Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, where we speak
Speaker 1: with some of the brightest minds working in the media
Speaker 1: business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety. I'm really curious
Speaker 1: to see how the political conventions are going to play
Speaker 1: out when they begin next week here in the US.
Speaker 1: The pandemic will certainly mean a very different kind of
Speaker 1: coverage than we're used to everywhere, from TV networks to
Speaker 1: social media, including Snapchat. Home base for my next guest,
Speaker 1: Peter Hamby, is the host of that platform's daily political program,
Speaker 1: Good Luck America. I'm happy to have him here to
Speaker 1: talk about this Bonker's presidential race and Snapchats place in it.
Speaker 1: Thanks for making time today, Peter, Yeah, thanks for having me. So,
Speaker 1: if this were a normal year, you might already be
Speaker 1: in Milwaukee the side of the d n C. But
Speaker 1: thanks to the virus this year, there's no convention floor,
Speaker 1: no confetti falling on the frenzy crowds. So tell me
Speaker 1: what can viewers at home even expect to see in
Speaker 1: the absence of the usual spectacle. Yeah, no, you're right.
Speaker 1: I mean, like I, my lifeblood is traveling and covering
Speaker 1: this stuff and I and I also personally love Milwaukee
Speaker 1: randomly like some good hotels. Spotted Cow beer is great,
Speaker 1: so I would have loved to be there. Um. Look,
Speaker 1: you know, from my conversations with the d n c
Speaker 1: UH convention organizers, you know, people my old friends at
Speaker 1: CNN and other places, you know, I think what we're
Speaker 1: just going to have to expect is something extremely boring.
Speaker 1: I mean, with all due respect to the convention planners
Speaker 1: who are trying to make the convention you know, fun
Speaker 1: and virtual, and they're trying to innovate. Um, it's going
Speaker 1: to end up looking like a bunch of speeches live
Speaker 1: streamed on television. I mean, that's just what it's going
Speaker 1: to look like. And I think we shouldn't overthink it
Speaker 1: and overcomplicated. It's going to be a lot of dry,
Speaker 1: boring speeches, just sort of live streamed. Um. Does that
Speaker 1: have any implications for the race though, because sometimes the
Speaker 1: convention was the place where this candidate got a boost
Speaker 1: or that candidate dropped. Yeah. No, there's typically a convention
Speaker 1: boost in UH for in the polls for one candidate
Speaker 1: or the other. But that's pretty ephemeral. Um, A lot
Speaker 1: of a lot of there are a lot of atmospheric
Speaker 1: things that happened in a campaign UM debates the selection
Speaker 1: of the vice presidential pick convention um, and they can
Speaker 1: lead to a sugar high. You know. I was covering
Speaker 1: Sarah Palin when she was announced in St. Paul in
Speaker 1: two eight, and McCain jumped like four or five points
Speaker 1: in the polls, but a leveled out because they're just fundamentals.
Speaker 1: And the fundamentals of this race are that Donald Trump
Speaker 1: is deeply unpopular, that the pandemic is such a drag
Speaker 1: on you know, him, and the economy, that Joe Biden
Speaker 1: is winning nationally anywhere from six to ten points, and
Speaker 1: then this wing states from due to six points in
Speaker 1: places like Arizona and Texas or now swing states, which
Speaker 1: is wild. Um. So the fundamentals are what they are.
Speaker 1: And I would say that the conventions, uh, you know,
Speaker 1: and with all the respect to a lot of my
Speaker 1: friends who are working in politics and immersed in this stuff,
Speaker 1: they're kind of boring in the first place and didn't
Speaker 1: matter that much in the first place. Um. You know,
Speaker 1: I think Donald Trump in sixteen was such a you know,
Speaker 1: charismatic lightning rod that everyone wanted to hang on his
Speaker 1: every word and his you know, people watched his convention,
Speaker 1: um Hillary and him both had about forty million viewers.
Speaker 1: I mean, Andy, I would be surprised if this commence.
