1
00:00:01,480 --> 00:00:04,960
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

2
00:00:11,280 --> 00:00:14,720
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the last ad before the episode.

3
00:00:14,760 --> 00:00:17,919
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, it's just that the first three shows of

4
00:00:17,960 --> 00:00:21,000
Speaker 2: our Canadian summer tour are right around the corner, and

5
00:00:21,079 --> 00:00:23,919
Speaker 2: we want to make sure everyone knows about them. We'll

6
00:00:23,920 --> 00:00:26,599
Speaker 2: be in Montreal and Ottawa for the first time ever

7
00:00:26,960 --> 00:00:30,240
Speaker 2: on June twenty fifth and twenty sixth. That's next Thursday

8
00:00:30,240 --> 00:00:33,839
Speaker 2: and Friday, and we're coming back to our beloved Toronto

9
00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:37,240
Speaker 2: on Saturday, June twenty seventh. You can go to stuff

10
00:00:37,240 --> 00:00:40,279
Speaker 2: youshould know dot com for tickets and info and if

11
00:00:40,360 --> 00:00:42,680
Speaker 2: you are able to make it, we'd love to see you.

12
00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:45,840
Speaker 2: Now here's the episode for real.

13
00:00:47,960 --> 00:00:51,479
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.

14
00:00:57,640 --> 00:01:00,920
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, there's Chuck

15
00:01:01,080 --> 00:01:03,360
Speaker 2: and it's just two of us today. That's all right.

16
00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:06,679
Speaker 2: Jerry is a very busy person with loss on our plate.

17
00:01:06,800 --> 00:01:07,960
Speaker 2: We understand that. Fully.

18
00:01:08,840 --> 00:01:09,319
Speaker 1: It's right.

19
00:01:09,319 --> 00:01:10,760
Speaker 2: It's still stuff you should know.

20
00:01:11,480 --> 00:01:13,520
Speaker 1: That's right. It is still stuff you should know. And

21
00:01:13,600 --> 00:01:18,880
Speaker 1: today we are talking about cable news possibly ruining our country.

22
00:01:19,920 --> 00:01:22,000
Speaker 2: I don't know that there's much possibly about it.

23
00:01:22,920 --> 00:01:26,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I never really thought about it. I mean,

24
00:01:26,400 --> 00:01:29,000
Speaker 1: I think about our country being ruined a lot. Yeah,

25
00:01:29,040 --> 00:01:31,800
Speaker 1: but I you know, I never really thought a lot

26
00:01:31,800 --> 00:01:34,560
Speaker 1: about like what was the initial cause of stuff. But

27
00:01:35,440 --> 00:01:37,880
Speaker 1: it's hard to not make an argument that cable news

28
00:01:37,920 --> 00:01:40,759
Speaker 1: has been like twenty four hour, twenty four to seven

29
00:01:40,760 --> 00:01:43,240
Speaker 1: cable news coverage is what we're talking about. Yeah, is

30
00:01:43,319 --> 00:01:46,200
Speaker 1: that didn't make a real dent in things?

31
00:01:46,520 --> 00:01:51,360
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure. And like there's study after study that

32
00:01:51,480 --> 00:01:55,080
Speaker 2: just shows all the negative effects it has, like ONLI

33
00:01:55,040 --> 00:01:59,080
Speaker 2: like a collective scale, on an individual scale, Like it's

34
00:01:59,160 --> 00:02:02,040
Speaker 2: just not good stuff. I looked all over. You can't

35
00:02:02,080 --> 00:02:05,520
Speaker 2: really find any positive like studies on it. They're like, yeah,

36
00:02:05,520 --> 00:02:08,520
Speaker 2: it's really good for this. I mean, I guess it

37
00:02:08,680 --> 00:02:12,480
Speaker 2: does make you feel alive to some degree, But I

38
00:02:12,520 --> 00:02:15,280
Speaker 2: think that's also kind of like trying to find the

39
00:02:15,320 --> 00:02:17,720
Speaker 2: good and mental cigarettes by saying they like make your

40
00:02:17,720 --> 00:02:20,799
Speaker 2: throat feel icy when you're smoking them.

41
00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:23,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you know, I think we're going to talk

42
00:02:23,560 --> 00:02:25,360
Speaker 1: about this a good place to start as sort of

43
00:02:25,560 --> 00:02:29,639
Speaker 1: a brief little look at the old days before cable

44
00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:32,359
Speaker 1: news was. You know, when you and I were growing up,

45
00:02:33,040 --> 00:02:37,119
Speaker 1: there were big the Big three CBS, NBC and ABC

46
00:02:37,240 --> 00:02:40,560
Speaker 1: News or you know the networks, and they had news

47
00:02:40,680 --> 00:02:43,160
Speaker 1: shows that came on at you know, in the evening

48
00:02:43,200 --> 00:02:46,880
Speaker 1: and then like six or six thirty and then eleven,

49
00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:50,160
Speaker 1: and that's where people got their national news, and it

50
00:02:50,240 --> 00:02:53,679
Speaker 1: was reported on in a way where they just sort

51
00:02:53,720 --> 00:02:56,360
Speaker 1: of said, here's what's going on in the world, here

52
00:02:56,440 --> 00:03:00,200
Speaker 1: are the facts of what's happening, and we all had

53
00:03:00,240 --> 00:03:03,960
Speaker 1: a shared reality of what was going on, and you

54
00:03:03,960 --> 00:03:05,760
Speaker 1: could kind of make up your own mind about it.

55
00:03:05,960 --> 00:03:08,160
Speaker 2: Yeah. Shared reality is a great way to put it.

56
00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:10,960
Speaker 2: And there has been lots of study about the importance

57
00:03:11,000 --> 00:03:13,960
Speaker 2: of that too. Right, So, like even if the people

58
00:03:13,960 --> 00:03:18,120
Speaker 2: who are watching the news didn't agree with other people

59
00:03:18,120 --> 00:03:20,800
Speaker 2: who are watching the news about, you know, what the

60
00:03:20,840 --> 00:03:25,600
Speaker 2: solution was to this problem, they were still thinking and

61
00:03:25,639 --> 00:03:29,280
Speaker 2: looking at the same problem, right, Right. That shared reality

62
00:03:29,680 --> 00:03:32,320
Speaker 2: was a set of facts that everyone agreed like, this

63
00:03:32,400 --> 00:03:34,680
Speaker 2: is what's going on, this is the problems that our

64
00:03:34,720 --> 00:03:37,720
Speaker 2: country's facing. And then you have like an argument in

65
00:03:37,760 --> 00:03:40,600
Speaker 2: the marketplace of ideas about you know, what's the best

66
00:03:40,600 --> 00:03:44,560
Speaker 2: solution and the best way to move forward? Right, Yeah,

67
00:03:44,600 --> 00:03:47,320
Speaker 2: And when you have that kind of thing people have,

68
00:03:47,520 --> 00:03:51,360
Speaker 2: it was called a sort of social, cultural, and political

69
00:03:51,440 --> 00:03:54,640
Speaker 2: glue that just kind of brought people together and very

70
00:03:54,640 --> 00:03:58,920
Speaker 2: importantly gave people a sense of a shared national identity,

71
00:03:58,640 --> 00:04:02,440
Speaker 2: like people were all Americans, right, everybody living in the

72
00:04:02,520 --> 00:04:06,440
Speaker 2: United States, We're all Americans. Even though we don't always agree,

73
00:04:06,560 --> 00:04:10,000
Speaker 2: we don't hate each other for being different. Necessarily we

74
00:04:10,360 --> 00:04:13,560
Speaker 2: are all at the end of the day, Americans.

75
00:04:13,200 --> 00:04:16,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And at the center of that glue, well,

76
00:04:17,080 --> 00:04:19,200
Speaker 1: or maybe it was the glue, I guess, was that

77
00:04:19,240 --> 00:04:22,039
Speaker 1: shared reality of hey, we're all agreeing on the at

78
00:04:22,120 --> 00:04:25,600
Speaker 1: least the basic facts of what's going on. We did

79
00:04:25,640 --> 00:04:29,400
Speaker 1: an entire episode on the Fairness Doctrine. It was released

80
00:04:29,560 --> 00:04:32,360
Speaker 1: appropriately on July fourth, twenty nineteen, So if you want

81
00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:35,320
Speaker 1: to go listen like in depth about the fairness Doctrine,

82
00:04:35,320 --> 00:04:38,039
Speaker 1: you can, but just sort of a quick overview for

83
00:04:38,160 --> 00:04:41,920
Speaker 1: this purpose though, is the FCC here in the United States.

84
00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:45,120
Speaker 1: The Federal Communications Commission was created in the early nineteen

85
00:04:45,160 --> 00:04:49,039
Speaker 1: thirties and their mandate was to quote encourage the larger

86
00:04:49,040 --> 00:04:51,920
Speaker 1: and more effective use of radio in the public interest.

87
00:04:52,800 --> 00:04:55,560
Speaker 1: And you know, radio was their jam early on, obviously

88
00:04:55,600 --> 00:05:00,240
Speaker 1: before television and the fairness doctrine was conceived in the

89
00:05:00,320 --> 00:05:03,080
Speaker 1: radio days in the nineteen thirties and forties because there

90
00:05:03,080 --> 00:05:06,000
Speaker 1: were a bunch of one sided political editorials on the

91
00:05:06,080 --> 00:05:10,000
Speaker 1: radio at the time. So they said, hey, after World

92
00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:12,960
Speaker 1: War two pass, let's get together and at least decide

93
00:05:12,960 --> 00:05:15,480
Speaker 1: on a set of rules that all radio and eventually

94
00:05:15,600 --> 00:05:17,240
Speaker 1: TV stations need to adhere to.

95
00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:19,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, and a lot of it had to do with

96
00:05:19,720 --> 00:05:23,080
Speaker 2: the duty that broadcasters had to serve the public good.

97
00:05:23,400 --> 00:05:26,720
Speaker 2: That was the point of getting a broadcast license. Right. Yeah,

98
00:05:26,760 --> 00:05:28,599
Speaker 2: you made money selling ads and stuff like that, but

99
00:05:28,720 --> 00:05:31,479
Speaker 2: ultimately what the government wanted you to do was to

100
00:05:31,640 --> 00:05:34,360
Speaker 2: basically serve the public. And the way that you did

101
00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:40,039
Speaker 2: that was you devoted airtime to objective, non partisan coverage

102
00:05:40,279 --> 00:05:44,680
Speaker 2: of all issues. Right, you have to be fair. You

103
00:05:44,880 --> 00:05:47,760
Speaker 2: had to give other people who had a different point

104
00:05:47,760 --> 00:05:51,440
Speaker 2: of view a chance to get their coverage as well.

105
00:05:52,920 --> 00:05:57,640
Speaker 2: If somebody in particular was criticized by the station itself,

106
00:05:57,680 --> 00:06:02,200
Speaker 2: by the newscast, so it's an editorials, that person should

107
00:06:02,240 --> 00:06:06,159
Speaker 2: have ample opportunity to respond. And then this also was

108
00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:10,560
Speaker 2: part of our Presidential Debates episode. Yeah, part of fairness

109
00:06:10,560 --> 00:06:13,240
Speaker 2: doctrine was if you were a political candidate, you got

110
00:06:13,240 --> 00:06:17,240
Speaker 2: equal time to every other political candidate, like all political candidates,

111
00:06:17,279 --> 00:06:19,839
Speaker 2: had to get exactly the same amount of airtime over

112
00:06:19,880 --> 00:06:22,239
Speaker 2: the course of the race.

113
00:06:22,640 --> 00:06:25,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was the fairness doctrine. It worked really

114
00:06:25,080 --> 00:06:27,400
Speaker 1: well for a long time. And then, you know, as

115
00:06:27,400 --> 00:06:29,920
Speaker 1: we detailed in the episode, in nineteen eighty Ronald Reagan

116
00:06:30,440 --> 00:06:33,200
Speaker 1: came around and said, let me quote Josh Clark of

117
00:06:33,240 --> 00:06:37,440
Speaker 1: the Future nuts to that, and so he said, yeah's,

118
00:06:37,680 --> 00:06:39,760
Speaker 1: you know, let's open it up to competition. If you're

119
00:06:39,760 --> 00:06:42,159
Speaker 1: a broadcaster, you should be able to compete in the

120
00:06:42,200 --> 00:06:45,760
Speaker 1: marketplace for viewers and just let the chips fall where

121
00:06:45,760 --> 00:06:48,600
Speaker 1: they may. And so in nineteen eighty seven, the FCC

122
00:06:48,760 --> 00:06:54,520
Speaker 1: stopped enforcing the fairness doctrine, and almost immediately radio was

123
00:06:54,560 --> 00:06:57,960
Speaker 1: the first place where we saw the big change. Talk radio,

124
00:06:58,200 --> 00:07:01,960
Speaker 1: especially in the AM dial, exploded, I think over a

125
00:07:02,000 --> 00:07:05,040
Speaker 1: thirty five year period between nineteen sixty and nineteen ninety five.

