A Fiery, But Mostly Peaceful Conversation About The Media | PIRATE WIRES EP#5
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Alright, happy friday. Welcome back to the pod. I have, uh, two huge guests in the world of the meeting day.

I've got chemie Foster, my good friend from the fifth column and a free thing. And over to the right. I actually a really short with the right on your screen is the right of my screen. We have the one, the only bus feed ban, formally bus feed ban. Now the editor in chief of samar and founder of seven four, a new new media company.

Samar ban on all platforms.

Bowen, like subscribe also, I can subscribe to this podcast. I never asked people to do that and i'm realizing like youtube peers do that. So we got to get into IT.

Uh, the topic of today's conversation is just it's the media and I think so, commun, I have known each other forever, I think probably originally was a founders fun connect. And then I mean, what we have in the media, love of media and also others. But that was like getting the thing that we talked a lot about certain ly then. And I like I only, I think know you through my perspective on media and we ended up following that is arguing .

with southern .

and twitter softly I softly I would say I mean, I wouldn't say it's been that it's been that fruitful between us. Um no.

he reminds me like the good old days of twitter, when you could have, like, good faith arguments with non many x. Yes, many x were suppressing there.

I think IT goes a long way, and I on't even before begin to the whole conversation in bend. This wrote a great book, traffic on the history of new media, or the really the rise and fall of new media, I would say um and that's going to kind of frame the conversation and they're going to get into obviously elon musin threads of the mark zuker berg all of that um the future of media but IT is true like we you and I I I think there's another journalist to mark throws name out there but I just he went after me years ago and I was like that sucks actually because I like is writing and very rarely do I have that reaction um usually just like fucked APP I am going to rose them back and it's going to be so much worse but this I was like, oh dam and I actually just like rote that I was, hey, this bottle me alec I really like your stuff and then we just started he like apologist and then we like follow each other and then we started daming and we have like this kind of nice behind the scenes conversation of friendship.

But I have a lot of that with people in media now where for whatever tribal reason it's just um and IT was a lot worse, I think, a couple years ago but uh, people just you know you don't want to be seen as like nice to you perceived ideological combatants and in that era was the tech first everybody else sort of phase um and I I think if you can just get in the ms IT things kind of kind of chill out and that's that's beautiful. But I don't really remember the twitter days you talk about because I was just A V lad, uh twenty three working at penguin in terrified of docker when you were architecture all of my nightmares over a buzzed um let's talk about I want to I want another I wanted talk about um I want to talk about your work um this book traffic in in the history of this because um let's see, I guess maybe a few months back, I think this reason you send me the book I wrote a piece s kind of looking at just uh the collapse of vice and um the end of bus feed news and IT occur red to me that when I started in tch everybody believed everybody in tch not just media like intact there was a general belief that old media was dead the york times the days were completely numbered um IT IT was obvious IT was like a ludi opinion to think anything else and and the future was bus feed as clawed ishi and silly as IT looks just because of the quizzes not they were doing serious news as well and the future would look different. But like that was the future. And I was I was a shocking sort of moment to be like, well, we were really just so wrong about that. Take me what we just start with, like go back to the beginning and uh and tell me, I mean that the sense that you had to cut back down and and what what was all that like that the the new media era?

Yeah I and I think this is sort of hard to get your head back into that moment. But there was this moment probably after the bubble crab, a bubble burst in in sentences go in ninety nine, two thousand and one. And there was this mean, which was like, it's laughter hable actually to think of now.

But that silicon valley was dead and the center of investment energy and you know sort of like dynamic new companies with silicon ali in new york, in manhattan. And this is like a three year, but this is very short period. Somewhere in facebook gets go and in some other companies. But there was a sense that like this intersection of kind of culture and technology, which is to say have an imposed in vascular and other been insider in media companies, but also like A J company's essa is more in that they had made IT four square was huge in that moment. This was like the new frontier and and the new york, because I was where the old media was, was like the place for that intersection.

And so and meanwhile, I think, like in the broader culture, you'd forget, again, the old media people, any gram medi ze a lot now, like, remember the days when the newspapers of the metro newspaper know everything is so great, three television stations know was had just just massively discribed to themselves in the recovery of the iraq war for lots of regular people, right? And meanwhile, we were all already emAiling and looking at the web and these new television channels and put newspapers like, just warned on the internet any Normal way, like when they tried to be on the internet, IT was like they were speaking. They was like Linda Aaron tweet, like, he was like he was like, like they were not on the platform.

And so so there is this real logic for an audience to say, like why we're just going to communicate people on the way that they really live and these new media companies start building. And then the other thing that I think is pretty with your audience, like totally forgotten and super interesting, is 那个 快。 Why did people put all this money into these companies like, you know Andrea and horror um N B C, like .

big.

what were they thinking? And is actually like very specific what they were thinking. A lot of them had been around at the breath of cable, and they've seen, you know, these guys lay these boring cable Operators, lay wires in the ground, and these people, to them, at the end of the wire, pay the monthly fee.

What they needed there is content. And so they pay huge amounts of money to M T V, to E S P N, to CNN, to this huge successful new companies that are the do expensive work basically of creating content. And the long term fifty year round of the cable business built around like a pretty generous revenue share with the people who make the content actually like the cable is IT isn't such a good business because they have to pay this money to C N N A M T V.

