WEBVTT - Chuck's Commentary - Mass Shootings In A PolarizedCountry + Ask Chuck 0:00:04.080 --> 0:00:07.080 Hello, They're happy Thursday. Welcome to another episode of the 0:00:07.200 --> 0:00:10.400 Chuck Podcast. A little quick programming note. This is my 0:00:10.480 --> 0:00:14.760 ASSD update for the month of August, and in fact 0:00:15.200 --> 0:00:18.000 we will not be dropping an episode on Monday on 0:00:18.079 --> 0:00:21.400 Labor Day. We will be though, doing Tuesday, so the 0:00:21.480 --> 0:00:25.320 same three updates next week, but instead of Monday, Wednesday Thursday, 0:00:26.280 --> 0:00:29.600 it will be Tuesday Wednesday Thursday. So just a little 0:00:30.040 --> 0:00:36.680 programming note on that front. Obviously, begin tip and Wednesday 0:00:36.960 --> 0:00:42.479 afternoon evening here for Thursday morning. The big news, correctly 0:00:42.520 --> 0:00:46.199 consuming much of the much of the political and news 0:00:46.280 --> 0:00:51.400 world is the mass shooting in Minneapolis at that Catholic school. 0:00:54.200 --> 0:00:58.680 Given what I did for a living doing live television 0:00:58.680 --> 0:01:04.080 and anchor many many A special reports when it came 0:01:04.160 --> 0:01:08.360 to school shootings, sadly, there's a pattern. There's a pattern 0:01:08.360 --> 0:01:11.320 in coverage. There's a pattern, you know, where there's sort 0:01:11.319 --> 0:01:14.080 of there's there's a lot of this that becomes very familiar. 0:01:15.360 --> 0:01:21.280 There is a quick, sort of all consuming moment and 0:01:21.319 --> 0:01:24.800 then as fast as people pay attention is as fast 0:01:25.640 --> 0:01:31.200 as the coverage usually goes away. Uh. There in many 0:01:31.240 --> 0:01:35.840 cases this is fitting a pattern. Young person in their 0:01:35.880 --> 0:01:40.440 twenties shoots up a school that they once attended, a 0:01:40.520 --> 0:01:44.160 manifesto that sort of indicates a lot of mental health challenges, 0:01:44.640 --> 0:01:46.319 and you ask yourself, how did this person get all 0:01:46.360 --> 0:01:50.880 these weapons? And there's good, there's so, there's there's certainly, 0:01:52.200 --> 0:01:55.280 And this is where I hope we can have political 0:01:55.400 --> 0:01:59.520 leaders try to have an uh, what I would call 0:01:59.560 --> 0:02:03.280 an am conversation rather than an or conversation. Too many 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:08.080 times with these school shootings, I think everybody wants everybody's 0:02:08.080 --> 0:02:13.680 the wrong word. There's sometimes a political instinct too. If 0:02:13.720 --> 0:02:16.320 you believe in an idea, if you believe in gun control, 0:02:16.400 --> 0:02:18.000 or you believe that this is a mental health issue, 0:02:18.000 --> 0:02:22.680 whichever one it is, you find you find a piece 0:02:22.960 --> 0:02:30.119 something in the current investigation that reinforces your belief and 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.959 you sort of dismiss the idea that there are other 0:02:34.040 --> 0:02:38.320 factors that contribute here beyond what your core belief is 0:02:38.360 --> 0:02:40.560 the motivation of these things, whether you believe it's a 0:02:40.600 --> 0:02:44.079 mental health is the primary issue, Access to guns is 0:02:44.120 --> 0:02:48.080 the primary issue, School security is the primary issue. Rhetoric 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:54.399 rhetoric online being the issue right there, And my encouragement 0:02:54.400 --> 0:02:55.960 would be I wish we could get to a place 0:02:55.960 --> 0:02:59.200 where we had some and conversations. Let's look at the 0:02:59.240 --> 0:03:03.440 access to weapons and the conversation and the rhetoric that 0:03:03.480 --> 0:03:08.320 takes place on social media, and the divisive and divisiveness 0:03:08.320 --> 0:03:11.919 and hate that's going around, and the issue with protecting 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:16.000 kids in schools and the issue of mental health for 0:03:16.080 --> 0:03:20.040 young people. I think we all know, unfortunately that we're 0:03:20.040 --> 0:03:22.760 not going to have and the conversations that we'd like 0:03:22.840 --> 0:03:28.920 to have. This particular story has the potential of truly 0:03:28.960 --> 0:03:32.800 becoming very divisive in our culture wars, given that the 0:03:32.840 --> 0:03:37.080 shooter transitioned from being a man to a woman, This 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:45.240 is already something that many on social media are using 0:03:45.280 --> 0:03:47.600 and want to make certain points. Again, it's an attempt 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:52.440 to cherry pick something to reinforce a core belief, regardless 0:03:52.480 --> 0:03:55.160 of any of the other factors that may be involved 0:03:55.200 --> 0:04:00.960 in this situation. So this is one of those times 0:04:01.000 --> 0:04:05.800 where you're just where I get hopeful that the political 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:10.960 community will be mature and sort of rise above partisanship, 0:04:11.120 --> 0:04:14.040 rise above the ability to exploit something for a cheap 0:04:14.080 --> 0:04:20.840 political gain. And yet what world am I living in? Right? 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:24.840 I think we know that this has every chance of 0:04:24.880 --> 0:04:29.960 being politicized in all the wrong ways. I hope I'm wrong. 