126
00:07:06,000 --> 00:07:09,440
Speaker 1: There they went from two talk radio stations in the

127
00:07:09,520 --> 00:07:13,400
Speaker 1: United States as in one followed by two to more

128
00:07:13,440 --> 00:07:16,880
Speaker 1: than eleven hundred and most of those, I think about

129
00:07:16,920 --> 00:07:20,880
Speaker 1: seventy percent of those radio stations were conservative. That just

130
00:07:21,000 --> 00:07:25,000
Speaker 1: exploded in conservative talk radio with people like you know,

131
00:07:25,280 --> 00:07:27,760
Speaker 1: the King of that whole movement Rush Limbaugh.

132
00:07:28,760 --> 00:07:31,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they stopped enforcing in nineteen eighty seven. He

133
00:07:31,560 --> 00:07:33,280
Speaker 2: went on the air for the first time in nineteen

134
00:07:33,320 --> 00:07:38,720
Speaker 2: eighty eight, and in about six years he had a

135
00:07:38,760 --> 00:07:43,040
Speaker 2: three hour show every day that was broadcast live across

136
00:07:43,160 --> 00:07:46,240
Speaker 2: the nation in six hundred and fifty stations and there

137
00:07:46,240 --> 00:07:48,960
Speaker 2: are twenty million people who tuned into it. Dittoheads, he

138
00:07:49,040 --> 00:07:52,240
Speaker 2: called them. And this was like he was the first

139
00:07:52,280 --> 00:07:56,080
Speaker 2: person to introduce the United States to the concept of

140
00:07:56,200 --> 00:08:00,320
Speaker 2: just bashing the other party. Yeah, he was the guy

141
00:08:00,360 --> 00:08:05,720
Speaker 2: that just laid the groundwork for this, and as a result,

142
00:08:06,280 --> 00:08:09,600
Speaker 2: he kind of because he was so popular and because

143
00:08:09,640 --> 00:08:12,520
Speaker 2: it was so entertaining if you shared his political views,

144
00:08:13,600 --> 00:08:16,960
Speaker 2: he basically brought the GOP to heel, Like he was

145
00:08:17,640 --> 00:08:20,840
Speaker 2: the head of the GOP de facto. So much so

146
00:08:20,920 --> 00:08:23,280
Speaker 2: that when the GOP took over in nineteen ninety four,

147
00:08:23,480 --> 00:08:26,440
Speaker 2: took over Congress, they I saw it made him an

148
00:08:26,520 --> 00:08:30,280
Speaker 2: honorary member of that Congress because he was considered so

149
00:08:30,360 --> 00:08:33,200
Speaker 2: responsible for getting all of those Republicans elected.

150
00:08:33,679 --> 00:08:35,280
Speaker 1: Wow, I didn't know that was a thing.

151
00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:38,440
Speaker 2: I didn't either. I think they actually made it up

152
00:08:38,480 --> 00:08:38,920
Speaker 2: for him.

153
00:08:39,280 --> 00:08:43,920
Speaker 1: Uh right, honorary Congress member pretty much. So yeah, that

154
00:08:44,080 --> 00:08:48,679
Speaker 1: was a you know, TV took notice and later, as

155
00:08:48,679 --> 00:08:50,440
Speaker 1: we'll see, you know, we'll get to Fox News in

156
00:08:50,440 --> 00:08:52,640
Speaker 1: a little bit after we talk about the first one CNN,

157
00:08:52,679 --> 00:08:54,720
Speaker 1: but later Fox News would say like, hey, here's a

158
00:08:54,760 --> 00:08:59,280
Speaker 1: model of you know, kind of political commentary as entertainment

159
00:09:00,160 --> 00:09:02,319
Speaker 1: we can emulate, and like, people love this guy. He's

160
00:09:02,320 --> 00:09:05,920
Speaker 1: got twenty million listeners every day, and like, imagine the

161
00:09:05,960 --> 00:09:07,680
Speaker 1: kind of cash we can make if we brought that

162
00:09:07,720 --> 00:09:14,360
Speaker 1: model to television. But first was CNN. We just lost

163
00:09:14,600 --> 00:09:18,199
Speaker 1: one of my childhood heroes growing up, Ted Turner, very

164
00:09:18,240 --> 00:09:20,719
Speaker 1: recently he passed away, like less than two weeks ago

165
00:09:20,800 --> 00:09:24,480
Speaker 1: as we record this in real time, but Ted was

166
00:09:24,559 --> 00:09:27,640
Speaker 1: the founder of CNN, the very first twenty four hour

167
00:09:27,720 --> 00:09:31,440
Speaker 1: cable news channel, and that came around in nineteen eighty

168
00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:35,560
Speaker 1: after he had made a bunch of money inheriting and

169
00:09:35,600 --> 00:09:39,720
Speaker 1: then running his father's billboard advertising business, and he was like,

170
00:09:39,720 --> 00:09:42,360
Speaker 1: you know what, I think we could use a twenty

171
00:09:42,400 --> 00:09:46,320
Speaker 1: four hour news cable channel. And his literal quote was

172
00:09:47,040 --> 00:09:49,800
Speaker 1: to bring together in brotherhood, in kindness and friendship and

173
00:09:49,800 --> 00:09:52,800
Speaker 1: in peace the people of this nation and this world.

174
00:09:52,880 --> 00:09:54,280
Speaker 1: That was his vision.

175
00:09:55,360 --> 00:09:58,000
Speaker 2: Ted Turner was the real deal as far as founding CNN.

176
00:09:58,480 --> 00:10:02,880
Speaker 2: And this was bran New Like like you said, people

177
00:10:02,920 --> 00:10:05,480
Speaker 2: tuned in at six thirty and eleven PM, and that's

178
00:10:05,520 --> 00:10:07,880
Speaker 2: where you got your news. Now you could tune to

179
00:10:07,960 --> 00:10:12,440
Speaker 2: CNN and watch news twenty four hours a day. No

180
00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:15,640
Speaker 2: one had ever done anything like that ever, And it

181
00:10:15,720 --> 00:10:17,920
Speaker 2: took a little while to catch on because people were like,

182
00:10:18,800 --> 00:10:20,800
Speaker 2: it's not a lot to watch, or I'm watching the

183
00:10:20,840 --> 00:10:22,800
Speaker 2: same stuff over and over again. These people seem to

184
00:10:22,840 --> 00:10:26,160
Speaker 2: be trying really hard. And then the Challenger Space Shuttle

185
00:10:26,840 --> 00:10:30,880
Speaker 2: exploded in nineteen eighty six, and that is when CNN

186
00:10:31,760 --> 00:10:34,160
Speaker 2: showed why it was around.

187
00:10:34,480 --> 00:10:37,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And can I just have a quick

188
00:10:37,440 --> 00:10:40,600
Speaker 1: aside about Ted Turner? Oh sure, because he was if

189
00:10:40,640 --> 00:10:43,480
Speaker 1: he grew up in Atlanta in the nineteen seventies and eighties,

190
00:10:43,600 --> 00:10:46,319
Speaker 1: he was you know, a good chance he might have

191
00:10:46,400 --> 00:10:49,600
Speaker 1: been your hero like he was mine, because not only

192
00:10:49,600 --> 00:10:53,600
Speaker 1: did he launch CNN, but more importantly to a kid

193
00:10:53,640 --> 00:10:57,160
Speaker 1: like me, he was the owner at one point of

194
00:10:57,200 --> 00:11:00,199
Speaker 1: both the Atlanta Braves and the Atlanta Hawks, and he

195
00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:03,760
Speaker 1: launched the superstation WTBS, which was a you know, that's

196
00:11:03,760 --> 00:11:06,880
Speaker 1: where I learned about what comedy was by watching stuff

197
00:11:06,920 --> 00:11:09,680
Speaker 1: like the Carol Burnett Show and old black and white

198
00:11:09,720 --> 00:11:12,400
Speaker 1: stuff like Illigan's Island and Andy Griffith and Green Acres.

199
00:11:12,480 --> 00:11:15,320
Speaker 1: And he was just this larger than life guy. He

200
00:11:15,360 --> 00:11:19,559
Speaker 1: won an America's Cup his philanthropy. He gave a billion

201
00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:22,559
Speaker 1: dollars in nineteen ninety seven, which was unheard of it

202
00:11:22,600 --> 00:11:24,520
Speaker 1: at the time for somebody to give that amount of

203
00:11:24,520 --> 00:11:29,200
Speaker 1: money to the UN to support humanitarian aid and global

204
00:11:29,200 --> 00:11:32,840
Speaker 1: health and the empowerment of women and developing countries. He

205
00:11:33,320 --> 00:11:37,280
Speaker 1: saved the American Bison. He's just an amazing dude. And

206
00:11:37,600 --> 00:11:40,040
Speaker 1: I was at a Willie Nelson concert at an outdoor

207
00:11:40,120 --> 00:11:43,400
Speaker 1: venue at Chastain Park in Atlanta in the nineties and

208
00:11:43,559 --> 00:11:47,040
Speaker 1: Ted came in a little late and it was like

209
00:11:48,800 --> 00:11:50,560
Speaker 1: you would have thought the ghost of Elvis had walked in.

210
00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:53,600
Speaker 1: There was a murmur, like an audible murmur in the crowd,

211
00:11:53,679 --> 00:11:56,480
Speaker 1: and people like pointing to the point where Willie Nelson was,

212
00:11:56,520 --> 00:11:58,640
Speaker 1: like what's going on? When he was singing and he

213
00:11:58,679 --> 00:12:01,000
Speaker 1: finished his song and he just went, oh, Ted's here,

214
00:12:02,320 --> 00:12:04,120
Speaker 1: And it was great. It was just like he was

215
00:12:04,120 --> 00:12:07,480
Speaker 1: a He basically was Atlanta. He owned that town in

216
00:12:07,520 --> 00:12:11,040
Speaker 1: the in the seventies and eighties. So yeah, very sad

217
00:12:11,040 --> 00:12:12,960
Speaker 1: when he passed. So I just wanted to give a

218
00:12:12,960 --> 00:12:14,040
Speaker 1: little quick tribute.

219
00:12:14,400 --> 00:12:19,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's fitting too, because like his that journalistic

220
00:12:19,080 --> 00:12:22,480
Speaker 2: vision of like bringing everyone together through you know, global

221
00:12:22,559 --> 00:12:25,840
Speaker 2: coverage of all the issues facing us like that, Like

222
00:12:25,880 --> 00:12:27,920
Speaker 2: he was a true believer in that. It wasn't like

223
00:12:27,960 --> 00:12:30,319
Speaker 2: a cynical thing where he's like, I'm really just trying

224
00:12:30,360 --> 00:12:33,720
Speaker 2: to get a license to print money. I even saw

225
00:12:34,480 --> 00:12:38,079
Speaker 2: Fox News article or profile on him that they ran

226
00:12:38,400 --> 00:12:41,400
Speaker 2: recently after he died, and they were even speaking about

227
00:12:41,440 --> 00:12:45,920
Speaker 2: him like respectfully as far as his journalistic integrity goes.

228
00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:50,120
Speaker 2: So he really did. When he founded CNN, it really

229
00:12:50,280 --> 00:12:52,760
Speaker 2: was like for good reason.

230
00:12:55,400 --> 00:12:58,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, So it was you know, twenty four seven news.

231
00:12:58,559 --> 00:13:01,400
Speaker 1: No one had ever seen anything like that. That was

232
00:13:01,440 --> 00:13:05,160
Speaker 1: the first like reporting of news in progress when something broke.

233
00:13:05,960 --> 00:13:08,760
Speaker 1: It was the first time that they had the newsticker

234
00:13:08,800 --> 00:13:13,320
Speaker 1: at the bottom of a screen. You know. People liked CNN.