And facts. And like I think the thesis was there's these new wires. The wires are you know, it's unclear exactly which level is the wire. Maybe it's apple or maybe it's facebook or maybe it's something else, but somewhere in the digital space. So these new pipes being lay, maybe it's snap and twitter, they're going to compete against each other.

And eventually, if you make content that's really good for them, they're onna wind up paying for IT because they are competitive with each other and they want us so to each once the Better. And as as you know, I still slides have this dream, but like obviously did not work out that way. Question of whether IT was always totally delusional that would ever work at that way, that the news publishers, that media publishers would ever be being paid by facebook, twitter. And maybe that was delusional, or maybe I didn't break that way, but that's the reason both people invested and why IT was such a disaster.

I think were right about which in which the year time was out of in this sort of old guard media was sort of ignoring at the time. Was that something very important and new wisdom and that you had to take the internet seriously? I think there was like an esthetic issue here, which is that when things would go viral, they will be silly.

And so the internet felt silly, not real. I remember as a kid, like early two thousands in the basement on message boards, and I would get all worked up talking to strangers about fucking x men comics. And I would go upstairs visibly upset.

And my member saying, like, like, Michael, why are you so upset? They're not real. Like, they, they are not real. Dad frees came out of her out of her mouth and I was just like that's crazy like SHE has no idea.

I'm talking to a guy from the england right now that's insane like it's a very big deal and um and IT just like there was a basic they didn't take the internet seriously at all. But what nobody maybe really understood was the degree to which you would be different and weird in that I would amplify single people over even institutions. And so I mean that that was there was so much content all of a sudden, can I know you you want to jump in here and sense was of of that era. No.

I think bend in casual ted pretty well IT. What's interesting though is that in addition to those cable providers and their initial opportunity that they are trying to capitalized on being all of the very best television stations that they were beginning to cede, like they were still playing a very similar role in the internet ego system as well, like you needed that connectivity to get online in addition to the vices.

Um so the substitution revenue, but still made great sense for them. But that connection between the subscription revenue and the resources that we're going to fund the content Operations was completely broken. And that spell doom for a lot of these people who are entering into the interview into the ecosystem.

I think the one other thing is I suspect a lot of what ended up happening is that there is just no there's no gate around the internet. Anyone can log on, can take a couple of hundred thousand dollars, really, maybe in tens of thousands of dollars. And essentially start a channel. And if a catches fire and is starting to work, they are canabal zing some of that attention that would have gone to to be or buz speed or some other um offering um and that's a really huge deal as well as just it's hard to make really significant investments when you don't have that assurance that this is going. This is gonna.

But the main thing that were the title of the benz burge's traffic, I think the whole the whole early era was I think it's such a great title, by the way, and IT does just completely to find everything that people were thinking about them. But also I think sometimes the way that people are incorrectly thinking about things now because the winner was not just IT wasn't just like the new york times one subscription. The subscription model is what is what and we be push back here here but I believe that was a subscription model that won because what people actually what you actually needed to survive was an audience that trusted you and like you enough to pay um everybody who was surviving on advertising revenue seems to have died and that was the the weird thing about that is IT was like the idea that in new york times jumps and I forget the year was at like twenty eleven or what year was that bad?

They started playing around with than twenty .

eleven and they were like, we're going, you know piled drive into subscriptions that that was the peace specifically that seemed so dated and old almost laughingly so I was like, we used to pay for the news, but no one pays for information.

Now it's pay .

for IT yeah I believe I was like that that's crazy. No one's gna pay for information .

like nineteen twenty.

This is kind offensive taking so dumb exact IT fl sive and um and I think that what I didn't and what I somehow missed was like newspapers weren't surviving on subscriptions before that they were subjected ing on advertisements. And so the new thing was actually piled, driving into sub ripes. The old thing was looking for ad revenue, and that's actually what new media did. I mean which you have in my right there roughly in my diagnosing ah.

I think I tend not to be as ideological about subscriptions and advertising. You look at like successful mature media businesses and this is like the most boring thing you can say. But if you look at like this, the nbc universal and you say, what business are they end? It's like, well, they are in fourteen different businesses, including advertising, subscriptions and theme parks and cruises and eleven other things.

And it's not media is not such. And I think this is actually something that silicon valley thinking brought to the media business like much, to the media businesses like ultimate. The kind of tragedy was like we gonna figure out a silver bullet, single focus business that can scale like that, the models you to stay focused, and you're started you of one thing at scales, and that in end, if any, you believe in that, like a religion.

And for maybe, maybe at some, a best fit earlier was IT was customed. I was a native content, uh, new internet, native advertising. And then for a period, I would say that over now, IT was suggestions and it'll ultimately, for successful media business be a mix of things.

And you're seeing a lot, a lot of substandard as a lot of suggestion businesses hit a ceiling and find away the ad business over there is pretty good. Like let's go over there now in, in I think I think ultimately, there will be a lot of mixed. But but I do agree with you that that a lot of people bet wrong on what this digital media space was gonna like.

And actually the reason IT change was that they wouldn't. The news didn't drive IT, and you are times didn't drive. Spotify and netflix trained a generation of people who had not not paid for cotton only. You cloud on your phone and we're doing IT every month, pay for content. And the rest of us, little you know, mi OS in the media space, which is news, could like IT stream along behind .

them is a subscription revenue A A proxy for something as well? I mean the you'd mention that I believe you either trust or credibility a moment ago and the role of coverage of the gulf are like crown the iraq war on being, uh, something that was a real and of really damaged a lot of people's credibility in the media space.