Speaker 1: These conventions got sorry, the dumb one at least got
Speaker 1: half of that, right. I just think people are less
Speaker 1: interested in horse race politics and the atmospherics of the
Speaker 1: campaign trail right now, and are way more concerned with
Speaker 1: their health and the economy and their personal lives and
Speaker 1: staying at home. And a lot of people have just
Speaker 1: kind of rendered a verdict on Trump and are ready
Speaker 1: for this kind of thing to be over. I would say,
Speaker 1: like the VP pick like will get some excitement for
Speaker 1: a few weeks, but it might not even matter that
Speaker 1: much either. You know. That's just people just kind of
Speaker 1: want the election to happen, and the usual ups and
Speaker 1: downs of a campaign are just not being covered, and
Speaker 1: they're not being followed except by the obsessives. Well, it
Speaker 1: just seems like the coverage to date, and I assume
Speaker 1: up until November is Trump Trump, Trump and Biden seeming
Speaker 1: to deliberately hang back. Any reason to think it will
Speaker 1: be any different as we, I guess head to the
Speaker 1: beginning of the home stretch. I don't think so. I
Speaker 1: really don't. I think you're smart to say that he's
Speaker 1: deliberately doing that, because there was an early take in
Speaker 1: the press that you know, Biden was trapped in his basement,
Speaker 1: how will he be able to campaign? And again, back
Speaker 1: in March and April, we didn't really We thought maybe
Speaker 1: the you know, health scare might recede at some point
Speaker 1: in the fall and Biden would be able to get
Speaker 1: back out there. I think they are realizing that just
Speaker 1: kind of a do no harm campaign is actually working.
Speaker 1: I mean, every every piece of evidence points to that. Um.
Speaker 1: The entire political environment, with or without the pandemic was
Speaker 1: was about Donald Trump and Biden being a safe alternative,
Speaker 1: which was his bet going into the primarias even before
Speaker 1: coronavirus turned out to be actually pretty sharp. UM. And
Speaker 1: so I don't I don't see that changing. I think
Speaker 1: this has disrupted, um, the sort of usual strategies of
Speaker 1: a campaign, and kind of an interesting and useful way
Speaker 1: if you work in politics, right like why you know, people,
Speaker 1: you definitely lose access to voters and local media markets
Speaker 1: when you can't travel little Columbus, Ohio in Las Vegas
Speaker 1: and do these campaign rallies. But you know, increasingly. Unlike
Speaker 1: state and local campaigns, presidential campaigns were already virtual. They
Speaker 1: were already happening on your screens at all times. It
Speaker 1: was all about who could command attention in in the
Speaker 1: era of social media and earned media. And you know,
Speaker 1: do you need to be out there shaking hands every
Speaker 1: day when you can just zoom into Raleigh and do
Speaker 1: some local TV um, you know back you know, in
Speaker 1: the in the veeps, in the veep stakes chatter. A
Speaker 1: criticism of Susan Rice was that she couldn't she hasn't
Speaker 1: run a campaign before, and that would be a challenge
Speaker 1: for her. And I remember reading a column in l
Speaker 1: A Times about that and thinking, what campaign trail right?
Speaker 1: Like like, it's clear that you don't necessarily need to
Speaker 1: be traveling and meeting voters and being on the road
Speaker 1: to win a campaign. The thing that's lost, of course,
Speaker 1: is voter contact, which is incredibly important right now. People
Speaker 1: aren't really you know, amped to answer their doors when
Speaker 1: people knock and ask them if they're supporting Biden her rump. Uh. So,
Speaker 1: campaigns need to innovate and find ways to reach voters.
Speaker 1: But I don't see the campaign changing that much between
Speaker 1: over the next few months. Well, and what about the
Speaker 1: John Cable News. Because you come to this, you've been
Speaker 1: at SNAP now for over five years, you come from CNN.