235
00:13:13,360 --> 00:13:17,600
Speaker 1: It wasn't like it was some huge, like mad success

236
00:13:17,720 --> 00:13:20,000
Speaker 1: right off the bat. But then when things started happening

237
00:13:20,000 --> 00:13:23,600
Speaker 1: in real time in the eighties, like the Space Shuttle

238
00:13:23,960 --> 00:13:28,960
Speaker 1: Challenger disaster, obviously, the Berlin Wall falling when little baby

239
00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:32,240
Speaker 1: Jessica was rescued in nineteen eighty seven, and then like

240
00:13:32,480 --> 00:13:36,560
Speaker 1: hugely impactful when the Gulf War started. CNN was there

241
00:13:36,679 --> 00:13:40,320
Speaker 1: for all of that stuff, like second by second reporting,

242
00:13:40,320 --> 00:13:42,480
Speaker 1: and no one had ever seen stuff like that before,

243
00:13:43,360 --> 00:13:44,320
Speaker 1: no like.

244
00:13:44,760 --> 00:13:47,160
Speaker 2: And they were highly criticized for some of their reporting.

245
00:13:47,240 --> 00:13:49,640
Speaker 2: They were allowed to stay in a rock and they

246
00:13:49,880 --> 00:13:55,439
Speaker 2: in some ways became a propaganda arm for Saddam Hussein accidentally,

247
00:13:55,480 --> 00:13:59,120
Speaker 2: but they still like showed what you were supposed to

248
00:13:59,160 --> 00:14:03,520
Speaker 2: do covering a war. And also CNN was largely responsible

249
00:14:03,520 --> 00:14:07,160
Speaker 2: for making the goal for the first live televised war

250
00:14:07,440 --> 00:14:10,000
Speaker 2: in history because they covered it that much.

251
00:14:10,400 --> 00:14:12,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, I remember sitting around watching it with my roommates

252
00:14:12,880 --> 00:14:15,600
Speaker 1: in college, like just coming home from after class and

253
00:14:15,640 --> 00:14:18,120
Speaker 1: like putting the war on. Yep, it was really weird.

254
00:14:18,240 --> 00:14:21,080
Speaker 2: It was always on because CNN was always on covering it.

255
00:14:21,360 --> 00:14:24,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you know, we all should also

256
00:14:24,440 --> 00:14:28,800
Speaker 1: point out that there would be a change at CNN

257
00:14:29,120 --> 00:14:32,280
Speaker 1: after Turner, and we'll get to that. But if you're

258
00:14:32,800 --> 00:14:36,520
Speaker 1: on the right side politically and you hate CNN, that

259
00:14:36,640 --> 00:14:39,480
Speaker 1: was not Ted Turner's vision to start a left leaning

260
00:14:40,280 --> 00:14:43,240
Speaker 1: media outlet. That was not what he was trying to

261
00:14:43,280 --> 00:14:45,560
Speaker 1: do at all. So I hope those words kind of

262
00:14:45,560 --> 00:14:46,160
Speaker 1: come through here.

263
00:14:46,600 --> 00:14:51,640
Speaker 2: Sure. Sure, So there was a kind of out of

264
00:14:51,680 --> 00:14:54,960
Speaker 2: the gate an issue that CNN faced, which was if

265
00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:58,720
Speaker 2: you're covering news, like, yeah, news happens pretty frequently, but

266
00:15:00,120 --> 00:15:04,000
Speaker 2: four hours of coverage can be overdoing it. So rather

267
00:15:04,120 --> 00:15:07,800
Speaker 2: than just saying the same reporting over and over and

268
00:15:07,840 --> 00:15:12,000
Speaker 2: over again, they brought in people analysts to talk about

269
00:15:12,320 --> 00:15:15,440
Speaker 2: to kind of unpack what that news meant, maybe make

270
00:15:15,480 --> 00:15:18,760
Speaker 2: predictions about how news was going to break, like which

271
00:15:18,800 --> 00:15:20,640
Speaker 2: way is Congress going to vote? You know, is the

272
00:15:20,680 --> 00:15:24,600
Speaker 2: President going to veto this? And that became like an

273
00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:28,240
Speaker 2: established part of twenty four hour news and from that

274
00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:30,800
Speaker 2: moment that those people started to come in, talking heads,

275
00:15:30,920 --> 00:15:39,280
Speaker 2: pundits like that laid the groundwork for opinion opinion based journalism.

276
00:15:39,840 --> 00:15:43,720
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. It was you know, after the Gulf

277
00:15:43,760 --> 00:15:46,200
Speaker 1: War in the mid nineties, when is when things really

278
00:15:46,240 --> 00:15:48,800
Speaker 1: started to change and started to lead to our current

279
00:15:48,880 --> 00:15:51,400
Speaker 1: kind of sad state of affairs with the news cycle.

280
00:15:52,400 --> 00:15:54,240
Speaker 1: And one of those things I kind of hinted at

281
00:15:54,400 --> 00:15:57,600
Speaker 1: was when Ted Turner left Scene and Time Warner brought

282
00:15:57,600 --> 00:16:01,920
Speaker 1: out CNN in nineteen ninety six, and they were the

283
00:16:01,920 --> 00:16:05,880
Speaker 1: ones responsible for saying, like, hey, I think if we

284
00:16:05,920 --> 00:16:08,160
Speaker 1: get a little more divisive here and we lean left

285
00:16:08,160 --> 00:16:11,760
Speaker 1: of center, we can get more ad revenue. And I

286
00:16:11,800 --> 00:16:14,760
Speaker 1: mean that's kind of the the sad thing about all

287
00:16:14,760 --> 00:16:16,640
Speaker 1: this stuff we're going to talk about moving forward. It

288
00:16:16,680 --> 00:16:19,400
Speaker 1: was it was all money driven, you know, right, Yes,

289
00:16:19,720 --> 00:16:21,560
Speaker 1: it was. It was all for and still is for

290
00:16:21,640 --> 00:16:25,520
Speaker 1: advertising dollars. And at the time you had two really

291
00:16:25,640 --> 00:16:29,920
Speaker 1: great political foils, and Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich on

292
00:16:29,960 --> 00:16:33,800
Speaker 1: the screen. Yeah, who two very much on the opposite

293
00:16:33,840 --> 00:16:37,240
Speaker 1: sides of the spectrum. Guys who you know, Clinton was

294
00:16:37,240 --> 00:16:42,040
Speaker 1: a good villain for for Republicans and then you know

295
00:16:42,280 --> 00:16:45,200
Speaker 1: later liberals as we would learn more stuff about him, right,

296
00:16:45,480 --> 00:16:47,960
Speaker 1: and Gingrich was on the other side. Man, just he

297
00:16:48,080 --> 00:16:52,480
Speaker 1: really is the guy like in entrenched in politics that

298
00:16:52,600 --> 00:16:54,720
Speaker 1: ushered in that real good versus evil thing.

299
00:16:55,280 --> 00:16:58,760
Speaker 2: Yeah, as in the Democrats are evil, were good, It's

300
00:16:58,880 --> 00:17:02,479
Speaker 2: up to us to save America. Before that, the existential

301
00:17:02,480 --> 00:17:06,119
Speaker 2: threats to the United States were external, namely the USSR.

302
00:17:06,600 --> 00:17:10,120
Speaker 2: After Ginkrich like Rose and took power of the GOP,

303
00:17:10,760 --> 00:17:14,160
Speaker 2: the threat was domestic. It was the Democrats that were

304
00:17:14,200 --> 00:17:16,520
Speaker 2: the threat to America as far as the GOP was concerned.

305
00:17:16,560 --> 00:17:18,760
Speaker 2: That was new. Yeah, that was new, and that was

306
00:17:18,800 --> 00:17:22,320
Speaker 2: the beginning of the end of bipartisanship, whereas now today,

307
00:17:22,600 --> 00:17:25,880
Speaker 2: if you defect and vote against your own party, you're

308
00:17:25,880 --> 00:17:28,680
Speaker 2: a trader to your party, you know, not that you're

309
00:17:28,960 --> 00:17:31,680
Speaker 2: doing what your constituents think you should do or voting

310
00:17:31,720 --> 00:17:35,680
Speaker 2: by your conscience. You're a trader. That's new, and that's

311
00:17:36,200 --> 00:17:37,439
Speaker 2: basically where it began.

312
00:17:38,040 --> 00:17:40,479
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I remember being a kid, and I

313
00:17:40,560 --> 00:17:43,280
Speaker 1: wasn't involved in politics when I was younger, like very

314
00:17:43,440 --> 00:17:45,359
Speaker 1: into that kind of thing. But I remember hearing the

315
00:17:45,400 --> 00:17:49,960
Speaker 1: adults during election season, not my parents because they never

316
00:17:50,000 --> 00:17:52,439
Speaker 1: talked about any of that stuff, but just other people, like,

317
00:17:52,520 --> 00:17:55,359
Speaker 1: you know, we're gonna I'm gonna see which one of

318
00:17:55,400 --> 00:17:58,199
Speaker 1: these men speaks to me the most, and I'm going

319
00:17:58,280 --> 00:17:59,720
Speaker 1: to make up my mind on who I think is

320
00:17:59,760 --> 00:18:02,000
Speaker 1: going to be the best leader. And it's just like,

321
00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:05,760
Speaker 1: I mean, I know they're technically or probably independence today,

322
00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:09,000
Speaker 1: but it's hard to imagine just that being a thing

323
00:18:09,040 --> 00:18:09,959
Speaker 1: today at all. You know.

324
00:18:12,000 --> 00:18:14,760
Speaker 2: It's I'm sure for people who didn't grow up in

325
00:18:14,800 --> 00:18:19,359
Speaker 2: times where that was possible, it's very hard to imagine Yeah.

326
00:18:19,359 --> 00:18:21,920
Speaker 2: Another thing that happened in the nineties, like we talked about,

327
00:18:22,119 --> 00:18:26,800
Speaker 2: Rush Limbaugh was enormous. Yeah. Fox News was another huge

328
00:18:26,840 --> 00:18:29,880
Speaker 2: thing that happened when it was founded in nineteen ninety six,

329
00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:32,600
Speaker 2: and we'll talk about that afterward. And then I have

330
00:18:32,680 --> 00:18:35,320
Speaker 2: a pet theory, Chuck, what did you think about this?

331
00:18:35,400 --> 00:18:36,359
Speaker 1: I had a dealing this with you.

332
00:18:37,400 --> 00:18:38,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, what do you think?

333
00:18:39,359 --> 00:18:39,479
Speaker 3: Uh?

334
00:18:39,960 --> 00:18:41,760
Speaker 1: Sure, I agree.

335
00:18:42,400 --> 00:18:44,720
Speaker 2: My theory is that the Real World premiered in nineteen

336
00:18:44,760 --> 00:18:47,800
Speaker 2: ninety two, and you might say, what does that have

337
00:18:47,840 --> 00:18:51,320
Speaker 2: to do with anything, Well, it exposed people to reality television,

338
00:18:51,320 --> 00:18:54,160
Speaker 2: which is not real. But this idea that you can

339
00:18:54,280 --> 00:18:57,199
Speaker 2: just be horrible to other people and that's like an

340
00:18:57,240 --> 00:19:00,879
Speaker 2: acceptable way to be. The groundwork for that was laid around.

341
00:19:00,920 --> 00:19:05,040
Speaker 2: And then yeah, so you put all those things together.

342
00:19:05,119 --> 00:19:09,159
Speaker 2: The mid nineties were a really bad beginning. The seed,

343
00:19:09,840 --> 00:19:14,080
Speaker 2: the evil dark seed that rotted the core in heart

344
00:19:14,080 --> 00:19:17,560
Speaker 2: of America out that started in the mid nineties.

345
00:19:17,720 --> 00:19:20,119
Speaker 1: That's right. It sounds like a great time for a

346
00:19:20,119 --> 00:19:23,200
Speaker 1: break because you mentioned something happening in nineteen ninety six,

347
00:19:23,320 --> 00:19:54,320
Speaker 1: and we'll talk about that right after this, all right,

348
00:19:54,440 --> 00:19:57,320
Speaker 1: So before we broke, you mentioned Fox News debuting in

349
00:19:57,400 --> 00:20:02,200
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety six. Fuck just very quickly about Roger Ales,

350
00:20:02,240 --> 00:20:06,360
Speaker 1: who helped launch Fox News. He was a Republican political

351
00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:09,320
Speaker 1: consultant for many, many years. He worked. He helped to

352
00:20:09,359 --> 00:20:13,359
Speaker 1: get Reagan Nixon, all the way back to Nixon George H. W.