Uh, I suspect that is perhaps what's going on when people are paying for particular people on subject like they they trust this person. They value this relationship in a particular way. And absolutely, I mean, had having built A A really rather problem in its substantive are definitely also interesting, interested in ads. I think IT is a proxy for that.

But actually, another way to get subtypes build great substitution is to lie constantly. If you look at the best subscription businesses around, if you look at the top of sub stack, you see our experience. And right, like I just think it's not quite so strong even it's just but it's saying and if you look at the if you look at the rap for period, I mean, the new republic as a mac, I was one of the leaders of most primate forces to in the war and I don't think gets I think people I in my own experience now that i'm old in media that every talks their book and tells you that whatever revenue mix that they are invested in is actually not just a good way to do business, but like deeply moral and true. And it's always kind of that.

I don't know that. I think that happened by accident. So when you when you have subscription revenue and suddenly it's important you have to hold onto IT and how do you do that? It's by maintaining a voice, by maintaining trust. And you're just thinking about something different than what you're thinking about in the advertising game, specifically as you wrote about in the land of a fishing for attention because a limited amount.

And critically, that would really have to talk about here are the platforms because a tiny change in the algorithm completely changes what will have to change your entire strategy and a and and separately, what IT does in a world where everybody fishing for the exact same attention. And there's just a very specific set of things that get you that attention. Everyone sounds the same.

So yeah, so there's no differentiation. And that is really I think that was why why the the new media companies died is because I didn't they didn't sound new. They didn't feel like anything me. They were completely disposable.

Yeah you're total. There is a imagine facebook or of this incredible .

imagination zone um what about a but just you talked and I know that we're going to have some discrimination here, but um you talk a lot about facebook in in the in in traffic and you ve kind of written about how uh this was a big driver of the trump era and um. But will maybe obama was the precursor, these crazy silicon valley people who didn't know the crack and they had unleashed and IT seems to me a little bit that IT seems like I misses the the point of what's happening and maybe facebook to create this problem. But my sense was like like the realities of a global ali m created this.

yes. yeah. Just seems like .

by writing about in this way, you almost miss, you almost missed the reason that so many people felt the way they did facebook shores gave them a platform to talk about those things. But it's like that staff had come on IT.

You wrote about IT as if and many people do this right now in the maybe and push back, I could be mischaracterize your position IT seems like many people write about this moment as if it's new, but it's like very ragan asking before that IT was nicki and gold water. Like there is this like resurgence of the populist, sort of like the, but only like the common sense, right? Or something like the fox.

I like like the the guy at the factory. Not here. Yes, IT IT seems like A A major part of american history and almost inevitable.

yeah. So I guess I think that when you ask a journalist or about which category that includes the three of us basically about.

I had not a word I .

love my first, my first, a boss told me a journalist is an unemployed newspaper man. So I supose that now. So he doesn't include us. But but what what, why something happened? They'll tell you the one reason.

And if you ask a historic and they'll tell you the, well, there's twenty three reasons, and I think certainly like the rise of ride into some very left one popular m in the twenty tens, there are a lot of reasons, people really angry about the great recession, about the iraqis, about globalization for sure. You absolutely. And like, imagine a world where there's not social media, this form that expresses itself in some different way.

But but also but you know that said, IT float, there were elements of IT that kind of float together with with these changes in media, then i'm not not going to like make some big claim about cause and effect. And I think that there is an actually, I mean, I easily agree with your critique and I just searched my book and page two hundred and forty two. I have a big like to be sure, several pages saying that like there's not cause and effect here, the cambria, genoa, ica is not sense that.

But I do think when you look at the shape and the sort of color of this sort of right wing populous movement around trump and around the terri and a and ball scene and all over the world, that was not really american phenomenon like a big part of IT, with these leaders proving to alienated, angry people, that they were out, they were truly outsiders, that they were really not part of this corrupt establishment. And they did that by saying outrageous shit. They said sexist things that that grow sexual stuff.

They said racist stuff. They said stuff. They lied. They said stuff that was a measure calculated. But they have the effect of having the whole establishment say, like wag their finger and say, you are beyond the pale and and that bonded them to an audience who fell into an elector who felt they were outside that establishment. And in facebook was built in facebook in that moment, not deliberately, but happened to be built around these engagement dynamics where that style of politics were so well, like MIT romney could not get one like on facebook.

the, I mean, I mean, can I was, I guess you and I in the triple in the election, I guess we were both communal, was way more active of the me back. But the media generally was exactly of the opinion that you have now. And what is that? The character dic of problems, just like sexy and is so genetic and like you go to the racist m and it's like you're not listening to any of the actual or maybe you're listening that your not hearing.

You don't to care about the actual motivation behind IT, which is why people hate that the media, which is what you like, that the reason that trump was IT was so easy for him to verify the media, because the media really was his enemy. And if you're his enemy, then you're the enemy of all of the people who actually he's speaking to. And it's not the racism that's motivating them as you mention many times. And I think again, I think I don't .

think it's quite that simple. There had been I mean, there have been american politicians like berny Sanders for decades on the right and the left popular and who had been in that shared but like there's a strain if you can have opposite, but but in the twenty tens all over the world and it's totally not just trap and you are in like racism, sexism, whatever. IT isn't matter in different in in deter Philippines.

IT was about threatening to three people at the helicopters like IT was just A I I would just mean those things that in our cultural context, the way to get the establishment to yellow, you was to say stuff that was sexist. Hye st. And he totally worked, and I got the establishment waging their fingers at him.