Speaker 1: You have that background. When you look at your former employer,
Speaker 1: cable news in general, how much has it changed from
Speaker 1: when you were there last When you when you see
Speaker 1: the Trump centric coverage, do you see it as appropriate
Speaker 1: or as others criticize it for focusing too much on
Speaker 1: him to boost ratings. Honestly, I think it's more a
Speaker 1: louder like I I don't think it's any surprise that
Speaker 1: in the last four years we've seen on all cable
Speaker 1: networks a move away from uh, sort of in the
Speaker 1: field news coverage back to sort of the panel focused chatter,
Speaker 1: right Like an a block of a cable news show
Speaker 1: will generally be like roundup of the news. Then they'll
Speaker 1: bring in some guests in prime time. It's increasingly you
Speaker 1: know four people or you know six people in some
Speaker 1: cases arguing with each other. There there's deliberate provocations thrown
Speaker 1: in the mix. Um, you know. I remember I was
Speaker 1: in South Carolina for the primaries this year, and I
Speaker 1: remember seeing a CNN photographer. I did a hit on
Speaker 1: CNN with John King UH, which is one of my
Speaker 1: favorite shows. He's one of my favorite guys there, and
Speaker 1: he was sort of observed to me that there were
Speaker 1: no satellite trucks down in the state in South Carolina.
Speaker 1: And to put that in context, I had covered two
Speaker 1: previous presidential campaigns with CNN, and you go to Iowa,
Speaker 1: good New Hampshire, go to Ohio, wherever CNN will be
Speaker 1: all in on this stuff. Um, they would have reporters
Speaker 1: in the field on primary nights, on election nights that
Speaker 1: have a bunch of satellite trucks and on these states
Speaker 1: to support their reporting cast out in the field, and
Speaker 1: this time they only had a couple. The rest were
Speaker 1: down in UM Charleston doing these big CNN town halls,
Speaker 1: which have actually been really educational and the ratings drivers
Speaker 1: for CNN UM and it's been a good innovation on
Speaker 1: their part. But UH, it just represented to me that
Speaker 1: a lot of the energy, UH and of coverage was
Speaker 1: just going through the studios and panels at the bureau
Speaker 1: in New York in DC and not in the field.
Speaker 1: And I think that's you know, there are some exceptions. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the anti racism protests that erupted recently it was a
Speaker 1: real showcase of reporting muscle from CNN and MSNBC. I
Speaker 1: had plenty of friends who are out in the field
Speaker 1: covering those things. But yeah, I mean it's just everything
Speaker 1: reverts back to Trump all the time. And you saw
Speaker 1: that in early phases of the pandemic, when this was
Speaker 1: a story about public health and uh, you know, the
Speaker 1: chaos that this virus was reaking on not just this
Speaker 1: country but the world. But it very quickly became on
Speaker 1: cable TV like a Trump story, like what has he done?
Speaker 1: And you can't separate Trump from the coronavirus, of course,
Speaker 1: But I noticed early on a big lack of stories
Speaker 1: that a lot of these TV networks were equipped to cover,
Speaker 1: going to different countries, different parts, you know, of the world,
Speaker 1: sort of showcase how this was impacting real humans and
Speaker 1: not just the politics of it. Um. So that's you know,
Speaker 1: cable news has always been about politics. It was when
Speaker 1: I worked there. But I do think Trump is still
Speaker 1: the the puppet master of these places in a lot
Speaker 1: of ways. Well, of course, now you're you're sitting and
Speaker 1: covering this from a very different seat at Snapchat with
Speaker 1: your show good Luck America. I want to give listeners
Speaker 1: a taste of that. So let's just listen to a
Speaker 1: clip here. Dr Anthony Faucci is America's point man on
Speaker 1: the science of coronavirus. Yes, I mean obviously. Today he
Speaker 1: joined us on good Luck America to talk COVID nineteen
Speaker 1: conspiracy theories and whether football season is actually going to
Speaker 1: happen blue. Hey, Dr Fauci, the first thing I want
Speaker 1: to ask you about is there's this theory spreading around
Speaker 1: the Internet that five G towers are weakening the immune
Speaker 1: system and forcing people to get COVID nineteen poisons. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's easy. That's thoroughly preposterous, untrue, and actually ridiculous. So
Speaker 1: for good Luck America, for those who have not seen it,
Speaker 1: how would you describe your approach because it is very
Speaker 1: different from a lot of the political programming out there,
Speaker 1: primarily because you're speaking to snapchats gen z crowd. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that there that that cuts two ways. So in
Speaker 1: the United States, Snapchat reaches of all thirteen year olds, right,
Speaker 1: So sometimes people talk about millennials, like, I think our
Speaker 1: audience is more primarily gen Z. It's it's young, um.