353
00:20:13,440 --> 00:20:17,840
Speaker 1: Bush elected. He understood that TV was a very powerful

354
00:20:17,840 --> 00:20:20,639
Speaker 1: thing as far as shaping public opinion. By this point,

355
00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:24,439
Speaker 1: he had met Rush Limbaugh in nineteen ninety one and

356
00:20:24,600 --> 00:20:26,760
Speaker 1: for a little while produced a TV version of Limball's

357
00:20:26,760 --> 00:20:29,280
Speaker 1: show in the early nineties. But it was in nineteen

358
00:20:29,320 --> 00:20:34,280
Speaker 1: ninety six when in Ozzy named Rupert Murdoch, who had

359
00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:38,240
Speaker 1: previously given us The Simpsons with the Fox Broadcasting Company,

360
00:20:38,600 --> 00:20:42,000
Speaker 1: which he launched in nineteen eighty six, the Fox Company,

361
00:20:42,080 --> 00:20:44,280
Speaker 1: he said, you know what, we need our own news station.

362
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:49,399
Speaker 1: Let's get Fox News on the airwaves, and Roger Ayles

363
00:20:49,800 --> 00:20:51,320
Speaker 1: you're going to be the guy to do it.

364
00:20:51,800 --> 00:20:54,879
Speaker 2: Yeah. He designed Fox News as we understand it today,

365
00:20:55,280 --> 00:20:58,240
Speaker 2: basically right out of the gate. And one thing to

366
00:20:58,320 --> 00:21:00,840
Speaker 2: understand about him being a political operative who worked on

367
00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:04,120
Speaker 2: the Nixon campaign. That sixty eight Nixon campaign was where

368
00:21:04,160 --> 00:21:06,880
Speaker 2: a guy named Kevin Phillips came up with what's called

369
00:21:06,880 --> 00:21:11,000
Speaker 2: the Southern strategy today, which was essentially the idea that

370
00:21:11,080 --> 00:21:14,680
Speaker 2: politics is about who hates who and then playing on

371
00:21:14,760 --> 00:21:18,920
Speaker 2: those prejudices to get people to vote essentially about other people.

372
00:21:18,960 --> 00:21:21,800
Speaker 2: It's where the culture war started. And Roger Ayles basically

373
00:21:21,840 --> 00:21:25,360
Speaker 2: took that the politics of who hates who and put

374
00:21:25,400 --> 00:21:28,120
Speaker 2: it on TV as a twenty four hour cable news network.

375
00:21:28,359 --> 00:21:29,639
Speaker 1: Yeah, in charge for it.

376
00:21:30,760 --> 00:21:32,959
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's another thing too that we'll see. Like they

377
00:21:33,400 --> 00:21:35,399
Speaker 2: have made tons and tons of cash, but they're in

378
00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:39,080
Speaker 2: a really big turning point right now because of how

379
00:21:39,160 --> 00:21:40,520
Speaker 2: they their business model.

380
00:21:40,800 --> 00:21:44,399
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. So in the beginning they had a claim,

381
00:21:44,520 --> 00:21:46,560
Speaker 1: you know, Ales and Murdoch that it was going to

382
00:21:46,560 --> 00:21:50,119
Speaker 1: be Fox News is going to be an a political channel. Quote,

383
00:21:50,160 --> 00:21:53,840
Speaker 1: we expect to do fine balanced journalism. But behind the

384
00:21:53,840 --> 00:21:58,560
Speaker 1: scenes they were like, hey, we think that most mainstream

385
00:21:58,560 --> 00:22:00,840
Speaker 1: news outlets have a liberal bias, so we're going to

386
00:22:00,880 --> 00:22:03,520
Speaker 1: come along and correct that with Fox News. And that

387
00:22:03,640 --> 00:22:07,479
Speaker 1: fair and balance motto that Fox News launched under Ales

388
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:10,560
Speaker 1: was a It was a literal troll to liberal critics.

389
00:22:11,520 --> 00:22:14,400
Speaker 1: It was, you know, he knew it wasn't fair and balanced,

390
00:22:14,400 --> 00:22:16,160
Speaker 1: and so that was his way of poking the bear.

391
00:22:17,000 --> 00:22:20,479
Speaker 1: They I think in twenty seventeen when Ales was fired

392
00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:25,000
Speaker 1: and the very famous or infamous rather sexual harassment scandal.

393
00:22:25,880 --> 00:22:27,800
Speaker 1: That's when they got rid of the fair and balance

394
00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:29,120
Speaker 1: tag for good.

395
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:33,199
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Roger Ales and Bill O'Reilly yeah, among others.

396
00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:36,880
Speaker 2: So Ales was out, but he had been you know,

397
00:22:37,040 --> 00:22:42,560
Speaker 2: he had governed this thing for twenty years and like

398
00:22:42,760 --> 00:22:46,520
Speaker 2: his his vision is still still there today. Like the

399
00:22:46,560 --> 00:22:49,240
Speaker 2: way that he shaped it is still Fox is essentially

400
00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:51,360
Speaker 2: still the same thing as it was from nineteen ninety six.

401
00:22:51,400 --> 00:22:54,520
Speaker 2: It was he perfected it right out of the box, essentially,

402
00:22:55,920 --> 00:22:59,359
Speaker 2: and it really started to kind of gain traction pretty

403
00:22:59,440 --> 00:23:03,840
Speaker 2: quickly after it came along because Bill Clinton handed them

404
00:23:03,880 --> 00:23:07,679
Speaker 2: a beautiful gift in like a Robin's egg blue Tiffany's

405
00:23:07,720 --> 00:23:10,840
Speaker 2: box with a beautiful bow on it, and that is

406
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:13,560
Speaker 2: called the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

407
00:23:13,680 --> 00:23:15,960
Speaker 1: Yeah. In that box was a cigar and a blue dress.

408
00:23:16,359 --> 00:23:17,520
Speaker 2: Yeah.

409
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:20,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was you know, yeah, there's no other way

410
00:23:20,840 --> 00:23:22,359
Speaker 1: to look at it than a gift. Because they were

411
00:23:22,400 --> 00:23:25,560
Speaker 1: able to run wild with that, and they saw ratings

412
00:23:25,680 --> 00:23:29,800
Speaker 1: jump by four hundred percent and we're like, wow, we

413
00:23:29,920 --> 00:23:35,239
Speaker 1: can literally print money now, this is amazing, you know,

414
00:23:35,359 --> 00:23:37,120
Speaker 1: not too far on the heels of that was the

415
00:23:37,200 --> 00:23:39,840
Speaker 1: contested two thousand election, of which we had a complete

416
00:23:39,840 --> 00:23:43,920
Speaker 1: episode of bushby Gore, and then not too long after

417
00:23:43,960 --> 00:23:46,760
Speaker 1: that nine to eleven and then the subsequent war in Iraq.

418
00:23:46,840 --> 00:23:50,159
Speaker 1: So Fox News really got off to a strong start

419
00:23:50,840 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 1: thanks to these sort of big media events.

420
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:57,080
Speaker 2: Yes, for sure. And one other thing about the same

421
00:23:57,119 --> 00:24:01,120
Speaker 2: stuff too, the two thousand election nine to eleven, Fox

422
00:24:01,160 --> 00:24:05,040
Speaker 2: News was reporting this from the Republican viewpoint, all of

423
00:24:05,040 --> 00:24:08,440
Speaker 2: these things, like they were supporting George Bush, they weren't

424
00:24:08,480 --> 00:24:12,679
Speaker 2: questioning whether we should invade a rock, like this was

425
00:24:12,720 --> 00:24:15,760
Speaker 2: the angle that it was coming from. And all the

426
00:24:15,760 --> 00:24:19,600
Speaker 2: way back then, say around two thousand, like they were

427
00:24:19,640 --> 00:24:25,040
Speaker 2: the only ones just overtly producing slanted news. The other

428
00:24:26,040 --> 00:24:29,440
Speaker 2: cable news and broadcast news were still trying to essentially

429
00:24:29,480 --> 00:24:32,320
Speaker 2: carry out the fairness doctrine to the best of their ability.

430
00:24:32,800 --> 00:24:34,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we should point that out. But Fox News

431
00:24:34,840 --> 00:24:38,520
Speaker 1: really jumped ahead and was, you know, beating CNN in

432
00:24:38,560 --> 00:24:40,600
Speaker 1: the ratings for the first time by two thousand and two.

433
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:43,639
Speaker 1: I think they command about seventy percent of the cable

434
00:24:43,640 --> 00:24:47,400
Speaker 1: news audience today, right, So they're they're kicking everyone's butt

435
00:24:47,440 --> 00:24:51,320
Speaker 1: on that front, right, We need to talk about MSNBC,

436
00:24:51,560 --> 00:24:55,560
Speaker 1: which we'll get to the name change to ms now later.

437
00:24:56,800 --> 00:24:59,400
Speaker 1: We'll refer to them as MSNBC in this section because

438
00:24:59,400 --> 00:25:02,600
Speaker 1: it's about when they launched, which was a few months

439
00:25:04,119 --> 00:25:07,560
Speaker 1: before Fox News in nineteen ninety six. I never knew

440
00:25:07,640 --> 00:25:09,440
Speaker 1: that it was ms was Microsoft.

441
00:25:11,160 --> 00:25:11,879
Speaker 2: I think I knew that.

442
00:25:12,359 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was launched as a partnership with Microsoft. So

443
00:25:14,960 --> 00:25:18,879
Speaker 1: MSNBC was Microsoft NBC, and they were trying to get like,

444
00:25:19,200 --> 00:25:21,680
Speaker 1: you know, this was the beginning of the tech movement.

445
00:25:21,720 --> 00:25:25,360
Speaker 1: They were trying to get young, tech savvy audience members.

446
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:28,879
Speaker 1: They had like shows kind of tailored to that. There

447
00:25:28,920 --> 00:25:32,960
Speaker 1: was one called The Site Site with Solidad O'Brien. It

448
00:25:33,080 --> 00:25:35,760
Speaker 1: did not work out. And then after that they were like,

449
00:25:35,800 --> 00:25:37,560
Speaker 1: all right, you know what we need to do This

450
00:25:37,760 --> 00:25:42,240
Speaker 1: saturation coverage model that CNN launched that Fox News is

451
00:25:42,320 --> 00:25:46,560
Speaker 1: crushing it. But they started out doing conservative news.

452
00:25:47,320 --> 00:25:50,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, they were trying to basically take Fox on where

453
00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:55,960
Speaker 2: it was on its own territory. Yeah, very surprisingly, Laura

454
00:25:56,160 --> 00:25:59,640
Speaker 2: Ingram and Tucker Carlson both started at MSNBC.

455
00:26:00,280 --> 00:26:03,600
Speaker 1: It's funny to think about now, right, And I.

456
00:26:03,560 --> 00:26:07,959
Speaker 2: Think Tucker Carlson was the one who later convinced MSNBC

457
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:11,600
Speaker 2: executives to hire Rachel Maddow. Yeah, the same year that

458
00:26:11,680 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 2: Tucker Carlson was hired. So like MSNBC was this kind

459
00:26:15,600 --> 00:26:19,240
Speaker 2: of Petrie dish for all sorts of TV on air

460
00:26:19,560 --> 00:26:24,600
Speaker 2: newsy personalities. Yeah, that would become huge later on. And again,

461
00:26:24,640 --> 00:26:26,520
Speaker 2: like you were saying, it was because they were basically

462
00:26:26,560 --> 00:26:29,480
Speaker 2: trying to take on Fox. And that's one thing to

463
00:26:29,600 --> 00:26:33,840
Speaker 2: understand about MSNBC is the moment it pivoted from trying

464
00:26:33,880 --> 00:26:38,399
Speaker 2: to be like the tech the tech news channel, to

465
00:26:39,320 --> 00:26:44,600
Speaker 2: you know, opinion news. It was essentially just completely agnostic.

466
00:26:44,640 --> 00:26:46,919
Speaker 2: It was up for whoever was going to pay the most,

467
00:26:47,359 --> 00:26:49,200
Speaker 2: which is why they tried to take on Fox, because

468
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:52,400
Speaker 2: it was clear that Fox was making the most money, right,

469
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:56,120
Speaker 2: And then they found well, actually, if we present ourselves

470
00:26:56,160 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 2: as the antidote to Fox, like the liberal Fox, then

471
00:27:00,520 --> 00:27:02,680
Speaker 2: you know, we can probably make even more money. And

472
00:27:02,720 --> 00:27:03,960
Speaker 2: they did, and that's what happened.