And IT eval dated him with people who I agree were not, I don't think they were primarily attached him because they agreed with him, but some growth that he said of a woman. They thought I was funny, but they also thought I was funny that all the people like me were wagging their fingers, and they felt like they were in on the joke and we were at, and that there was a style of politics that was very, very effective. And he did really dominate facebook, where a lot of more conservative people, people were more concerned about these issues. By the way, my be what like, we're not going to get traction because there was a style that really, really did work on social media. The world well is an american.

and I think there's an important parallel, an ug one between trump to tarte. I think that the trump obama connection is probably more telling with respect to the parties losing ability to decide who the next person is going to be. Mean obama jump ed his turn.

Uh, trump in many respects, and he didn't just jump his turn and eat job over the turn style altogether and push everybody else out of line, mean the reason why he broke through to the american public broadly has a tremendous amount do with his celebrity. With our ability to have certain kinds of conversations that gulp, circumvent what was kind of the establishment perspective on this person who was deemed unacceptable and couldn't possibly win. They had a different perspective.

They had a different relationship with this client that didn't depend on elite media institutions. And that I do think salon is very right like there is this there was this dominant narrative about who he was and there was the perspective of everyone else who actually went out and voted for him and the delta between those two things is really important and and promoted the book for a very long time. Uh but think Martin gery, uh, take on just how information information technology or information broadly has reshaped the media landscape and our culture and our political norms and institutions is hugely important.

There are two guys I like to go back to, uh, one is macloan. I think that just like everyone goes back to the clown and seat, the greatest media physical her ever. And then after that, neal postman and the old postman rover called amusing ourselves to death. Mclin famously talks about the way that are our mediums kind of shape us.

and I think have the attention span to make a through their books. So lad.

your summer so the clean, I didn't make IT through this book either. It's a it's a fat, dense book, but i've i've gone through different essays. Postmen i've read, covered to cover is a great book. It's a short it's it's meant to be readable. I think um I think in this way, I really do think I don't think it's like we can it's not like a because we were talking online about certain things, certain political outcomes happened. I think it's more like one thing that is really strikes me as true is the medium of themselves altered the way that we what is even acceptable politically, and what is, what is, what looks, what what, what makes us laugh and what what works.

And the thing about trump that I always from the beginning I mean IT was undeniable in the republican um in the republican primary on stage he's just he was really funny is there were people who did didn't may be understand that or didn't want to believe that but he's very, very I watched I was just washing ing a clip of this day with jab bush like he just jeb bush is not equipped for that like I was I was like when the europeans came over to amErica with the small pox IT was like he they wiped out the other republicans. They just they had no defense against that. And uh, there is one moment where jobs talking about his mom like trump maybe made some comment about his mom and jeff like, don't talk about my mother.

She's the strongest woman who's ever lived and he's like he should be running for president. My mom is the strongest woman. I know this not about my family or his family.

Done like like lost the presidency. IT could have never come back from that. And that's because we're consuming sound bites like that, like that.

We've been required in a way to communicate this way. And the people who communicate this way, who who can ride along with the medium, are the ones we're rising to the top. This happens not only in politics with a cosa cortez, I think is also very, very good at this. But also we in business to a certain extent, increasingly you see this and certainly in media .

yeah although it's interesting because is I totally get the trump s hilarious and people don't he when you're really freaked ed out by him like the prospect this same present is hard to to be amused yeah and I yet a lot of people who were about him did not see the humor in IT. But if you could sort of, if you were not, obviously, a huge participants are entertaining here. I think a lot of republican people love them.

I just miss him on T, V all the time, like he was such a great show for them. But but I think that you've also seen just over and over, people try to imitate that style and how and how just like not just this is how fringe IT is. Like, I mean, obviously rubio and that campaign would IT time like the small hands stuff.

Like, no. And actually, when elan was talking me about measuring his deck the other day, I was like, oh, no. Like you. Are trying to do the trump thing, but like only trump can kind to do the trump thing sometimes and and I think that's like eme trump is quite unusual figure and maybe the moment is passing a little too.

You think the trump moment, you think maybe people.

and I think I think you get through elected, it'll be much, much more on the stuff they were talking about first. Not that he is entertaining and new, but that people agreed with the immigration and you know, the FBI conspiracy theory.

It's I think, other things that maybe the reason is message traveled. He maybe nothing gonna. He strikes me like a savant, not someone who is really farther about where i'm reading the client.

And I know that I have to change my message to fitting with whatever he he think aware he and I think he has I mean, he has an entertainers instinct. He had a since television and now is just like, but he's he's just made for the internet. It's way Better for him.

Um what about what about we're kind of body up against elan here. We've got to talk about the future of me. We saw this out about the rise and all the new media york times is dominated today.

But so is I mean, I would say I think the daily wire is is almost just as influence influential at this point um certainly daring what will see. I made its a good to build the claim, but they keep growing. It's a hundred million dollars or more at this point revenue a year. They are definitely the most powerful. Um that means like them and fox and they I think that they are more important than fox because it's like the whole you don't think so.

Now I think you're looking at like who reaches republican primary voters who are elderly people and get them to vote is still acts were delhi wire incredibly agree with rising? I think I think people like us overall timing the new thing and underestimate like china happens, things get displaced, but you kind of look into the future and cy, they are underestimate sometimes like fact, still pretty big things to reach a lot of people, you know, like I think. But the deeg growth of the delivered incredibly important, interesting acquisition target for facts.

