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: It's not like he will gain. He's not going to
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: be able to do more than he's doing right now.
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: This is the critical mass of like hard. And so
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: that sort of centers people to continue to watch the
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: news and take in information. So otherwise they just get
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: overwhelmed and they check out.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I saw a video you did.
• 34:03
  Speaker 2: It was maybe also this week where you're kind of
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: giving advice that you'd been given maybe about how to
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: deal with the fire hose of news with, you know,
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: kind of just the overwhelm of what's happening.
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: You're getting so much stuff all the time. And it's like,
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: is this even worth getting worked up about?
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I know. I feel so stuck on what our strategy
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: should be as journalists covering this right now.
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: It's just so much. It's exploding our resources.
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: I would get a lot more followers if I came
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: on and I was like, oh my God, you guys,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: this asshole, he's going to put hotels in Gaza, right?
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: Everybody go crazy.
• 34:31
  Speaker 4: But then you'd all be shook up.
• 34:32
  Speaker 1: And the next time you saw my face, you're like,
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: I can't handle that right now. I don't want to
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: deal with that. Oh my God, that bitch is nuts.
• 34:37
  Speaker 1: So we try to keep it nice and calm so
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: that people can receive the information. I get criticized for that.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: They're like, you always say everything nice and you shouldn't.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: You should be worked up. And I'm like, People don't
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: listen when you yell at them. So you got to
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: kind of like, you know, just say it in a
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: way that's like your house is on fire. Look, I
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: got your dog out, but everything else you own is ruined,
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: but I got your dog out.
• 34:59
  Speaker 4: Okay. We can, we can now start to process that together.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: We're right on the front end.
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: All right. This brings me to my next question, which
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: is just, I want to ask you about aesthetics and
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: performance because I feel like And this might be a
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: good time for us to reveal a little secret that
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: we discovered in putting together this segment.
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: V and I went to high school together. Yeah.
• 35:21
  Speaker 4: At the same time.
• 35:22
  Speaker 3: At the same time. And we're in.
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: A play together.
• 35:25
  Speaker 3: I think multiple.
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: Several plays together.
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: You were in... This was in Shelton, Connecticut.
• 35:31
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 35:31
  Speaker 3: You were in Good News.
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: Yes.
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: Okay. Children of Eden. Children of Eden.
• 35:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah.
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: What else? Gosh.
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: I don't even know. I think those might have been
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: my last two.
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: Were you in Les Mis?
• 35:41
  Speaker 4: I was not in Les Mis.
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: Okay. So just those two probably. Sound of music?
• 35:45
  Speaker 4: Oh, yeah, sound of music.
• 35:46
  Speaker 3: You were in that one?
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: I was, yes.
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: Cool.
• 35:48
  Speaker 3: I wore a lederhosen.
• 35:49
  Speaker 1: Okay. But what you need to know is I was
• 35:52
  Speaker 1: so panicked because I was such a bitch in high school.
• 35:54
  Speaker 4: And I was like, oh, my God, was I nice
• 35:56
  Speaker 4: to you?
• 35:56
  Speaker 1: It was like, yes, you were okay.
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: Very fond memories of that whole scene. It was a
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: nice walkthrough memory.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: And not that I was like a bitch. I was
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: a cheerleader, and I was also like deeply insecure about
• 36:04
  Speaker 1: being queer, so I was like kind of mean.
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: Not my memory at all.
• 36:07
  Speaker 4: But not your memory.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: And it's been fun to reconnect.
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: I was like, we went to high school together? Yeah.
• 36:11
  Speaker 1: What years?
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: But I do think it's interesting because, I don't know,
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: I think actually so much of news is about aesthetics. Like,
• 36:19
  Speaker 2: you know, an anchor sitting at a desk delivering the
• 36:21
  Speaker 2: news supposedly objectively, that also is a shtick, you know,
• 36:25
  Speaker 2: that has been chosen, that we've accepted as the default.