Speaker 1: And when I started at Snapchat in presidential campaign was
Speaker 1: happening then. Uh, and that's sort of when we conceived
Speaker 1: of the show. Um, you know, through some conversations with
Speaker 1: Shawn Mills, my boss who runs content for us. It's
Speaker 1: now just started to think about what a show would
Speaker 1: look like on a mobile screen. And you know, mobile
Speaker 1: video and social media, that stuff had been out there,
Speaker 1: but you know, no one had really thought deeply about
Speaker 1: how to make it really engaging for vertical screen and
Speaker 1: to fit inside Snapchat, which is really tactile. You can
Speaker 1: swipe around and swipe up and like you're competing with
Speaker 1: attention for your best friends, right, Like that's what Snapchat is.
Speaker 1: So the show has to really grab you. Um. So
Speaker 1: the kind of interesting thing we found when we're piloting
Speaker 1: the show and shooting it again way back at the
Speaker 1: end of out in Iowa during the last campaign, was
Speaker 1: the format itself has to change drastically. We were shooting
Speaker 1: in vertical video to the point which was confusing for
Speaker 1: other cameramen who are out in the field with us
Speaker 1: in that campaign. We're telling my crew that their cameras
Speaker 1: were tilted sideways. Are like, yeah, I know, man, that's
Speaker 1: what we're doing on purpose. Um, So, you know, pacing music, humor.
Speaker 1: A lot of things that in the again attention economy
Speaker 1: of the internet needs to happen to grab a viewer
Speaker 1: are really important for our show. But the other thing
Speaker 1: that we found is there's just not a lot of
Speaker 1: trust out there in the world. Um. And that's true
Speaker 1: for many things. It's true of universities, it's true of churches,
Speaker 1: it's true of politics. Uh, and it's true of the
Speaker 1: news media. And Uh. We have really worked hard to
Speaker 1: kind of develop a lot of trust with our viewers.
Speaker 1: And part of that is, you know, I I'm probably
Speaker 1: maybe I'm one of the older hosts on Snapchat, but
Speaker 1: I do bring credibility to the table. I can book
Speaker 1: guests like Joe Biden and Anthony Fauci and Lindsey Graham
Speaker 1: and Ted Cruz from both parties. I have experience covering politics. Um.
Speaker 1: But I tried to at least talk like a normal
Speaker 1: human being. Uh. And that was my m O back
Speaker 1: at CNN was how do you explain stuff that sounds
Speaker 1: kind of opaque and noisy to your grandma, to your
Speaker 1: you know, seventeen year old cousin. Most people, most people
Speaker 1: in this country do not follow politics in the way
Speaker 1: that you and I do, and the way that Twitter
Speaker 1: users do. And I fundamentally held on to that for
Speaker 1: a very long time, and I ink that it's snap Um.
Speaker 1: This goes back to one of my very first conversations
Speaker 1: with Evan Spiegeler founder. There's just this belief that a
Speaker 1: lot of people using Snapchat are young. They're accessing the
Speaker 1: world through their phones and through Snapchat, and you can't
Speaker 1: talk down to them. Um. And at the same time,
Speaker 1: you can't be like that Steve Bushemy gift where he
Speaker 1: shows up in the school with the skateboard and he's like,
Speaker 1: how do you do fellow kids? Just this is this
Speaker 1: is a sort of a word that's become a little
Speaker 1: bit of a fetish and news and talent world, but like,
Speaker 1: you just have to be authentic. You just have to
Speaker 1: be yourself. There's been times when I've been shooting in
Speaker 1: an episode and my producer like asked me to say
Speaker 1: some word like like lit or savage, right, which is
Speaker 1: maybe the vernacular of that generation at least a few
Speaker 1: years ago. But that's not a word I Peter would
Speaker 1: normally say, and they just I went back to talking
Speaker 1: like a normally would. Um, we should point out by
Speaker 1: the way, you're thirty eight, which is relatively young. Let's
Speaker 1: also be honest, you might as well be Methuselah given
Speaker 1: Snapchat's demographic. Thanks for calling me out. Uh. I have
Speaker 1: one other note on that, though, which is, you know,
Speaker 1: I was just looking at this yesterday. People sort of
Speaker 1: think young folks are um, you know, radical, or you know,
Speaker 1: they only care about climate change and like marijuana, and
Speaker 1: it's just not true. Um. Young people are incredibly earnest.