So eon, bi, twitter, the media completely loses its mind for good reason or not. I mean, let us let us go back to six months of cultes is at more december IT was I feel like that was the Spike for me that was when I wrote, we felt like the the grand elon takes twitter, enters the house, starts just firing everybody who had been censoring us. That's the conclusion of the story luch x status nuked paradise shift, complete over to window, brought in um good thing or a bad thing. I mean, then what what is your what was your perspective as as the man so .

horrible for you?

I I see IT told .

so different. Like I think that like I do think that so that I don't know what your perspective is. I do hope that people make the X I think that, like, people had real theories about the ecosystem of twitter and about their ideological enemies on twitter.

And to elon credit, he, like, put his money IT worse mouth, wasn't he thought, you know what, these people draw their status from these blue checks. I will charge them. And so like, I think that that this is was clearly falsified.

They didn't pay, right? And I think people misunderstand this. That works that I actually think twitter was doing by the time I land boat or pretty close, like these are social institutions. There are much more like bars or nightclubs, then they are like the water system and you go there because your friends are there and because it's uso and you go there for a while.

And then like, you know what, you have kids and like you go to a different place, or like some of your friends leave or some guy buys the bar who like you think is a jerk, and or none of those reasons and things just come and go in facebooks of the blue facebook ads, obviously on travelling at the same time, like y'll tell you they are traffic in the Philippine is up. But if in that stage of social media, where it's going away, as we knew that is becoming a short video player, twitter, I think, IT black you to demote the cultural moment where people thought I was fun to have these cross ideological conversations ended a few years ago. And like, you know, I think like that doesn't it's going to go away.

That doesn't mean it's going to a Better business like redit, I think is a great example of a social platform that indoors is wonderful, but nobody is like you have to be unready. I can do my job without IT. It's just another thing. And I think that's what twitter is basic is is going there and it's sexy, totally fun.

I mean, I mean, do you want .

yeah that mean that is interesting. He just this morning I was looking at uh some of the new stuff with threads and iran with twitter and IT. It's in interesting dynamic that makes me wonder for not into ing into this this phase of the centralization and training mentation like on social platforms as well. There mean, it's already the case that now twitter has like a community is function, which no, i'm sort of in one community, I suppose I could be more online or would probably paid another .

you should be more online, definitely another line.

Um but I think that I think that if that trend continues, then the network effect that was driving you online becomes of a bunch of different network effects that are kind of keeping you in one place in one particular unity as opposed to you know twitter having all of this profound sway because of the the kind of broadcasting and allows you to do to wider audience. IT seems pretty obvious at this point that if the right sort of person builds a big a mainstream social media platform, plenty of people are willing to give that a try in a way that they probably wouldn't have been willing to give them a try twelve months ago. But I think if .

you think about as a social institution, like you were like twitter, you know, like the guy owes the night club says, I like this set of customers Better than the set of customers. Like you're looking super surprised that the second set of customers leave.

I think nobody would have been maybe you would have been referring to IT as a social institution. I think the average person person would not have been talking about IT this way. I had had jacked or sea still been in charge or had the following guy still get in charge today because it's an ideological ships that occurred?

I think that you are seeing IT that way. I think that .

you're seeing IT that way because the reason is no longer fun for you because you're .

no longer appliqued him anytime. See this. Is this what you're projecting?

this?

Gn d, no, I don't mean, yeah, I love, but obvious. Obviously, a lot of people have left. I am someone who like the assets, who says he hates me, who is left by as the bar.

who is left. I still see them tweak. There are threats, hope if is going to work.

But the the celebrity is left. The celebrities is never mattered. Red, who followed the celebrities to get twice? I.

no, let's talk about this.

Let's just go by the members. And you, the traffic guy, you the traffic guy.

let's look at si, don't know .

talking about. I just want sa sellin speed two days ago to go and look at her. Uh, there was something that one was mad about.

And I want to go to see what she's been up to. SHE has like five hundred likes on a tweet. People don't care what he has to say.

This has been the case for a long time. There are celebrity outliers. But in general, there are people who are creating four twitter specifically who are very popular. And that's the case across, I think, probably most of platforms there are celebrity outliers. But like you're random people on television.

even a lot of your new's answer tailor swift to a occasionally is a what that I think as I mean SHE tweet occasionally. But like a lot of celebrities used to be on their allowed in end, backed off IT. I know I guess I just think you have a thesis that is of over later is not the exact same as the way and says that, that is just demonstrably not playing out the .

way that he I think he's .

this is which was about about things like this, that this kind of brand safety didn't matter that bringing if they bringing in one community, which I agree with you often was unfairly silence on the platform on wouldn't affect the DNA ics and music. We're this much more polar as universe. People who would like to be having this kind of a conversation mostly don't anymore.

IT was a very, very, very difficult, unstable thing to maintain IT. And at the best of times you come in and you, like, slammed your hand one into the table and say, I figured IT out shift goes flying on the other end of the table now is often be fixed ble. It's just like it's just it's just an era that's gone.

I think the main thing is that we're not in the pandemic and we're not in middle of right now and were about to approach another election and that'll be the real test to see where you want to go. Um threats s is already so to mark rockburg threads already saying they are going silence political whatever I think that debate in switch and they want is just going to be a sort of like very sensuous left to center to left wing version of twitter is what I think they're probably going for um but maybe i'm .

wrong and maybe it's not. Maybe a liberals would prefer that and will be there. And I think a lot of conservatives have A, I mean, I don't know, like I see on twitter every day and maybe, but I may be following around people, but I just see over the antisemitism that I probably with years of my career, without without being in conversations or seeing conversations about whether the jews were like secretly manipulating, I don't know.