• 36:29
  Speaker 3: But it was a shtick that was designed.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: There was a theater that was produced that we've adhered to.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: And.
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: Like, just such a big part of what you're doing
• 36:37
  Speaker 2: is coming up with your own aesthetic. And, yeah, I'm
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: just curious. I guess I'm curious, like, how you use
• 36:43
  Speaker 2: your theater background and thinking about that. And also, what
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: does it say about us that this is what matters
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: so much to us as news consumers? Like, how it's
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: packaged and how it's delivered.
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: Like, what's the deal?
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: I mean, your favorite teachers were the ones that were
• 36:55
  Speaker 1: entertaining and a little goofy, right? Learning has to be
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: a little bit fun. That's why people like Hank Green
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: and Bill Nye are legends, because they made it fun
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: and interesting and made you feel included in on it.
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: Part of being under the desk the whole time is
• 37:07
  Speaker 1: that I started my account during the pandemic when all
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: your favorite news anchors were at home.
• 37:12
  Speaker 4: At their desks in suits, right? They were still trying
• 37:14
  Speaker 4: to keep that up.
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: And I didn't want to look like I was doing
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: that or trying to like cosplay as them which is
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: why like being under the desk is a notably silly
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: completely different universe and that was important I did the
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: suit for a long time and then I stopped doing
• 37:29
  Speaker 1: the suit because it is I don't know if you've
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: ever tried to get under the desk in a suit
• 37:33
  Speaker 1: but as you.
• 37:33
  Speaker 4: Age it is harder I can't say I have yeah and.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: Then I was like you know what because those people
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: went back to work and then they were all in
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: their suits again I was like okay well let me
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: try to just like be my own self and nobody
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: noticed so I did all those suits for no reason
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: but what was the question The aesthetic.
• 37:51
  Speaker 4: You have to make it fun and interesting. And I
• 37:53
  Speaker 4: think the theater background has helped me with breath.
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: Control, which is super important because you don't catch a
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: breath when I'm doing these because that is a chance
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: for somebody to scroll. So I make sure that I
• 38:03
  Speaker 1: breathe enough to do it. I cut that thing within
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: an inch of its life so there's no breaths in it.
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: I have like a sing-songy kind of voice as it
• 38:11
  Speaker 1: is that gets you excited and brings you down, tells
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: you where you're going, takes you on a journey. And
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: like all good theater, my show, when I lay out
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: the stories, I usually pick what stories I want and
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: then I put them in an order. And sometimes I'll
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: change the order as I'm going based on how I
• 38:24
  Speaker 1: feel hearing it back.
• 38:25
  Speaker 4: And that's sort of like a script analysis move.
• 38:27
  Speaker 1: And what I'll do then is build, rise, release, tension,
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: rise and release, and tension and end. And that's why
• 38:35
  Speaker 1: when you watch the Cynthia Erivo one, I had bad news,
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: and I knew that I did. I knew people were
• 38:40
  Speaker 1: being very hurt by the federal thing. I knew they
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: were going to be shocked by the Department of Education.
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: I knew they were going to be mad that no
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: one else told them that because I shouldn't be your
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: front line for that kind of stuff when people are
• 38:48
  Speaker 1: watching so much news.
• 38:49
  Speaker 4: So we start with Cynthia Erivo. People are laughing. They're
• 38:52
  Speaker 4: having a good time. We're relating.
• 38:54
  Speaker 1: Then we do a little bad news. Then we wrap
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: it up with, but Cynthia Erivo is going to be
• 38:57
  Speaker 1: in this show, right? We have a reason to live.
• 38:59
  Speaker 1: So I tried to make it... Yes.
• 39:00
  Speaker 4: Yes.
• 39:03
  Speaker 1: So I try to make it something that makes people... Like,
• 39:06
  Speaker 1: my ultimate goal is you're scrolling, you're scrolling, and then
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: you're kind of like, okay, you can rest a second
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: and enjoy, and then you can go on with your day.