Speaker 1: They are very skeptical politics, and like very much more
Speaker 1: disassociated with political parties than older generations. Um. At the
Speaker 1: same time, the top issues for quote unquote young people
Speaker 1: are healthcare, in the economy. Um, it takes different forms, right.
Speaker 1: I try to on my show talk a lot about
Speaker 1: things right now, like debt and rent evictions. Right, those
Speaker 1: are things that I think young people care about, um,
Speaker 1: you know, going back to school, college campuses. But those
Speaker 1: are under the umbrella of the economy. It's not just
Speaker 1: doing shows about you know, Bernie Sanders and you know, uh,
Speaker 1: Greta Tunberg, like those are things that are important, but
Speaker 1: they're just of a piece. Uh. You know. We we
Speaker 1: interviewed Anthony Faucci, Joe Biden, Um, you know, this week
Speaker 1: we had an interview up with Jamie Harrison, who's running
Speaker 1: for Senate in South Carolina against Lindsey Graham. You know,
Speaker 1: these are things that would appear on national news too,
Speaker 1: they just have a different look and feel about them. Well,
Speaker 1: anyone who's making a career out of trying to connect
Speaker 1: with young people about something as important but challenging for
Speaker 1: them to follow us politics. As far as I'm concerned,
Speaker 1: that's you're doing the Lord's work. But you know, in
Speaker 1: terms of at the end of the day, you're I
Speaker 1: still think you're kind of serving spinach on a platform that,
Speaker 1: with all due respect, is a candy shop. So is
Speaker 1: there a risk that you can sort of, you know,
Speaker 1: mash the bitter pill a little too much to the
Speaker 1: point where it's it's not neutral shows anymore. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a fair question. I mean, like and I think like
Speaker 1: all of media, you know, Discover has it's fun stuff
Speaker 1: and the stuff you want to share and talk about
Speaker 1: with your friends. Um, and uh, you know, more serious stuff.
Speaker 1: My dad always talked about. My parents both worked in
Speaker 1: television news as well, and growing up in the house,
Speaker 1: we would always have long you know, the local news
Speaker 1: in Richmond, Virginia, and then like NBC Nightly News, and
Speaker 1: then what comes on after that, it's like Entertainment Tonight
Speaker 1: and Access Hollywood and like that's dessert. Like that's the
Speaker 1: stuff my my parents would would watch too, and that's
Speaker 1: fair like not like everyone has their interests beyond the spinach. Uh.
Speaker 1: So again, I think that we really try to make
Speaker 1: this stuff not entertaining, but just a little more accessible.
Speaker 1: I know we're competing for attention with other platforms that
Speaker 1: you know, sorry, other content that might be more interesting
Speaker 1: in the moment, and like the Daily Mail and ESPN
Speaker 1: and BuzzFeed are all right there coexisting alongside. Good Luck America. Um.
Speaker 1: But you know, we reached ten million people on election
Speaker 1: night in that's a huge number. NBC News Stay tuned
Speaker 1: does very very well. That's NBC News is news show. Again,
Speaker 1: I do think there is a This is something I've
Speaker 1: noticed a little different too from the election of Donald Trump.