I don't mean this horrible twitter. The worst thing of twitter is that people screen shot. Their ideological enemies like the dust.

People in the world in which I don't mean that actually moving, serve some stuff that i'm like yet. This is insane. I have a very high talents for this. But way I am not going to close the platform, I score by whatever if kind of grow to be out.

But I don't think that I think there are a lot of people for whom the stuff that you say was being answered that was outside the over in window, they didn't want to see IT and they will vote with their feet. And a big part of the reason that was being censored, by the way, awful bad censorship. Was that there were a lot of users on the platform of advertisers who would leave if they heard those opinions. I mean, that's a real thing. These are real dynamics, social dynamics.

There a kind of the ship that I didn't want to see the censorship on vaccine stuff, on public health. Like, should I be forced to take the vaccine? Can I talk about that?

That I come from a lab? Like these are the kinds of things that bothered me, hundred bidens laptop. Can we talk about that? Like those are the things that we really do need to talk about.

And so example.

because there are two things that happened years. Like those like a product thing is a question of what makes for a Better product. And I am of mixed.

I've never really I like twitter like I didn't like the threat of being destroyed a everyday on twitter and desta a race like that was the fear. If I cross some line, I would be erased. Uh, but the product I love, jacor, is a design.

He's like a design genius. So I think he he's incredible at this. I think he built a really beautiful product.

And um I don't know what makes for the best product, but there's a separate question of what what is Better for the country. And um I think this is not I don't I also don't think twitters of free speech platform. I think that's pretty obvious at this point.

I think that it's just a very different set of rules. I don't like the antisemitic m stuff either. I think that deleted .

should the .

entire I think let's .

say I tweet something like I don't know. I think the jews have too much power in media who delete that and why and .

how this is really tRicky at hard is why I like jack. I like the idea of the I like the jack Jackson blue sky approach. I think it's like you don't want to live in the world where people can just be erased, but you also want platform that you kind of opt into that sensor whatever way that they want to do. And some people want to slightly wider bit, some people a little bit less um coming commute. The anarchists in the chat.

what do you think? Well, i'd certainly believe that private companies want to be able to Operate however they like. And in general, I I am probably pretty partial to jazz vision of this and of decentralized, choose your own adventure experiences on social, where you can decide how much of that stuff you want to be exposed to IT IT seems to me that IT wouldn't be too hard to at least allow for that kind of totally on twitter as well. Um so they have you know a regime that perhaps a little more refined, a little a little more safe because that the stuff that actually bothers me is like the graphic video content that you'll get when you're like flipping through like a couple of pleats again. And their dep does seem to be a hell of a lot more .

of that kind of things. The APP stuff it's stuff like yeah yeah think .

it's it's enough for that. So I do think that there is obviously a place for cheering a kind of experience online. What I don't want is to see, as you were saying, so on of like legitimate perspectives and the legitimate debate about things um thrown off of the platform because of these like maximum st condemnations that right appear.

I have nowhere that the part of the chAllenge is, is the expansion expansive way that we use words like anthy's tic and racist? These days there is a universe of things that only moments ago everyone would have recognized that he couldn't possibly mention that way um and at this moment in its well he obviously meant that this one particularly hate his way as a result he must be thrown off the platform and perhaps fifteen percent of this falls hers too. Um I think seeing that go away is probably right, but pendulums nearly always do this soon. A little bit too far in the other direction with the correction.

I just think that people underestimated to which the natural tendency, if one of these things is to fall part non ravel and keeping IT, keeping all these people in your night club all day, and all that is like unbelievably hard, and entropy prevails. Twitter had this moment where IT somehow manage in this less polarized, cultured of all these people who hate to each other talk.

each other say, but that's not sure at all. I blew up at the most polar ized moment. That was when I was the and america.

Was that the most decision when twitter popular? Twenty two, right? Die of that. That seems like the peak. But all of the numbers.

I think, of twenty sixteen as the peak. But you think we look at the number ours.

I think we could .

look at you in the end. I I think it's complicated. I just think it's hard .

to ah what was the phrasie used for censorship that was legitimate? And um and it's like we want to be able like like what you want what what really bothers you is like with these illegitimate things like about public health, whatever are people got them. We knew they were eligible them at the time, but that was not the sense at all publicly.

And at that point, this is my thing that I always go back to is like you had ideological consensus among a very small handful people in silicon valley who controlled all of our there are only a few major platforms. So they controlled our entire ted that a monopoly, oligopoly, say, on distribution ideologically, they had complete consensus with the people at sort of like that, say in new york times who set the tone for of the entire uh, a lead press. And I like significant elements of the government.

So that's that's like if you have that level of consensus across the board, then what is legitimate is like a very narrower set of things. Where is now like. And this is why I really it's not that I I think twitter is gone.

You remarkably, I think it's gone fine. I think it's not been obviously slam dk never been Better success. I think it's like I need IT. I really, really wanted to work because we need one place where where the rules are just different because if you have even one place that even sort of a remote and popular kills the the broad censorship thing completely, you will never have another moment, I hope, where overnight, the sitting president of the united states of amErica is the platform everywhere what happened that night.

every way what happened that night?