473
00:27:04,240 --> 00:27:06,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's they really hit it big. In two

474
00:27:06,640 --> 00:27:10,280
Speaker 1: thousand and six, when Keith Oberman hit the airwaves, he

475
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:13,160
Speaker 1: had a show called Countdown. It was a primetime show

476
00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 1: and on Countdown one week he did a rant that

477
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:20,639
Speaker 1: he called a special commentary where he was criticizing the

478
00:27:20,680 --> 00:27:25,119
Speaker 1: Bush administration's handling or mishandling rather a Hurricane Katrina. And

479
00:27:25,359 --> 00:27:27,640
Speaker 1: MSNBC even at that time, we're like, no, man, that's

480
00:27:27,640 --> 00:27:30,040
Speaker 1: a little much like you need to tone that down.

481
00:27:30,480 --> 00:27:33,600
Speaker 1: But then the ratings were going through the roof. People

482
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:36,080
Speaker 1: loved it, and so they're like, oh, okay, well, I

483
00:27:36,119 --> 00:27:40,440
Speaker 1: guess that's the new way forward, and go Keith Oberman.

484
00:27:40,560 --> 00:27:40,639
Speaker 3: Go.

485
00:27:41,440 --> 00:27:45,480
Speaker 2: Yep. They unleashed the beast, and he just set the

486
00:27:45,480 --> 00:27:49,359
Speaker 2: groundwork for everybody else. And that's exactly what they were doing.

487
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:53,199
Speaker 2: During prime time. They had talking heads who hosted their

488
00:27:53,240 --> 00:27:59,920
Speaker 2: own show that were just like overtly dismissing other kind

489
00:27:59,920 --> 00:28:02,439
Speaker 2: of trairie opinions and talking about how dumb that was,

490
00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:07,760
Speaker 2: and you know, really just trying to destabilize the opposing

491
00:28:07,840 --> 00:28:11,320
Speaker 2: party's ideas. Right, Yeah, so they're there. I mean, their

492
00:28:11,359 --> 00:28:15,640
Speaker 2: primetime ratings just went through the roof. Apparently, I think

493
00:28:15,640 --> 00:28:17,960
Speaker 2: it went up sixty percent from two thousand and seven

494
00:28:18,000 --> 00:28:19,960
Speaker 2: to two thousand and eight when they started attacking the

495
00:28:20,080 --> 00:28:25,199
Speaker 2: right and also when Obama was like a candidate and

496
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,520
Speaker 2: then you know, president, and it was this huge thing

497
00:28:27,800 --> 00:28:30,199
Speaker 2: that apparently also boosted their ratings, and I saw the

498
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:35,199
Speaker 2: MSNBC traditionally has actually done better when they're promoting a

499
00:28:35,320 --> 00:28:38,480
Speaker 2: Democrat who has who's in charge of the White House

500
00:28:38,600 --> 00:28:42,440
Speaker 2: or in charge of Congress, then they are bashing the right.

501
00:28:43,200 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 2: Fox tends to do the opposite. They do better when

502
00:28:46,120 --> 00:28:50,560
Speaker 2: there's a Democrat in power and they bash them, they

503
00:28:50,560 --> 00:28:52,160
Speaker 2: do better when they're out of power.

504
00:28:53,280 --> 00:28:56,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean that's something we should talk about quickly.

505
00:28:56,240 --> 00:28:58,120
Speaker 1: I guess it was a paper in twenty twenty five

506
00:28:58,240 --> 00:29:02,440
Speaker 1: from UC Boulder finance professor named Diego Garcia who analyze

507
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:05,120
Speaker 1: like who, like what these networks are talking about, who

508
00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: they're talking about, and like how are they talking about them?

509
00:29:08,440 --> 00:29:10,760
Speaker 1: And they found like kind of supporting what you just

510
00:29:10,800 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 1: said that MSNBC spent the majority of their time about

511
00:29:14,320 --> 00:29:17,760
Speaker 1: sixty percent of their time talking about Republicans, Fox News

512
00:29:17,800 --> 00:29:21,520
Speaker 1: about the same and reverse talking about Democrats and obviously

513
00:29:21,560 --> 00:29:25,360
Speaker 1: both speaking very negatively about the others. And this also

514
00:29:25,480 --> 00:29:29,400
Speaker 1: trickles down to CNBC in Bloomberg and then Fox Business

515
00:29:29,440 --> 00:29:34,160
Speaker 1: on the right. And that outrage like attacking the opposite side,

516
00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:38,680
Speaker 1: that outrage viewership they found really sold that you know,

517
00:29:38,720 --> 00:29:41,840
Speaker 1: that goes by a lot of names like rage profiteering

518
00:29:41,960 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: or you know, obviously just selling anger or angertainment. I'm

519
00:29:45,800 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 1: not a big fan of that one.

520
00:29:47,080 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 2: What about the anger industrial complex?

521
00:29:49,400 --> 00:29:51,959
Speaker 1: Yeah that's pretty good. Sure, yeah, but they found out

522
00:29:52,000 --> 00:29:56,720
Speaker 1: it sells listeners, which in turn sells ads and makes money.

523
00:29:56,760 --> 00:29:59,280
Speaker 1: So they really all sort of are those too. At

524
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:02,000
Speaker 1: the very least down on that. CNN is still and

525
00:30:02,040 --> 00:30:06,720
Speaker 1: this isn't just us opinionizing, if they're literal media watchdogs

526
00:30:06,720 --> 00:30:12,240
Speaker 1: that you know, study and rate these channels, and CNN

527
00:30:12,320 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: of the big three cable news networks, is ranked you know,

528
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: slightly left of center compared to more left on NBC

529
00:30:20,320 --> 00:30:22,320
Speaker 1: and obviously way more right for Box News.

530
00:30:22,520 --> 00:30:25,320
Speaker 2: Right. And then also bear in mind CNN typically has

531
00:30:25,400 --> 00:30:30,600
Speaker 2: the lowest ratings of MSNBC and CNN. Right. Yeah, yeah,

532
00:30:30,680 --> 00:30:35,480
Speaker 2: because angertainment sorry, sells like really well. And the reason

533
00:30:35,520 --> 00:30:38,200
Speaker 2: why is because you get a physical like pop from

534
00:30:38,240 --> 00:30:43,600
Speaker 2: being angry, like it releases neurotransmitters that make you feel

535
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:48,560
Speaker 2: good and powerful and alive again. And then you start

536
00:30:48,600 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 2: to come down and you want it again, so you

537
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:52,760
Speaker 2: go back, You stay tuned, you stay glued for more,

538
00:30:53,080 --> 00:30:55,920
Speaker 2: and like you said, that's this divide in America has

539
00:30:56,120 --> 00:30:58,920
Speaker 2: just come from people who are targeting the brains of

540
00:30:58,960 --> 00:31:02,520
Speaker 2: people just sing that button over and over again to

541
00:31:02,640 --> 00:31:06,560
Speaker 2: keep them on the same channel for money. That's it.

542
00:31:06,760 --> 00:31:09,160
Speaker 2: That's it, That's all there is to it. Yeah.

543
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:11,880
Speaker 1: I was trying my best to find out any kind

544
00:31:11,920 --> 00:31:16,840
Speaker 1: of study on or just statistics on how many hours

545
00:31:16,840 --> 00:31:21,280
Speaker 1: a day loyal viewers of each of these channels like

546
00:31:21,360 --> 00:31:24,760
Speaker 1: has it on? And I could only just go from

547
00:31:24,800 --> 00:31:29,760
Speaker 1: what I anecdotally see, which is I know people on

548
00:31:29,840 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 1: the right that in their house like have Fox News

549
00:31:34,000 --> 00:31:37,400
Speaker 1: just on as Oh yeah, that's the background music. It's

550
00:31:37,440 --> 00:31:39,960
Speaker 1: on all day long. When you're passing through the room,

551
00:31:40,000 --> 00:31:41,600
Speaker 1: you can just pick up a tidbit here and there,

552
00:31:41,720 --> 00:31:45,120
Speaker 1: not necessarily just sitting literally and watching it eyes glued

553
00:31:45,160 --> 00:31:48,080
Speaker 1: forward the entire time. But it's just on. And I

554
00:31:48,120 --> 00:31:51,800
Speaker 1: don't know anybody on the left that I know that

555
00:31:52,520 --> 00:31:56,520
Speaker 1: has the TV literally constantly on their favorite cable news network.

556
00:31:56,560 --> 00:32:00,320
Speaker 2: It's interesting, I do. It's typically CNN that'll have that'll

557
00:32:00,320 --> 00:32:01,040
Speaker 2: be on all day.

558
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:03,360
Speaker 1: H see, I don't know anyone that does that. That's

559
00:32:03,400 --> 00:32:05,560
Speaker 1: good to know that that happens, but yeah, it definitely does.

560
00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:10,120
Speaker 1: It seems just to me it seems unhealthy and really

561
00:32:10,160 --> 00:32:12,920
Speaker 1: out there to only have that on all day long.

562
00:32:13,160 --> 00:32:14,480
Speaker 1: It is no matter what side.

563
00:32:14,280 --> 00:32:17,640
Speaker 2: You probably deeply unhealthy. It's bad for the person, it's

564
00:32:17,680 --> 00:32:20,560
Speaker 2: bad for society to have that on all day long.

565
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:24,000
Speaker 1: Yeah, any channel or any television, Oh sure for that.

566
00:32:24,000 --> 00:32:28,160
Speaker 2: Totally, totally. So there was a study also that we found.

567
00:32:28,440 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 2: It was from twenty twenty five and they looked at

568
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:32,959
Speaker 2: it was in Nature magazine or Nature of the Journal.

569
00:32:33,920 --> 00:32:38,520
Speaker 2: They looked at primetime shows from twenty twelve to twenty

570
00:32:38,560 --> 00:32:43,120
Speaker 2: twenty two on Fox, MSNBC, and CNN to find out

571
00:32:43,160 --> 00:32:46,160
Speaker 2: which were the most polarized. They found that over those

572
00:32:46,240 --> 00:32:51,000
Speaker 2: ten years, Fox had the largest number of highly polarizing

573
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:55,360
Speaker 2: shows Sean Hannity, The O'Reilly Factor, Tucker Carls and Laura Ingram,

574
00:32:56,160 --> 00:33:02,280
Speaker 2: but stnn's Cuomo Prime Time MSNBC's Deadline White House were

575
00:33:02,320 --> 00:33:06,240
Speaker 2: the most polarizing shows across all three networks. Oh, interesting,

576
00:33:06,560 --> 00:33:09,440
Speaker 2: there's something else to unpack their two Chuck, These are

577
00:33:09,480 --> 00:33:13,560
Speaker 2: primetime shows. Yeah, that is a that's new as well.

578
00:33:13,640 --> 00:33:17,000
Speaker 2: That means that people like this is where these these

579
00:33:17,040 --> 00:33:20,800
Speaker 2: cable networks make like the bulk of their advertising revenue

580
00:33:20,920 --> 00:33:25,120
Speaker 2: is prime time. That means that people left entertainment, They

581
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:29,040
Speaker 2: left cop shows, court shows, medical dramas, and moved over

582
00:33:29,160 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 2: to news cable news. That's what they watch in primetime.

583
00:33:33,000 --> 00:33:37,920
Speaker 2: Now that's just boring, But it's not though. It's like

584
00:33:38,160 --> 00:33:40,880
Speaker 2: for me, like your your buttons are just pressed over

585
00:33:40,920 --> 00:33:41,760
Speaker 2: and over and over.

586
00:33:41,960 --> 00:33:45,719
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, yeah for sure. Uh. You know. One

587
00:33:45,720 --> 00:33:47,720
Speaker 1: thing we do need to point out though, because these

588
00:33:47,720 --> 00:33:51,520
Speaker 1: are primetime shows that like it's changing the political landscape

589
00:33:51,520 --> 00:33:54,800
Speaker 1: and how our country like thinks about our fellow citizens.

590
00:33:54,840 --> 00:33:57,800
Speaker 1: So it's an important thing to address. Some of the

591
00:33:57,840 --> 00:34:01,760
Speaker 1: stuff you see on Fox News is not based in truth.