Speaker 1: UM activated young people into politics on on in both
Speaker 1: political parties and in neither political party. But there's kind
Speaker 1: of like an earnestness and seriousness about politics now that
Speaker 1: I detect among viewers versus when I first started, when
Speaker 1: I first started, and frankly, the tone of the show
Speaker 1: was like this too. Politics was still sort of a
Speaker 1: little bit of a game and a circus, right, Like
Speaker 1: that show on Showtime is called the Circus Um still,
Speaker 1: which feels kind of cynical actually, but that's how a
Speaker 1: lot of us in political media covered politics before Donald
Speaker 1: Trump came along. Now people do want to know about
Speaker 1: um immigration reform, and they do want to know about
Speaker 1: social justice, like these are things that are part and
Speaker 1: parcel with people's lives. You know. Uh, some days, sure,
Speaker 1: we'll do a show and it won't do as well
Speaker 1: as we like, and then some day, as we do
Speaker 1: a show, four million people watch it. Um, Good Luck
Speaker 1: America has two points over two point three million subscribers,
Speaker 1: and we do it daily. Like that's a not insignificant
Speaker 1: amount of people who are tuning in to hear about polls,
Speaker 1: and they're tuning in to hear about activism, and they're
Speaker 1: tuning in to hear about um you know these days
Speaker 1: like you know, Joe Biden and swing states like those
Speaker 1: are things that used to be very nerdy and now
Speaker 1: they're kind of mainstream. Um. So I'm confident just based
Speaker 1: on the fact that I'm still here and doing this,
Speaker 1: and people are watching that. There's a hunger for this
Speaker 1: stuff alongside things that are fun, which is normal. I mean,
Speaker 1: like we all want escapism from this moment too, sure,
Speaker 1: and Snap's got plenty of that. A lot of other
Speaker 1: digital platforms have that. You know, you talk about the
Speaker 1: scale of your show of the platform. It's interesting, you know,
Speaker 1: I think people have sort of lost sight, frankly, of
Speaker 1: how big Snap is. It's got more daily users in
Speaker 1: Twitter and TikTok combined. I mean, but it seems to
Speaker 1: have a lower profile, and it's almost in a good
Speaker 1: way because I think it's avoided a lot of the
Speaker 1: controversies that have engulfed the big tech platforms. How do
Speaker 1: you describe the perch that Snap is? Does it differ
Speaker 1: in any way from the other digital platforms? How's it
Speaker 1: really kind of escaped the harsh glare that a lot
Speaker 1: of the other digital platforms seem to be under right now. Like,
Speaker 1: I agree with you that I want to get into
Speaker 1: that that we are sort of forgotten in some ways. Again,
Speaker 1: this is more like a press insider thing, um, But
Speaker 1: I don't think we've escaped attention or notoriety. UM. On
Speaker 1: some of the misinformation, sort of fake news, privacy safety
Speaker 1: stuff that other platforms have because we're sort of forgotten.
Speaker 1: It's because I think we have the right values around
Speaker 1: these things. I mean, there's nothing like stopping these subcommittees
Speaker 1: on the Hill from pulling Snapchat up in front of
Speaker 1: them to testify. We don't get caught up there because
Speaker 1: we don't have the same problems the other platforms do.
Speaker 1: You know. Part of that is the way the platform
Speaker 1: is constructed. You know, it's not it's it's constructed to
Speaker 1: be sort of a more at least on the on
Speaker 1: the quote unquote social media side, more connective between your
Speaker 1: close friends rather than broadcasting outwards, so we're not suffering
Speaker 1: from the kind of like algorithmic virality problems that other
Speaker 1: people are um And then on the other side, on Discovery,
Speaker 1: we've taken like a curated approach to news and content.
Speaker 1: We work with trusted partners, not just in news but
Speaker 1: in media. We act as gatekeepers for them and we
Speaker 1: work with them to make sure the content is not
Speaker 1: only good and compelling, but it follows our guidelines. And
Speaker 1: you don't see that with the other platforms who are
Speaker 1: just sort of playing whack a mole according to the
Speaker 1: news cycle and whatever happens to them outside. Um, so again,
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist. I came here from CNN after a decade.
Speaker 1: There's a reason I came to work here. Wasn't just
Speaker 1: like to work at a cool tech company. Is because
Speaker 1: I believed in the vision around news and content and
Speaker 1: the idea of what I just said earlier, that we
Speaker 1: have a unique opportunity to reach an entire generation of
Speaker 1: people that are disconnected from news cycles. That adults are, older,
Speaker 1: folks are rather and we've put in play certain guardrails
Speaker 1: around that content to make sure that it's safe and trustworthy.