Uh, well, depends, I me, are you of these? Like.

no, no, I just hold on. Like, remind me which night IT was over .

that that happened. Well, do you think of a cup?

Is, are you a cup person? No, just remind me .

what did something could happen that IT was a ride? The same kind of riot happened six months previously, and I don't think any of your friends were talking about those.

but I was locked in my house and riding legal. No IT is crazing.

Obviously the the bigger danger was not bad. Don't let small group of people, the grandma, and like the fucking and shaming with his furry hat, the bigger threat was the allegory that silenced a president. clearly. How was that not the bigger threat?

I mean, I guess you know, people can reasonable people can perhaps disagree on how syria is the taking of the U. S. Capital has been a lot of reasonable .

people of the capital. So I mean.

not the people who ran into our the government .

chased all the as all writers, I can t yes, I don't think that someone who is the .

standard time they were able to.

So what what should we due to people who storm the capital and try to kill congressmen, whatever? What is this because reason to platform.

But if I don't know, I think you're spend too much time on twitter, man. And a lot of this stuff is .

pretty far from reality. Well, maybe maybe we can take a step back for me because IT does I do think you're raising an important parallel sona. And I don't know if we want to have a january six conversation in particular, but there is something very interesting about the way that a lot of the platforms respond to and not just the platforms, but public policy as well responded to the protests that were ignited in may of twenty twenty um and the way that they respond to to january six um and a lot of that had to do with precisely the oligopoly that you are describing salona with respect to the particular cul and cultural and philosopher menu that prevented a lot of elite media institutions, a lot of the top technology platforms as well, kind of share their values.

And IT was easy for them to see one thing into kind of paper over the excesses of that that summer on to kind of ignore very quickly grabs to develop uh uh uh a sort of um uh forgetfulness about just how crazy things were in november of twenty twenty when cities across amErica were being boarded up for fear that new york city in washington, D. C. Was descend in the violent chaos if the election went the wrong way like that was the thing we were all preparing for when january is six happened.

Um I think appropriately in some respects but in other respects somewhat, there is a lot of hyperbolic as well like there was probably a bit of a over response with respect to the way that some of that was treated. There were plenty of people who were caught, mostly peaceful. It's not impossible for me to imagine essentially the same kind of you femm being employed to describe that crowd that was used to describe people who, in the summer of two thousand twenty in june, surrounded the White house, were shaking offences to kill the president of the u.

Disagree with salona .

that shooting. I think if you storm the capital building, what you need to be shot. But like that is not I think that like as you're allocating to its for me, there's A A broader story here.

The january six wasn't just one night. We forget how crazy is that was. Like we're talking about, we're in a world of cause vaccination at that point.

We have like like like the most polar ized the country has ever been. We're still in the pandemic, and cities have been under siege for a months and months and months. And this was like kind of Normalized at that point.

We were in a very crazy place. And I think a lot of that has to do with what you're allow to talk about and what you're not. I'm glad that riding, we all now agree that it's wrong because we before that maybe moving forward, we just kind of like we don't do that stuff again. But I think to get to that place, uh, you need to be able to talk about IT. And that's why you need a place where you can talk about different things.

Yeah, and I guess this all broadly seemed like to effect to me. I just think that I had something hard to abstract away.

I know over the future. So you guys, both media companies, I do as I think .

that I think are all in a way betting on this raggedy, aren't we? I mean, I think that that would always said the community said before about fragmentation. I mean, I think that's that's what we're all seeing. I think that is a bad against the century of continued dominance of centralized social media or maybe or or or who knows, or about a turn in that space.

I think when you talk to like not to our own sort of demented salad brain damage selves, but to actual consumers, what they tell you is like you say, okay, do you like you're getting in the new environment? Like, no. And they feel like totally overwhelmed, but just the amount of crap.

And they don't over to trust. And they feel like even if they do trust in new york times, they don't violin to trust and they we destined in new york times. And then if you google the subject and like find six other stories to try to train guillory what happened, and that's a miserable experience. And so I think you know we're trying I think all of us something different ways, you trying to build kind of direct connections with the audience who trust us. I think for my prospect of a big thing we can do is both the two things that we are trying to be, like break big stories so that you know, you know, to get into your head space. But then even only break a big stories, say, here's the ft version, here's commuters version, here's some other versions, some which disagree with our analysis, and we're going be really transparent about what are the facts, what are our analysis and to leave kind of a space for disagreement that I think he's like his gotten that people feel genuinely like they're being the society is so polarized, the media so polarized, that anything they read is is a has an agenda .

I I think I agree with all of that. The wonder I say is that h specifically um i'm placing a bet against the the power of the income bin like big establishment publications in the in their ability to just use their kind of the stig o credibility to power through anything.

If they are doing bad coverage, I think eventually is going to catch up with them even even if they are, they're doing IT for audiences that want to hear a particular narrative, they're going to make a lot of mistakes and it's going to add up. Um and also say that in addition to betting on you know the frame table, I expect a lot of realigned and rebounders to happen as well. I'm i'm bullishness. I think they'll be a lot of weird experiment um and I hope to see more investment coming into the space um as well. Um so I think there is hard plenty of interesting opportunities there.

Media is a hard business. IT doesn't seem doing Better. IT seems like it's getting harder and harder for for new companies to emerge. And I think, I mean.

definitely harder to raise like fifteen million dollars from .

the recent horror.

Yeah, there is something. I mean, you have this recent history problem. This is the problem that mark zuker g had when he was raising IT was just a dot com crash and never was like crazy.