592
00:34:01,840 --> 00:34:04,800
Speaker 1: And that is not just my opinion as somebody who's

593
00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:08,160
Speaker 1: clearly on the left side of things. You need only

594
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:12,120
Speaker 1: look at something like the eight one hundred million dollar

595
00:34:12,320 --> 00:34:15,440
Speaker 1: like close to a billion dollar settlement to avoid a

596
00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 1: very public, highly anticipated trial where they were going to

597
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,959
Speaker 1: have to trot up, you know, Chucker Carlson and Sean

598
00:34:22,040 --> 00:34:24,480
Speaker 1: Hannity and like put these people on the stand to

599
00:34:24,560 --> 00:34:29,400
Speaker 1: talk about the literal lies they told about dominion voting systems.

600
00:34:29,840 --> 00:34:32,400
Speaker 1: So that trial was coming up, and they're like, no, no, no,

601
00:34:32,480 --> 00:34:34,319
Speaker 1: that would be really bad if we had to go

602
00:34:34,400 --> 00:34:37,400
Speaker 1: up on the stand and admit under oath that we

603
00:34:37,520 --> 00:34:39,799
Speaker 1: lied about all this stuff. So let's just settle for

604
00:34:39,840 --> 00:34:43,840
Speaker 1: eight hundred million dollars and never even fully admit wrongdoing.

605
00:34:44,520 --> 00:34:46,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's not just that one, like the

606
00:34:47,040 --> 00:34:49,400
Speaker 2: cover up, the idea that there was a cover up

607
00:34:49,400 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 2: over Benghazi, conspiracy theories about the death of Seth Rich,

608
00:34:54,400 --> 00:34:57,960
Speaker 2: the Birther conspiracy theory, all these things reported on lie

609
00:34:58,080 --> 00:35:03,640
Speaker 2: that Donald Trump had the twenty twenty elections stolen from him.

610
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:07,799
Speaker 2: Like these things were reported right, not like, hey, this

611
00:35:07,960 --> 00:35:10,120
Speaker 2: is what some people are saying, Like these were reported

612
00:35:10,680 --> 00:35:14,400
Speaker 2: as fact, right, And so this is that part of

613
00:35:14,640 --> 00:35:18,120
Speaker 2: the twisting or the separating of the shared reality that

614
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:21,800
Speaker 2: has like scholars concerned, just everyday people who know about

615
00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:27,799
Speaker 2: this concerned, and like it's typically viewed from what I've

616
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:31,759
Speaker 2: seen as a false equivocation to say, well, MSNBC does

617
00:35:31,800 --> 00:35:36,320
Speaker 2: that too. Nobody does it like Fox does. They just don't.

618
00:35:36,800 --> 00:35:40,760
Speaker 2: That's just fact. But that's not to say it doesn't

619
00:35:40,800 --> 00:35:45,120
Speaker 2: happen on other networks like MSNBC. One really stand out

620
00:35:45,200 --> 00:35:49,319
Speaker 2: example is the Russia Gate episode with Rachel Maddow, who

621
00:35:49,400 --> 00:35:54,200
Speaker 2: was covering the molar investigation. Is basically like here, it

622
00:35:54,239 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 2: comes any moment, Now they're going to show that Trump

623
00:35:57,080 --> 00:36:00,000
Speaker 2: is this puppet that's being directed by the Kremlin, and

624
00:36:00,239 --> 00:36:02,759
Speaker 2: was really like so much so she got sued for

625
00:36:02,920 --> 00:36:07,400
Speaker 2: sixty seven million dollars Reliable and she beat that, but

626
00:36:07,719 --> 00:36:10,360
Speaker 2: you know, it was still it had legs like she

627
00:36:10,520 --> 00:36:15,080
Speaker 2: was really really promoting this conspiracy theory. And yes it

628
00:36:15,120 --> 00:36:18,440
Speaker 2: was tied to Robert Mueller's actual investigation and that actually

629
00:36:18,520 --> 00:36:21,800
Speaker 2: was happening, but the leaps and bounds and like intimation

630
00:36:22,000 --> 00:36:24,800
Speaker 2: she was making just went well beyond any kind of

631
00:36:24,880 --> 00:36:28,279
Speaker 2: journalistic standard. And then there's one other thing Chuck too,

632
00:36:28,320 --> 00:36:32,120
Speaker 2: that all three do, and that is essentially filtering what

633
00:36:32,320 --> 00:36:36,600
Speaker 2: makes it on there? Right, So, like say CNN decides

634
00:36:36,640 --> 00:36:39,480
Speaker 2: that they're not going to put some negative coverage of

635
00:36:39,840 --> 00:36:43,960
Speaker 2: Barack Obama on and instead they're going to either just

636
00:36:44,040 --> 00:36:46,880
Speaker 2: not cover that or they're going to cover positive coverage

637
00:36:46,920 --> 00:36:50,560
Speaker 2: of him. Right, that's filtering. You're filtering news to help

638
00:36:50,640 --> 00:36:54,879
Speaker 2: promote like a favored candidate. And when you're doing opinion journalism,

639
00:36:55,480 --> 00:36:58,000
Speaker 2: you have a favorite candidate, you have a candidate that

640
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:01,480
Speaker 2: you hate, and your point is to teach your viewers

641
00:37:01,680 --> 00:37:05,880
Speaker 2: to love that candidate or hate that candidate. That's just

642
00:37:06,600 --> 00:37:08,480
Speaker 2: that arises from it naturally.

643
00:37:09,160 --> 00:37:11,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was a study in twenty twenty three where

644
00:37:11,640 --> 00:37:16,439
Speaker 1: they paid Fox News viewers, like conservative people. They paid

645
00:37:16,480 --> 00:37:18,640
Speaker 1: them to watch CNN for a month for thirty days

646
00:37:18,680 --> 00:37:21,560
Speaker 1: to see what effect that had on their political views.

647
00:37:22,160 --> 00:37:26,719
Speaker 1: And what they found was they were seeing news that

648
00:37:26,960 --> 00:37:29,600
Speaker 1: Fox News didn't even cover. That's part of that filtering.

649
00:37:29,960 --> 00:37:31,759
Speaker 1: They were like, oh, well, we didn't know this was

650
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:34,880
Speaker 1: happening because Fox News just literally wouldn't cover it. Yeah,

651
00:37:34,920 --> 00:37:37,880
Speaker 1: they filter out that stuff to fit a narrative. And

652
00:37:39,400 --> 00:37:44,320
Speaker 1: I after the month, they had a slightly lower opinion

653
00:37:44,680 --> 00:37:49,280
Speaker 1: of Donald Trump, these conservatives did, and a slightly higher opinion.

654
00:37:49,360 --> 00:37:51,040
Speaker 1: And this was at the time in twenty twenty three

655
00:37:51,080 --> 00:37:53,440
Speaker 1: when mail in balloting was a big deal, a slightly

656
00:37:53,480 --> 00:37:56,239
Speaker 1: higher opinion of mail in ballots. But then they also

657
00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:59,200
Speaker 1: said in the follow up it was like a short

658
00:37:59,239 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 1: lived thing once they went back to Fox News, and

659
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 1: you know, that stuff went away. But you know, this

660
00:38:03,120 --> 00:38:05,160
Speaker 1: is something I see a lot when I'm I see

661
00:38:05,160 --> 00:38:07,560
Speaker 1: a story or I'm like, well, here's a big factual

662
00:38:07,600 --> 00:38:10,920
Speaker 1: thing that happened. That's a big black eye, and I

663
00:38:10,960 --> 00:38:13,719
Speaker 1: will go see and a lot of times and this

664
00:38:13,800 --> 00:38:18,680
Speaker 1: is online. Foxnews dot Com just literally just doesn't cover it, right,

665
00:38:18,880 --> 00:38:20,880
Speaker 1: like at all. It's just not there, like it didn't happen.

666
00:38:21,200 --> 00:38:23,360
Speaker 1: And if you're only getting your news from one source

667
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 1: and you don't know that something is literally happening because

668
00:38:26,840 --> 00:38:29,920
Speaker 1: it's not being covered, that's bad for democracy.

669
00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:33,120
Speaker 2: For sure, you know, yeah, because you're you just yeah,

670
00:38:33,360 --> 00:38:36,280
Speaker 2: you can't hold somebody accountable if you're not actually reporting

671
00:38:36,320 --> 00:38:39,399
Speaker 2: on the bad stuff too. You know, should we take

672
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:42,479
Speaker 2: a break, Yeah, let's take a break, all right.

673
00:38:42,400 --> 00:39:14,560
Speaker 3: We'll be right back, So, Chuck, we talked about opinion media.

674
00:39:14,800 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 2: I've been calling opinion journalism, and I think that's actually

675
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,959
Speaker 2: a contradiction in terms. Yeah, so opinion media, like we said,

676
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:23,839
Speaker 2: it's just basically like putting somebody who's willing to say

677
00:39:23,920 --> 00:39:27,240
Speaker 2: stuff about you know, they're fairly knowledgeable about a particular

678
00:39:27,280 --> 00:39:30,120
Speaker 2: topic and they're going to say something and maybe it's

679
00:39:30,160 --> 00:39:34,480
Speaker 2: even a controversial opinion. Like, that's opinion media. And it

680
00:39:34,560 --> 00:39:37,959
Speaker 2: is so much cheaper than actual journalism, which is one

681
00:39:38,000 --> 00:39:41,440
Speaker 2: reason why it's just such a huge prominent part of

682
00:39:41,480 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 2: prime time on cable news.

683
00:39:43,239 --> 00:39:47,200
Speaker 1: Yeah. Cheaper meaning inexpensive, not like a cheap shot just

684
00:39:47,200 --> 00:39:50,120
Speaker 1: to clear that up. Like real journalism takes a lot

685
00:39:50,120 --> 00:39:53,880
Speaker 1: of time, which gets expensive. You have to conduct interviews,

686
00:39:53,920 --> 00:39:55,600
Speaker 1: and you have to research real data, and you have

687
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:57,920
Speaker 1: to fact check, and you have to cultivate your sources.

688
00:39:58,760 --> 00:40:01,719
Speaker 1: If you just throw someone on who's like, hey, I'm

689
00:40:01,760 --> 00:40:03,920
Speaker 1: mad about this thing, I'll go on TV and talk

690
00:40:03,920 --> 00:40:07,480
Speaker 1: about it like I'm a famous quote unquote journalist, Like

691
00:40:07,560 --> 00:40:09,480
Speaker 1: that's super cheap. All you have to do is kind

692
00:40:09,480 --> 00:40:11,799
Speaker 1: of frame the bare bones of a story and then

693
00:40:12,840 --> 00:40:16,600
Speaker 1: rant about it, and that negative negativity really sells. There

694
00:40:16,640 --> 00:40:20,279
Speaker 1: was an analysis into twenty eleven where a researcher examine

695
00:40:20,800 --> 00:40:24,440
Speaker 1: the primetime lineups of the two really big opposing sides,

696
00:40:24,480 --> 00:40:29,560
Speaker 1: Fox News and MSNBC, and they were obviously ideologically opposed,

697
00:40:29,600 --> 00:40:33,239
Speaker 1: but they were Fox News was as far as the

698
00:40:33,280 --> 00:40:35,720
Speaker 1: tone and language they use, was ninety two percent negative,

699
00:40:36,120 --> 00:40:39,160
Speaker 1: eight percent neutral, and zero percent positive. On the other side,

700
00:40:39,360 --> 00:40:42,719
Speaker 1: MSNBC was ninety percent negative, five percent neutral, and five

701
00:40:42,760 --> 00:40:47,680
Speaker 1: percent positive. And it's that cultivation of anger that in

702
00:40:47,719 --> 00:40:51,319
Speaker 1: fear that very sadly, that's what drives the loyalty in

703
00:40:51,360 --> 00:40:52,680
Speaker 1: the viewership these days.

704
00:40:52,600 --> 00:40:56,040
Speaker 2: Exactly because again, the anger is an addictive thing and

705
00:40:56,080 --> 00:40:58,200
Speaker 2: they know how to press those buttons. One of the

706
00:40:58,200 --> 00:41:01,080
Speaker 2: ways they do press the buttons too. This is groundbreaking

707
00:41:01,120 --> 00:41:05,120
Speaker 2: as far as journalism goes. They've helped us with this.