Speaker 1: So that is great, and that's that's that's the reason
Speaker 1: I think we have escaped, like escaped or not seeing
Speaker 1: a lot of scrutiniess because I think we're doing things
Speaker 1: right now. To the first point you made, like I
Speaker 1: think that, Yeah, you know, twenty teenen when Snapchat was
Speaker 1: scaling rapidly when I joined, Um, there was a ton
Speaker 1: of press coverage and attention and scrutiny on Snapchat and
Speaker 1: people call it at the Snapchat election and all that
Speaker 1: stuff is pretty silly. But um, you know, I think
Speaker 1: snap has has grown into a mature smart company now.
Speaker 1: And maybe that because it's you know, almost you know,
Speaker 1: nine years old, it's not as interesting to people anymore.
Speaker 1: And then you see Quimby and TikTok and all these
Speaker 1: new things bling. I mean, the new thing is always
Speaker 1: the sexy thing and the fun thing. But you know again,
Speaker 1: I'm happy to position ourselves against against those two companies
Speaker 1: in particular. I mean, on on the TikTok side, we
Speaker 1: have uh, you know, values that I just articulated around
Speaker 1: misinformation versus TikTok, which is just drowning and conspiracy theories
Speaker 1: like hard line directly in some millions of teenage brains
Speaker 1: every day, right like almost ninety million views on the
Speaker 1: hashtag pizza gate a few weeks ago. Conspiracies about five
Speaker 1: G That stuff is rampant on TikTok despite all the
Speaker 1: press they get about like hype houses. Um. And then
Speaker 1: you know, you know, on the Quippy front, um, I
Speaker 1: have lots of friends who worked there. But you know,
Speaker 1: this is the point of personal privilege. But we've been
Speaker 1: we've been thinking about mobile content for years now, you know,
Speaker 1: like the way they were a position was you know,
Speaker 1: we are going to you know, really innovate around mobile content.
Speaker 1: We've been doing that, Like we've had a focus group
Speaker 1: of you know, over two million daily users every day
Speaker 1: telling us what works and what doesn't. And you know,
Speaker 1: through the pandemic is a good example. Like we've been
Speaker 1: really timely and really topical about what our audience wants.
Speaker 1: You know, Will Smith made a show for us. It
Speaker 1: had over thirty eight million views from his garage. You know,
Speaker 1: I have been doing my show from here in my
Speaker 1: office in Venice UM. But we still books Joe biden
Speaker 1: And and Anthony Fauci on our show, UM really funny
Speaker 1: show called Apocalypse Goals about you know, two girls, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, on the loose during an apocalypse. But like,
Speaker 1: I think, we've just been very mindful of what our
Speaker 1: audience wants, and we are very clever and nimble so
Speaker 1: we can move fast and create content around things that
Speaker 1: are happening in the world. Well, besides content, we should
Speaker 1: also announce we should also note that Snap just announced
Speaker 1: last week some features to the app aimed at not
Speaker 1: just driving but simplifying vote A registration. So explain how
Speaker 1: that works. Yeah, I mean, I'm I'm really proud of
Speaker 1: the team that built this UM basically, starting in September,
Speaker 1: you're going to be able to not only register to
Speaker 1: vote inside Snapchat, UH, you will be able to request
Speaker 1: a mail in ballot. UM. You will be able to
Speaker 1: make a plan to vote. UH. These are hugely important
Speaker 1: things at a time when registering a vote, first of all,
Speaker 1: is not as easy as people think it is. Ah,
Speaker 1: it can be really complicated. It turns out, let alone
Speaker 1: figure out how to request an absentee ballot. Um Inen.