I'm not giving a college student money. That's just ridiculous. But of course, there was Peter till and now peers mark oker berg.

I think it's like you have the new times. They're not just upstart. They have resources and a great news team.

Everything i'd realized once I started seriously writing IT was very hard to deny that most of what I was writing about was sourced by people that either the new york times or something very york times adjacent, like they were to. I could write IT about IT as much as I wanted, but they were creating that. They were gathering the facts that we lived in.

And so that sets the Browns for the entire conversation. I don't know how you need a lot of resources to compete with that. So IT seems like they're gna like do they just are they the winners for the ten years like at the .

I think because in my book like that, I didn't really didn't expect the sort of conclusion of the book to me that in york times said one just really clearly true. But again, it's a different kind of winning in the and in this back, you said about subscriptions for the new year time.

I think there there they have a kind of stretch goal of having like maybe ten millions attributions in at some point and and they require the athletic and they have cooking and they have cross words. And so there's a country of three hundred, three or fifty million people, and success for them doesn't require the kind of like broad cultural dominance that that IT would have force. C B S.

News, in the old days, IT requires being like the sort of, you know, being the paper of record for a segment of society. And there's a lot, you know, and leaving and a and if you sort of annoy and alienate some people love the way you know, that's fine. Other people can serve them.

I wonder, can I ask a question salona?

Maybe you can ask whatever .

you want can meal great. Well, i'm i'm broadly been in your perspective on where the newsroom culture is now. I distinctly remember like when west Lorry was writing a piece, I think he was still at wap o at the time.

But I was published in the new york times maybe about moral clarity. And I also remember when, uh very, very wise wrote uh that tweet about the civil war inside the new york times and the way in which he was condemned for lying and misrepresenting her colleagues. And at this point, IT seems undeniably true that not just the new york but most elite newsrooms and I I don't mean that in a major ative way. I think it's just kind of the best A A way I can describe um the l times, wall street journal, new york times, washington post, nexus um that they were all roiled by uh particular kind of cultural conflict, which IT seems to me is in a very different, different phase now so you're building the news room. I do not think about .

culture time. I mean, one thing is I think that was a mistake. See as newsroom culture, like getting pepsi had a lot of internal company no handling about shirt race in the summer. I think the new york public library did and I think like ford motor's, you know, like this is a huge cultural wave that sweep through society, of which news rooms are part. And we liked at our own dramas in public.

I don't think he was really the traffic and narratives in an way dynamic, different.

but really foments ally difference what was happening in the rest of society. Although, although IT plays a role in shaping IT, but not the only role, I think IT is a total of very, very different woman, I know, I think you see the times trying to in a way, you know, I think they regretted by having fired James ban at the opinion page editor over this piece by i'm talking about sending the national guard to put down riots. And so they're having the I think in a sort of very times in where they're trying to refight that fight by sending stern letters to staffers who tweets angry things about their trands coverage. So I think they're trying to say like shut up, you for us, they're going to take a more center position .

like are not great because that's how the world works, is we if people work for a company or a brand online, they are they are all brand ambassadors, whether they officially brand ambassadors or not and said.

I mean, it's not totally have sort of the talent of media works or has ever worked. I think it's a complicated, but that is how the new brand is the manager.

But the new times brand is improved over the last few years since they silence their reporters. And I think that that's I mean, maybe I would be very interested to disagree with that. Do you think that the new .

york has suffer for times has probably improved to you? And to me, there are probably other people who like at last after they're doing tons of .

research on that. I don't know what is like.

What's the valuation of IT? I guess this is more data. The real and the trump bump for the time was a separate and very powerful thing.

They're struggling to find their way out, you know, the next the sort of path away from that. But there is, you know, so like they're real. I do think that the real businesses of these companies are not always too extensive.

That's happening on twitter. I grew the cordier trance reader is my mom who is is in early seventies, was in the April is side liberal, wants to know about the world, well educated, not on twitter, you know, like that's their core, core business. And I think part of what's going out of the of these media companies, as they're like eying the demographics of their readers of these elite media companies, they're embarrassed how why they are. They're concerned about how old they are and they all I mean, the bud light was the crudest version of this that that bud light executive who said um who basis like we got to fire these like goons who represent our court audience and higher you know cool diverse Young people as our new audience and in fact, that is commercially important for every brand that like they got to find tap into Younger audiences are die. But I think part of one thread of what is going on in the new businesses that.

All right. Well, that sounds like we're all in me specifically to online .

and eating up you specifically .

you yeah I guess so so I guess we're building a bunch of new companies. Trust is the game and and see all back here in ten years to celebrate the new times second Victory.

What what I think the real question is, what are the ads that Selina and Foster our new york times columnists ten years or now? I think I think I think I I would give I would give even odds that one of you has a column in your times .

the next two years think can play from day one.

that this is that true? I I don't like to like, this is a struggle. And IT is paint. Well, I mean.

how often do you have you notice how infrequently in your attempt, lumen, actually, right? This is the .

ideal IT would depend, some of them do have special privileges, barely ever write anything.

but you never know.

Um IT was great having guys on, thank you for joining. Everyone should go to listen to the pyt calm is my favorite genuinely media same this is my favor podcast, i'll after wires course to listen .

to get again I to get and .

then definitely check out traffic if you want a history of media, because there's not a Better history of the rise and follow new media and .

maybe check out samaha mixed and I mixed IT is good .

to see guest ticula ate bgs.