708
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:06,759
Speaker 2: And the way that he put it was they make

709
00:41:06,880 --> 00:41:10,120
Speaker 2: you the viewer the protagonist. Yeah, so that means that

710
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:14,319
Speaker 2: this news that's happening, it's happening to you. The Democrats

711
00:41:14,360 --> 00:41:16,800
Speaker 2: are doing this to you. They're trying to take money

712
00:41:16,800 --> 00:41:19,640
Speaker 2: out of your pocket or vice versa. You know, the

713
00:41:19,680 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 2: GOP is trying to drive this country into fascism and authoritarianism. Like, like,

714
00:41:26,040 --> 00:41:29,040
Speaker 2: it's you that this is happening to Your family's going

715
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:31,480
Speaker 2: to get, you know, taken by in the middle of

716
00:41:31,560 --> 00:41:35,480
Speaker 2: the night by the jack boots or something like that. Right, Yeah,

717
00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:40,840
Speaker 2: So like that's new and that huts through like directly

718
00:41:40,880 --> 00:41:43,040
Speaker 2: to the person. So if you're pressing someone's buttons to

719
00:41:43,080 --> 00:41:45,640
Speaker 2: try to make them angry, talking to them directly and

720
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:49,200
Speaker 2: saying you are the victim, that will get things going

721
00:41:49,280 --> 00:41:52,239
Speaker 2: pretty easily. That primes the old pump pretty well.

722
00:41:52,920 --> 00:41:56,560
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, you know. I mean, I think that's

723
00:41:56,719 --> 00:41:58,400
Speaker 1: one of the saddest things about all this is the

724
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:02,279
Speaker 1: fact that that negative content is what sells, and that's

725
00:42:02,400 --> 00:42:04,960
Speaker 1: just the reality of kind of where we are. But

726
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:09,239
Speaker 1: that has fueled a partisan gap that is like we've

727
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:11,600
Speaker 1: not seen at any other time in our history. And there,

728
00:42:11,920 --> 00:42:14,360
Speaker 1: you know, it's always there's always been a Parson divides,

729
00:42:14,880 --> 00:42:17,160
Speaker 1: but not like we have now. There was a Pew

730
00:42:17,400 --> 00:42:20,640
Speaker 1: Research study on that Parson divide in nineteen ninety four,

731
00:42:21,040 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: and this was before Fox News and MSNBC launched, because

732
00:42:24,560 --> 00:42:26,600
Speaker 1: I think they launched in ninety six, like we said,

733
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:29,799
Speaker 1: but fewer at the time, fewer than twenty percent of

734
00:42:29,840 --> 00:42:34,560
Speaker 1: either Republicans or Democrats view the opposing party as very unfavorable.

735
00:42:35,440 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 1: By twenty seventeen, that number was forty five percent, so

736
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:42,719
Speaker 1: more than doubled. Also, that's from that same study. In

737
00:42:42,760 --> 00:42:47,040
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety four, only sixty percent of Republicans identified themselves

738
00:42:47,480 --> 00:42:53,080
Speaker 1: as quote more consistently conservative than the average Democrat. By

739
00:42:53,200 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 1: twenty seventeen, that number had reached ninety five percent, and

740
00:42:57,400 --> 00:43:00,920
Speaker 1: on the Democrat side, ninety seven percent identified as more

741
00:43:00,920 --> 00:43:05,920
Speaker 1: consistently liberal than the average Republican, up from seventy percent

742
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:10,520
Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety four. So you know, they're both according

743
00:43:10,520 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: to their mandates, they're both doing what they want to

744
00:43:12,719 --> 00:43:13,520
Speaker 1: do very well.

745
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also saw to update it a little bit.

746
00:43:17,080 --> 00:43:21,520
Speaker 2: In twenty twenty two, seventy two percent of GOP respondents

747
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:25,879
Speaker 2: said that Democrats were immoral, and sixty three percent said

748
00:43:25,880 --> 00:43:29,839
Speaker 2: that of Democrats said that Republicans were immoral. Yeah, that

749
00:43:29,960 --> 00:43:33,880
Speaker 2: is a character like attack. Yeah, not like you have

750
00:43:33,920 --> 00:43:36,120
Speaker 2: stupid ideas or you're gonna, you know.

751
00:43:36,320 --> 00:43:37,680
Speaker 1: Waste our country.

752
00:43:37,920 --> 00:43:42,759
Speaker 2: Yeah, you are a bad person, your morals are compromised,

753
00:43:42,840 --> 00:43:45,560
Speaker 2: maybe you don't even have any morals. That is a

754
00:43:45,960 --> 00:43:49,840
Speaker 2: totally different level of attack. And we're talking about this

755
00:43:49,920 --> 00:43:54,920
Speaker 2: American calling that American that because they believed something different politically,

756
00:43:55,280 --> 00:43:58,319
Speaker 2: and all of this again is being fostered, supported and

757
00:43:58,440 --> 00:44:02,240
Speaker 2: stoked by the for our cable news that different sides

758
00:44:02,560 --> 00:44:03,880
Speaker 2: watch all the time.

759
00:44:04,280 --> 00:44:07,080
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not I mean I kind of thought before

760
00:44:07,120 --> 00:44:09,759
Speaker 1: we looked into this stuff and the actual data that

761
00:44:09,880 --> 00:44:13,160
Speaker 1: like online, you know, because things are so siloed online

762
00:44:13,280 --> 00:44:16,080
Speaker 1: as far as the echo chamber goes. If you get

763
00:44:16,080 --> 00:44:21,319
Speaker 1: your news from the internet or social media especially, but

764
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:23,799
Speaker 1: there was a study from University of Pennsylvania that found

765
00:44:23,840 --> 00:44:27,719
Speaker 1: that cable TV news is way more divisive. Only four

766
00:44:27,760 --> 00:44:31,480
Speaker 1: percent of Americans get their online news, so you know,

767
00:44:31,560 --> 00:44:34,200
Speaker 1: social media or whatever. Online from predominantly left or right

768
00:44:34,280 --> 00:44:38,040
Speaker 1: leaning sources, compared to seventeen percent of Americans that said

769
00:44:38,040 --> 00:44:40,800
Speaker 1: they got fifty percent of more of their TV news

770
00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:44,600
Speaker 1: from a very hard right or very hard left network.

771
00:44:44,840 --> 00:44:47,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, and half watched Fox News. The other half watched

772
00:44:48,000 --> 00:44:49,400
Speaker 2: MSNBC or CNN.

773
00:44:49,680 --> 00:44:50,720
Speaker 1: Yep, right down the middle.

774
00:44:50,960 --> 00:44:54,600
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean. One of the other things too, is

775
00:44:54,600 --> 00:44:58,799
Speaker 2: like Foxes gets criticized and criticized, and yes, they were innovators, pioneers.

776
00:44:59,280 --> 00:45:03,840
Speaker 2: They completely change journalism and they do stuff that CNN

777
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:06,840
Speaker 2: and MSNBC don't do. But it just makes you wonder,

778
00:45:06,960 --> 00:45:10,440
Speaker 2: like how different would things be today if CNN and

779
00:45:10,640 --> 00:45:15,799
Speaker 2: MSNBC had just stuck to good journalism and just let

780
00:45:15,840 --> 00:45:18,760
Speaker 2: Fox do their own thing. The fact that they entrenched

781
00:45:18,800 --> 00:45:20,960
Speaker 2: and dug in on the other side because they wanted

782
00:45:20,960 --> 00:45:23,919
Speaker 2: advertising dollars too, And there's a whole untapped market out

783
00:45:23,920 --> 00:45:27,239
Speaker 2: there of liberals and left leaning people that aren't being

784
00:45:27,239 --> 00:45:32,279
Speaker 2: spoken to if they had just kept their their journalistic integrity,

785
00:45:32,400 --> 00:45:34,520
Speaker 2: Like what kind of Like I don't think we would

786
00:45:34,520 --> 00:45:35,720
Speaker 2: be in this mess today.

787
00:45:36,640 --> 00:45:39,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, you don't watch this stuff. To you,

788
00:45:39,239 --> 00:45:43,239
Speaker 1: I haven't turned on a cable news network in I

789
00:45:43,280 --> 00:45:44,800
Speaker 1: don't know since the early two thousands.

790
00:45:44,800 --> 00:45:49,040
Speaker 2: Maybe I've definitely watched it much more recent than that,

791
00:45:49,080 --> 00:45:52,000
Speaker 2: But I mean, I think once, once, once I realized,

792
00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:53,920
Speaker 2: and I think this is typically the case for people,

793
00:45:54,120 --> 00:45:57,560
Speaker 2: Like the point is to upset you and make you mad.

794
00:45:57,880 --> 00:45:59,799
Speaker 2: That's what they're trying to do. That's the whole thing.

795
00:46:00,600 --> 00:46:02,759
Speaker 2: It's tough not to resent that and just be like,

796
00:46:02,800 --> 00:46:04,440
Speaker 2: I'm not subjecting myself to this.

797
00:46:04,840 --> 00:46:07,360
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think for me was when you could really

798
00:46:07,760 --> 00:46:10,839
Speaker 1: source your news, very specifically online is when that's when

799
00:46:10,840 --> 00:46:12,440
Speaker 1: I fully like made that switch.

800
00:46:12,680 --> 00:46:19,080
Speaker 2: Right, So, cable news is actually doing pretty good right now,

801
00:46:19,480 --> 00:46:24,480
Speaker 2: even though cable as a whole is losing viewership. More

802
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:28,680
Speaker 2: and more people are cutting chords. I think, like more

803
00:46:28,719 --> 00:46:31,920
Speaker 2: people are getting their news and information online, even though

804
00:46:31,960 --> 00:46:35,800
Speaker 2: it's still smaller relative to the number of people who

805
00:46:35,880 --> 00:46:40,719
Speaker 2: get their news from cable news. It's the proportions. The

806
00:46:40,800 --> 00:46:43,960
Speaker 2: trends are shifting, and one of the reasons why is

807
00:46:44,040 --> 00:46:49,480
Speaker 2: because cable news viewers are literally dying off. Right, for

808
00:46:49,520 --> 00:46:52,360
Speaker 2: the most part, the median ages of CNN, Fox, and

809
00:46:52,480 --> 00:46:58,319
Speaker 2: MSNBC viewers are sixty seven, sixty eight, and seventy one. Right, Yeah,

810
00:46:58,360 --> 00:47:01,600
Speaker 2: those people aren't going to live for and as they

811
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:05,600
Speaker 2: as they start to pass away, there's not new people

812
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:09,000
Speaker 2: who are younger coming in behind them. That's not where

813
00:47:09,040 --> 00:47:11,399
Speaker 2: younger people are going. First of all, they don't even

814
00:47:11,440 --> 00:47:14,160
Speaker 2: have cable anymore. And secondly, if they do, they're not

815
00:47:14,239 --> 00:47:17,160
Speaker 2: going to watch cable news necessarily. They're probably going to

816
00:47:17,200 --> 00:47:18,960
Speaker 2: be online getting their news.

817
00:47:19,200 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you know, viewership is declining. Fox

818
00:47:22,719 --> 00:47:25,680
Speaker 1: News is seeing has seen the most dramatic decline. They

819
00:47:25,719 --> 00:47:29,880
Speaker 1: were down twenty one percent in total primetime viewership compared

820
00:47:29,880 --> 00:47:33,399
Speaker 1: to the same weeks year over year February to well,

821
00:47:33,440 --> 00:47:36,440
Speaker 1: February to February twenty five to twenty six, and then

822
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:41,400
Speaker 1: in twenty twenty five that is when MSNBC late I

823
00:47:41,400 --> 00:47:43,960
Speaker 1: guess late last year is when they parted ways with

824
00:47:44,040 --> 00:47:47,960
Speaker 1: their NBC News parent company, and that's when they relaunched

825
00:47:48,000 --> 00:47:54,120
Speaker 1: is what is now ms now. Their viewership actually looks

826
00:47:54,120 --> 00:47:56,840
Speaker 1: like that might have worked. They increased by fifteen percent

827
00:47:56,920 --> 00:47:59,960
Speaker 1: year over year for the same timeframe, and CNN is

828
00:48:00,040 --> 00:48:02,600
Speaker 1: the one that's really jumped up. They saw a forty

829
00:48:02,640 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 1: six percent year of a year increase over that same period.