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: And hopefully what you take from me is something that
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: makes you smarter and more interesting in your life, and
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: you never give me credit, and that's great.
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: I remember my first week at This American Life as
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: an intern. I was a theater major in college. We
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: did theater together in high school, and just thinking it
• 39:26
  Speaker 2: was going to be so different. Like, I'm going into
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: a whole new field, you know?
• 39:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: Then just the first days, we were talking about characters,
• 39:32
  Speaker 2: literally using the phrase, how do we bring this character
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: on stage to start this story? Talking about conflict, talking
• 39:37
  Speaker 2: about narrative, you know, scenes. I was like, oh, I'm
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: actually trained to do this. There's a weird crossover. How
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: much of what happened with NPR do you think is
• 39:46
  Speaker 2: an aesthetic issue?
• 39:47
  Speaker 3: Like, I wonder.
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: Is there any version of you going on NPR and
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: feeling genuinely represented in that aesthetic?
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: Like I almost feel it here.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: Like I have that aesthetic, the NPR aesthetic in my bones,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: kind of in my genome. And I feel like I'm
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: trying to filter youth as we're talking, like through this
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: old aesthetic. Is there any way that would have ever
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: worked or was it doomed to fail?
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: No, it has worked because what I learned about NPR
• 40:10
  Speaker 1: that I didn't know is like there's big NPR and
• 40:12
  Speaker 1: then there's little NPRs everywhere. And a lot of the
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: little NPRs wrote to me and was like, oh my God,
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: I'm so glad you said something like that. So, I'm
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: not saying which ones, but then I went on my
• 40:21
  Speaker 1: local NPR station, WXXI, and we had the conversation about
• 40:25
  Speaker 1: TikTok and it was perfectly normal. So I genuinely think
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: it was that day, that particular experience.
• 40:31
  Speaker 4: It didn't go great. I had never called anyone out before.
• 40:33
  Speaker 4: I had a certain feeling about it.
• 40:34
  Speaker 3: That alchemy of whatever.
• 40:35
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Maybe it was that particular host I felt was
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: extra dismissive. I just didn't, I didn't feel, and I
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: had never, I've been interviewed a thousand times. I never
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: felt like, like ugly. I never felt like ick, like different,
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: like othered. And I think I was extra disappointed because
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: I am like a member and I really care about
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: the programming. And then it was kind of like, all right, well, whatever.
• 40:54
  Speaker 1: I'm just going to say how I feel because I
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: never say how I feel. And I have a resolution
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: to say how I feel. And so I did, but
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: it was never about, this is a systemic failure of
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: an institution all day. It was a This sucked, and
• 41:09
  Speaker 1: this systemic institution is never going to invite me back,
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: and I am willing to take that risk.
• 41:13
  Speaker 4: I will sit it out.
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: Understood.
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: But I do think it was that one time, and
• 41:17
  Speaker 1: so that's how I've treated it.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: All right, we have a couple minutes left.
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 41:22
  Speaker 3: I believe that you are prepared to make a live
• 41:24
  Speaker 3: TikTok right now.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to see how it goes?
• 41:26
  Speaker 3: I do, yeah. Can you show me?
• 41:32
  Speaker 4: All right, here we go. Oh, were we going to
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: do it at the desk, or should we do it
• 41:35
  Speaker 4: under the desk? What do you think?
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: Can you guys see under the desk back there? Okay.
• 41:41
  Speaker 4: Yeah, or come under with me. It's your dream, whatever
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: you want.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: All right, everybody, close your eyes.
• 41:48
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'm going to talk you through a little of this,
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: just because, honestly, it was remarkable to watch V do
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: this live, a master at their craft. V and I
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: get back under the desk, on our bellies, V's iPhone
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: on a stand in front of us.
• 42:01
  Speaker 1: All right, so here we go. So we open TikTok.