Speaker 1: We helped almost half a million people registered a vote UM,
Speaker 1: and we decided to ramp it up this cycle, UM
Speaker 1: because the stakes are high, you know, whichever side of
Speaker 1: the equation you're on, and we want to make it
Speaker 1: easy for people to get engaged with the world and
Speaker 1: if you can, you know, use Snapchat to request a ballot,
Speaker 1: I mean that we have there. There's there are hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of people turning eighteen in this country every month,
Speaker 1: and we are right in the palm of their hands.
Speaker 1: So UM, I would say though the back to are
Speaker 1: conversation like it just sort of dubtails with our approach
Speaker 1: to content. We just want to help bring um this generation,
Speaker 1: you know, into into the political universe and the political
Speaker 1: conversation and uh, you know, the appropriate, trusted, credible way,
Speaker 1: like that's just what we do and how we think. Well,
Speaker 1: you're also you know, Snap is touching lives in what
Speaker 1: is probably going to be the issue, the crucial issue
Speaker 1: as we get towards the election, every vote is going
Speaker 1: to matter. Malin is going to be absolutely crucial. Do
Speaker 1: you think that? Is it? To me? It seems undoubted
Speaker 1: that as we get to November and beyond that this
Speaker 1: is going to be issue one and everything is going
Speaker 1: to fade away because this is going to be a
Speaker 1: contested election. I could just feel it. Yeah, I mean there.
Speaker 1: I think the press has actually done a pretty good
Speaker 1: job in the last week or so of sounding this
Speaker 1: alarm that the traditional cable news like Election Night in
Speaker 1: America kind of thing where you can render a verdict
Speaker 1: very quickly, you know, well relatively like in a few hours,
Speaker 1: could be in jeopardy. Um. And you know there are
Speaker 1: look at New York's twelfth congressional district primary. This didn't
Speaker 1: get a lot of attention weirdly, um, but they voted,
Speaker 1: They had their primary in June. It took them six
Speaker 1: weeks to count the votes. There were like some sixty
Speaker 1: six thousand ballots were just like disqualified because he didn't
Speaker 1: have a postmark. The state of New York didn't have
Speaker 1: enough workers to count the avalanche of ballots that came in.
Speaker 1: UM voting is not a federal exercise. It is conducted
Speaker 1: by county and state election officials all over the country.
Speaker 1: Is a patchwork of rules and laws. Uh. Several states
Speaker 1: have expanded vote by mail to the point, like California
Speaker 1: and Nevada they're sending people ballots directly. But yeah, I
Speaker 1: was talking to someone who works in labor politics a
Speaker 1: few weeks ago, and he was he was really worried. Right.
Speaker 1: He's he's in the Democratic Coalition and and out there
Speaker 1: in battleground states trying to do canvassing, getting people registered.
Speaker 1: And his worry is that the election is closer than
Speaker 1: it is now, which is entirely possible. And you know,
Speaker 1: you have these states swing states that are on the margins,
Speaker 1: and instead of one Push v. Gore, which was a
Speaker 1: huge thing, you have five to ten Bush vigors in
Speaker 1: different states. Because the Trump administration is filing different lawsuits
Speaker 1: and the Biden campaign is filing lawsuits, and the stuff
Speaker 1: isn't decided for for many months. So education is huge,
Speaker 1: Like people need to understand that voting isn't easy, voting
Speaker 1: by mail isn't easy, and they need to be patient
Speaker 1: while these votes are counted. Um. The more the press
Speaker 1: explains the that this could take longer, the less able
Speaker 1: politicians will be able to demagogue the outcome and say
Speaker 1: that it's fraud or it's stolen. Once people start to
Speaker 1: understand that this is in the typical election, Um, then
Speaker 1: I think people might feel better about it and it
Speaker 1: could be a less of a chaotic outcome. Well, that's
Speaker 1: a lot of red meat for for people like yourself
Speaker 1: to chew on and your show Good Luck America also
Speaker 1: should point out your writing as a contributor about politics
Speaker 1: to Vanity Fair. Looking forward to reading and seeing more
Speaker 1: of your continued coverage. Thanks for coming on the podcast, Peter,
Speaker 1: Thanks and it great to be here. Thank you. This
Speaker 1: has been another episode of Strictly Business. Tune in next
Speaker 1: week for another helping of scintillating conversation with media movers
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