830
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:07,680
Speaker 2: Yea, And I think one reason why Fox is declining

831
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:11,799
Speaker 2: relative to ms now in CNN is because there's Newsmax

832
00:48:11,880 --> 00:48:14,560
Speaker 2: News Nation one American news network.

833
00:48:14,400 --> 00:48:16,640
Speaker 1: Right, three further outlets.

834
00:48:16,719 --> 00:48:19,200
Speaker 2: Yeah right, they were like, you thought Fox was hard, right,

835
00:48:19,280 --> 00:48:22,799
Speaker 2: watch this. Yeah, Fox suddenly seems centrist compared to those guys.

836
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:27,560
Speaker 2: So they're dragging a lot of people away from Fox News.

837
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:29,240
Speaker 2: I think that's a big problem for Fox.

838
00:48:29,640 --> 00:48:31,520
Speaker 1: Yeah. They lost some of their stars too. You know

839
00:48:31,600 --> 00:48:34,719
Speaker 1: when Tucker Carlson left, and obviously before that, what was

840
00:48:34,760 --> 00:48:38,760
Speaker 1: his face, Bill O'Reilly was. Yeah, those were big losses

841
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:39,800
Speaker 1: for that network.

842
00:48:39,880 --> 00:48:43,640
Speaker 2: For sure, and I think losing Roger Als two probably

843
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:45,200
Speaker 2: was a big deal for it too.

844
00:48:45,280 --> 00:48:45,800
Speaker 1: Yeah.

845
00:48:45,920 --> 00:48:49,760
Speaker 2: Good point. But also their whole their whole business model

846
00:48:49,800 --> 00:48:53,279
Speaker 2: we were talking about earlier is in jeopardy because like

847
00:48:53,480 --> 00:48:57,160
Speaker 2: they make money through advertisers, true, but their advertisers are

848
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:59,880
Speaker 2: from viewers, right, and so a fewer people are buying,

849
00:49:00,640 --> 00:49:04,839
Speaker 2: they have fewer viewers. They also make money from subscriptions, right.

850
00:49:04,960 --> 00:49:07,400
Speaker 2: So when you pay for your cable and you're like,

851
00:49:07,440 --> 00:49:10,000
Speaker 2: I have to pay my cable bill to the cable company,

852
00:49:10,280 --> 00:49:13,120
Speaker 2: you're actually not. You're paying the cable company a fraction

853
00:49:13,239 --> 00:49:15,640
Speaker 2: of that. The rest is being divided up among all

854
00:49:15,640 --> 00:49:18,280
Speaker 2: the cable channels who charge a fee to be included

855
00:49:18,320 --> 00:49:21,200
Speaker 2: in this bundle. That's the wholesale business model. That's what

856
00:49:21,360 --> 00:49:27,200
Speaker 2: cable news does, all cable channels do. That's with cable dying,

857
00:49:27,280 --> 00:49:29,200
Speaker 2: they're not going to be able to do that anymore.

858
00:49:29,560 --> 00:49:31,960
Speaker 2: Now They're going to have to be like, actually, we

859
00:49:32,000 --> 00:49:34,959
Speaker 2: want to charge you directly like Netflix or Hulu does

860
00:49:35,200 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 2: to get Fox we're going to be streaming online, right

861
00:49:38,200 --> 00:49:40,879
Speaker 2: or to get CNN. Say, they're in the same jeopardy too,

862
00:49:42,200 --> 00:49:44,640
Speaker 2: And that means people who are going to be like, wait,

863
00:49:44,719 --> 00:49:47,319
Speaker 2: I got Fox News for free before. You didn't really

864
00:49:47,400 --> 00:49:49,040
Speaker 2: because it was part of cable you were paying for,

865
00:49:49,560 --> 00:49:52,200
Speaker 2: but to you it was free, and now Fox is

866
00:49:52,239 --> 00:49:55,879
Speaker 2: asking you to pay, you know, twelve bucks a month

867
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:57,920
Speaker 2: or something like that to get it. Some people will

868
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:00,800
Speaker 2: do that, some people won't. So there really kind of

869
00:50:00,840 --> 00:50:04,759
Speaker 2: worried about that, and not just Fox again, MSNBC and

870
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:08,319
Speaker 2: CNN are facing the same crisis, just apparently to a

871
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:09,919
Speaker 2: slightly lesser degree right now.

872
00:50:10,360 --> 00:50:12,279
Speaker 1: Right but the writing's on the wall for everybody, and

873
00:50:12,320 --> 00:50:14,120
Speaker 1: they're all trying to pivot a little bit to the

874
00:50:14,160 --> 00:50:19,680
Speaker 1: more online model, even in little ways like CNN prioritizing

875
00:50:19,760 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 1: vertical video podcast. You know, MSNBC has a lot of

876
00:50:24,880 --> 00:50:28,360
Speaker 1: very popular podcasts. Rachel Maddow is at the center, you know,

877
00:50:28,400 --> 00:50:31,319
Speaker 1: their world podcast wise. But those have found like big

878
00:50:31,360 --> 00:50:34,640
Speaker 1: time audiences, so they're you know, they they know what's

879
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:38,560
Speaker 1: coming and they know that. I think three quarters of

880
00:50:38,560 --> 00:50:42,160
Speaker 1: the baby boomer generation are going to be gone by

881
00:50:42,280 --> 00:50:44,480
Speaker 1: the year twenty thirty seven, and that's a big chunk

882
00:50:44,520 --> 00:50:46,240
Speaker 1: of all these audiences for sure.

883
00:50:47,840 --> 00:50:50,000
Speaker 2: One last thing, something occurred to me while I was

884
00:50:50,040 --> 00:50:54,239
Speaker 2: researching this chuck that there is a silver lining. There's

885
00:50:54,280 --> 00:50:59,640
Speaker 2: a good thing to this huge partisan divide of one

886
00:50:59,680 --> 00:51:02,560
Speaker 2: side versus the other that cable news has helped bring about,

887
00:51:03,680 --> 00:51:06,520
Speaker 2: and that is that it is carved out a middle

888
00:51:07,160 --> 00:51:11,000
Speaker 2: of people who are like, wow, Democrats and Republicans are

889
00:51:11,120 --> 00:51:14,440
Speaker 2: terrible and they suck as both parties, which to me

890
00:51:14,520 --> 00:51:17,800
Speaker 2: has opened like a room for a viable third party

891
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:21,040
Speaker 2: to start to develop, maybe multiple third parties start to

892
00:51:21,080 --> 00:51:23,879
Speaker 2: develop and actually get rid of like the two party

893
00:51:23,920 --> 00:51:26,560
Speaker 2: system might have shot itself in the foot by going

894
00:51:26,680 --> 00:51:31,480
Speaker 2: so full on tribal. That's my hope. That's I'm hoping

895
00:51:31,520 --> 00:51:33,719
Speaker 2: that at least that good comes out of this.

896
00:51:34,200 --> 00:51:36,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, me too, because none of it's any good for

897
00:51:36,880 --> 00:51:38,239
Speaker 1: our country, you know.

898
00:51:38,520 --> 00:51:43,359
Speaker 2: It genuinely isn't. It genuinely isn't. And to our conservative,

899
00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:47,120
Speaker 2: Republican right on the right listeners like this is not

900
00:51:47,200 --> 00:51:50,240
Speaker 2: an attack on you or your beliefs, and us throwing

901
00:51:50,320 --> 00:51:52,960
Speaker 2: Rachel Maddow into the mix was not just bait for

902
00:51:53,040 --> 00:51:56,160
Speaker 2: the right to you left leaning listeners like she really

903
00:51:56,160 --> 00:51:59,719
Speaker 2: did overdo Russiagate, Like we tried to do this as

904
00:52:00,120 --> 00:52:03,399
Speaker 2: a and balanced as we possibly could, so please don't

905
00:52:03,440 --> 00:52:04,839
Speaker 2: have taken it any other way.

906
00:52:05,440 --> 00:52:07,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, we say, flush all three down the.

907
00:52:07,360 --> 00:52:10,280
Speaker 2: Toilet, exactly, Chuck, exactly.

908
00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:15,399
Speaker 1: Oh man, what a that's a fun episode. I enjoyed

909
00:52:15,440 --> 00:52:15,920
Speaker 1: this one.

910
00:52:16,160 --> 00:52:18,799
Speaker 2: Well, I'm glad you did, Chuck. I think you just

911
00:52:18,920 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 2: accidentally walked right into listener mail.

912
00:52:21,120 --> 00:52:26,680
Speaker 1: Then all right, I'm gonna call this a follow up

913
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:30,640
Speaker 1: about the Hindenburg episode. Hey, guys, just finished listening to

914
00:52:30,680 --> 00:52:33,160
Speaker 1: the Hindenburg. Great stuff. One thing that really got me

915
00:52:33,239 --> 00:52:37,360
Speaker 1: laughing was the Bend Dover comments. Magically, I have an

916
00:52:37,400 --> 00:52:40,680
Speaker 1: adult friend whose name is Ben Dover. As you can imagine,

917
00:52:40,719 --> 00:52:42,919
Speaker 1: he's a great guy. As I think anyone with names

918
00:52:42,920 --> 00:52:45,279
Speaker 1: like that could be teased or made fun of. Turn

919
00:52:45,320 --> 00:52:47,560
Speaker 1: Out to be amazing people usually, so shout out to

920
00:52:47,600 --> 00:52:49,719
Speaker 1: all the Bendovers out there in the world, including my

921
00:52:49,800 --> 00:52:53,120
Speaker 1: friend Nice, longtime listener, and I work as a wildlife biologist.

922
00:52:53,120 --> 00:52:55,240
Speaker 1: In the first time, I was introduced to your shows

923
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:57,919
Speaker 1: during a long drive to get a California condor sick

924
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:00,600
Speaker 1: with lead poisoning from northern California back to the San

925
00:53:00,640 --> 00:53:05,560
Speaker 1: Diego Zoo to keep habituating the bird. We drove many

926
00:53:05,640 --> 00:53:08,080
Speaker 1: hours with the bird in a crate in the back

927
00:53:08,160 --> 00:53:10,920
Speaker 1: of the suv and absolute silence into past time. My

928
00:53:11,040 --> 00:53:14,640
Speaker 1: coworker and I shared one side of corded earbuds and

929
00:53:14,719 --> 00:53:18,759
Speaker 1: alternated between our favorite podcasts. This is long before smartphones

930
00:53:19,120 --> 00:53:21,840
Speaker 1: are an everyday occurrence and people could listen to whatever whenever.

931
00:53:22,200 --> 00:53:24,040
Speaker 1: I'm now a mom and still find ourselves on long

932
00:53:24,120 --> 00:53:26,440
Speaker 1: drives because we live in a pretty remote place. My

933
00:53:26,520 --> 00:53:31,320
Speaker 1: family also listens and loves a podcast because its informational, interesting,

934
00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:33,040
Speaker 1: and kid friendly, and we hope to make it to

935
00:53:33,120 --> 00:53:35,560
Speaker 1: a live show the next time you're close by. Thanks

936
00:53:35,560 --> 00:53:37,799
Speaker 1: for all you do and keeping us company over so

937
00:53:37,840 --> 00:53:40,360
Speaker 1: many years and so many miles. That is from Katie.

938
00:53:40,880 --> 00:53:43,600
Speaker 2: Oh thanks a lot, Katie. That was is it? Katie?

939
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:45,960
Speaker 1: Or kt Katie.

940
00:53:46,120 --> 00:53:49,959
Speaker 2: Okay, thank you, Katie. That was a very cute little

941
00:53:49,960 --> 00:53:51,200
Speaker 2: sketch that you made for us.

942
00:53:51,239 --> 00:53:51,439
Speaker 1: There.

943
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:53,640
Speaker 2: I can just imagine you and your coworker each with

944
00:53:53,719 --> 00:53:54,280
Speaker 2: the earbud.

945
00:53:54,560 --> 00:53:55,000
Speaker 1: I love that.

946
00:53:55,840 --> 00:53:57,560
Speaker 2: If you want to be like Katie and get in

947
00:53:57,600 --> 00:54:00,400
Speaker 2: touch with us with a cute little anecdote, we love those.

948
00:54:00,880 --> 00:54:02,720
Speaker 2: You can wrap it up, spank it on the bottom,

949
00:54:02,760 --> 00:54:09,160
Speaker 2: and send it off to stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.

950
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:12,200
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For

951
00:54:12,280 --> 00:54:16,480
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

952
00:54:16,600 --> 00:54:18,440
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.