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: I make all my TikToks in the app, so you'll
• 42:06
  Speaker 1: be able to watch this live later.
• 42:08
  Speaker 4: And then it'll be like this. So I'll put it on.
• 42:11
  Speaker 4: Ten minutes.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: Okay. What's today?
• 42:16
  Speaker 4: Friday?
• 42:17
  Speaker 3: Friday.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 42:19
  Speaker 4: It's Friday afternoon, and here's what happened.
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: And they're off. No script. No teleprompter.
• 42:24
  Speaker 2: V told me later they commit every one of their
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: videos to memory and then immediately forget them after they're
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: done recording.
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: We are at On Air Fest, and I'm here. With Brian,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: he did S-Town.
• 42:35
  Speaker 4: Did you guys watch S-Town? Incredible podcast.
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: Watch it.
• 42:38
  Speaker 4: Listen to it.
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: Hold on.
• 42:41
  Speaker 4: They breathe.
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: Now, you guys know that I had those senators on
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: last night, but what you might have missed is the
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: follow-up to how those amendments went down. We know a
• 42:50
  Speaker 1: lot of federal employees have been let go of their jobs,
• 42:52
  Speaker 1: but what we're not hearing about is what the senator
• 42:54
  Speaker 1: from Hawaii is doing. Senator Schatz, yes, he immediately hired
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: all of those federal employees that were let go for
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: the Hawaii state. These are engineers.
• 43:04
  Speaker 4: These are admins.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: These are valuable people who are experts at their jobs.
• 43:07
  Speaker 4: And I was really happy to hear that he was
• 43:09
  Speaker 4: able to re-employ them. Okay, you gotta breathe.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: All right. Another thing you might not have heard is
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: that Tammy Baldwin was able to advocate for her the.
• 43:20
  Speaker 4: Oh, see, we messed it up.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 43:21
  Speaker 3: They delete the clip. Another take.
• 43:23
  Speaker 1: Another thing you might not know is that Senator Tammy
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: Duckworth was able....
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: It's Duckworth.
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: It's Duckworth.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: Again. Again.
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: Another thing you might not know is that Senator Duckworth
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: was able to fight for the federal employees that were
• 43:36
  Speaker 1: fired from her state and got them their jobs back.
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: So when it comes to federal employees, we know that
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: these are really valuable, really talented people who are getting
• 43:44
  Speaker 1: a super unfair shake. The more you call and tell
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: your story, the more we can fight back.
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: It goes on like this. Lights blaring on us on stage.
• 43:53
  Speaker 2: V in their signature suit, tie, and pompadour.
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: All right, that's it for now. I'll be back tonight
• 43:58
  Speaker 1: with more news. Thanks so much for sticking with me.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: And that's it.
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: V Spiro, of course, everybody.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: So, what did I glean from talking to V? First
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: of all, It was a good reminder of how much
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: of the work of delivering the news is in the performance. Like,
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: the news is useless if nobody wants to hear it.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: And it was nice to be around someone putting some
• 44:41
  Speaker 2: life into it, coming up with new and engaging ways
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: to tell the news that makes sense on the platforms
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: where people spend their time. Being on stage with V,
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: it also reminded me how crucial it is for people
• 44:53
  Speaker 2: to like the person giving them their news. How powerful
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: it can be when an audience has a connection with
• 44:59
  Speaker 2: that person. And I felt it, even between the live
• 45:02
  Speaker 2: audience and V. Plus, V's sense of humor is infectious,
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: and I appreciate that. I also appreciated that V was
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: pretty upfront when I asked them about what journalistic practices
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: they do and don't stick to. They're not generally calling
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: people for fact checks or comment.
• 45:17
  Speaker 3: Good to know.
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: And they're not consistently correcting mistakes for reasons of style
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: or practicality. Or I thought this was interesting because of
• 45:26
  Speaker 2: the algorithm. Our fact checker would certainly like you to
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: know that they did find some mistakes in V's stuff.
• 45:33
  Speaker 2: Here's one example, actually from the TikTok V made live
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: while we were on stage. It's actually Hawaii's governor, not
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: the state senator, Brian Schatz, who's working to rehire federal
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: workers who were laid off, and that program is still
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: in its early stages. We'll list some other corrections and
• 45:49
  Speaker 2: clarifications from V's and my conversation in the show notes.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Another important one I want to flag here, though, has
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: to do with the TikTok ban. While V was making
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: a fair point that there's not clear evidence that TikTok
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: is owned or controlled by the Chinese government, which is
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: how people often justify banning it, TikTok's ownership does have
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: more Chinese involvement than the impression V gave on stage.
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: V makes their living on TikTok and has worked with
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: the company to fight the ban, so that's important to
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: bear in mind. I guess those are the main takeaways
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: from our conversation that'll inform how I take in V's
• 46:22
  Speaker 2: work from now on. They're a small operation, they're moving fast,
• 46:26
  Speaker 2: they don't have fact-checkers. They sometimes get stuff wrong, and
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: then it's on to the next. I know all this now,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: but I'll keep tuning in because I like their point
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: of view, and I'm obviously not the only one. Lots
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: of other people are getting their news from V.
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: What do you think, though? Do you follow V? Will you?
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: Do you care about corrections?
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: What'd you take away from our conversation? What questions do
• 46:49
  Speaker 2: you have?
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: We want to know.
• 46:51
  Speaker 2: So DM me at brihreid on Instagram, or if you're
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: listening on Spotify, leave a comment.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: We do read these. I promise.
• 47:03
  Speaker 2: One other thing I realized, by the way, after my
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: conversation with V, we've never laid out our journalistic policies
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: here at Question Everything. We've been meaning to, but with
• 47:12
  Speaker 2: everything going on, making a new show, we just haven't
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: gotten around to it. So I'm going to start it
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: off in this week's newsletter, talking about our fact-checking process, corrections, funding.
• 47:22
  Speaker 2: And I'd really like you all to weigh in. We're
• 47:24
  Speaker 2: a new show still. And we want to know what's
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: important to our listeners so we can use that to
• 47:28
  Speaker 2: grow and evolve the way we do things. So sign
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: up at kcrw.com slash question everything and tell us your ideas. Oh,
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: and I'll put a photo of me from one of
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: those high school musicals in there, too. I asked my
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: mom to dig it up. Next time on Question Everything,
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: I talk to a high school student with a different
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: point of view than me.
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: You think the reporters should still be in jail?
• 47:51
  Speaker 1: Yes, I do.
• 47:53
  Speaker 3: You think the opposite of what the Committee to Protect
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: Journalists thinks?
• 47:58
  Speaker 1: I guess so, yeah.
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: Wow, okay. And you're saying this to me, a journalist.
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: I guess so.
• 48:10
  Speaker 2: Today's episode was produced by Sophie Kazis and edited by
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: Neil Drumming. Our show is made by me, executive producer
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: Robin Simeon, producer Zach St. Louis, and associate producer Emily Malterre.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: Jen Kinney is a contributing editor. Fact-checking by Annika Robbins.
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: Sound design by Brendan Baker. Our music is by Matt McGinley.
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: Thanks to Matt Klein and Cassandra Cito at O'Melveny, who
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: do legal review for our show. Our partners at KCRW
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: include Arnie Seipel, Gina Delvac, Tejal Jamera, and Jennifer Farrow.
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: Special thanks this week to the whole team at On
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: Air Fest, including Mandana Mofidi, Scott Pollack, Scott Newman, Andy Beam,
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: and Paul Corsero. as well as the many others who
• 48:46
  Speaker 2: made our live session possible. Thanks also to Megan Ellingboe,
• 48:50
  Speaker 2: our publicist, and to V's team at Palette Media.
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: Thanks for listening.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: See you next time.