0:04:32.080 --> 0:04:35.960 I hope that the online conversation is the outlier and 0:04:36.000 --> 0:04:41.080 that the in person conversations that the focus is in 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:46.479 the right direction here. Unlikely. I'm aware of the world 0:04:46.560 --> 0:04:51.760 we live in, but it is this is something where 0:04:51.960 --> 0:04:55.880 I wish we could have this and conversation because you 0:04:56.000 --> 0:04:59.039 have rabid people who don't even want to touch the 0:04:59.120 --> 0:05:04.320 access to guns issue, and you have others that don't 0:05:04.320 --> 0:05:19.360 want to have certain conversations about rhetoric online, about about identity, 0:05:19.440 --> 0:05:23.120 and so this is going to be one of those 0:05:23.160 --> 0:05:26.799 moments where you need a really good leader, and perhaps 0:05:26.880 --> 0:05:29.400 in a tough moment, we don't have the leadership in 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:33.400 this country to rise to the occasion that's necessary. But 0:05:33.480 --> 0:05:42.440 hope Spring's eternal, and perhaps and perhaps cooler heads and 0:05:42.680 --> 0:05:48.440 more empathetic heads are going to prevail here. But we 0:05:48.480 --> 0:05:57.840 shall see. We are at a moment for what it's worth. Right, 0:05:57.880 --> 0:06:00.760 We're going to have some federal agencies. We've already had 0:06:00.960 --> 0:06:04.880 the FBI director pretty high profile talk about that he 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:08.640 wants to make that they're investigating this as a hate 0:06:08.640 --> 0:06:14.080 crime against Catholics, and they're looking at this as domestic terrorism. 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:19.760 I've heard from some folks fearing that the calling it 0:06:19.839 --> 0:06:25.000 domestic terrorism will then single out certain groups of people. 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:31.080 I am. I am hopeful that does not happen, but 0:06:31.560 --> 0:06:35.440 it does serve as a reminder of the importance of 0:06:35.440 --> 0:06:41.920 whether you trust law enforcement or not. And there's actually 0:06:41.920 --> 0:06:45.320 some new polling data indicating just how polarized we are 0:06:45.839 --> 0:06:50.800 in our trust or distrust of law enforcement agencies right 0:06:50.839 --> 0:06:54.560 now that it is completely based on what your political 0:06:54.560 --> 0:06:57.239 party is when it comes to your views of ICE, 0:06:57.640 --> 0:06:59.800 your views of the Department of Homeland Security, your views 0:06:59.800 --> 0:07:02.720 of the Department of Justice, your views of the FBI. 0:07:04.480 --> 0:07:07.520 Just to give you a taste of this conversation on 0:07:07.600 --> 0:07:12.800 the Department of Justice. From the big picture standpoint, the 0:07:12.880 --> 0:07:15.960 numbers haven't changed all that much. Right last year overall, 0:07:16.880 --> 0:07:18.800 the Department of Justice in this Pew survey had a 0:07:18.840 --> 0:07:24.560 forty three favorable rating versus a forty four percent unfavorable rating. Okay, 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.120 this year right now, it's thirty nine percent favorable forty 0:07:29.160 --> 0:07:32.240 six percent unfavorable. But boy, when you go inside the numbers, 0:07:33.080 --> 0:07:37.400 you start to see the politic how politicized the views 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:42.000 of these agencies are. Majority of Republicans now rate the 0:07:42.040 --> 0:07:46.240 Department of Justice favorably. It's up eighteen points from Republican 0:07:46.320 --> 0:07:49.160 views of the Department of Justice last year. And guess 0:07:49.240 --> 0:07:52.160 what the trend is the opposite among Democrats. Just twenty 0:07:52.200 --> 0:07:55.720 eight percent of Democrats view the Justice Department favorably, and 0:07:55.760 --> 0:07:59.680 that's down twenty seven points from last year. You can 0:07:59.720 --> 0:08:04.680 see similar polarized movements when it comes to the favorable 0:08:04.760 --> 0:08:08.400 or unfavorable ratings of the Department of Homeland Security. You 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:10.880 have sixty eight percent of Republicans viewing it favorably, just 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:14.679 twenty six percent of Democrats view it favorably. Last year, 0:08:14.960 --> 0:08:18.520 Democrats were more likely than Republicans to rate DHS favorably. 0:08:19.200 --> 0:08:23.640 Partisan gap on ICE is wider there than under any 0:08:23.880 --> 0:08:27.600 other group that was tested by Pew. Seventy two percent 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:31.360 of Republicans favorable, have a favorable view towards ICE seventy 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:37.800 two percent, twenty one percent unfavorable. In contrast, Democrats, literally 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:40.840 it's a mirror image, just thirteen percent of a favorable 0:08:40.880 --> 0:08:46.760 rating of ICE, seventy eight percent unfavorable on that front, 0:08:47.800 --> 0:08:50.720 and obviously on the FBI itself, just to give you 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.280 a sense of that, on the FBI, you still you 0:08:54.320 --> 0:08:57.000 have a fifty four percent of Republicans have a favorable 0:08:57.080 --> 0:09:00.520 rating of the FBI, and right now a ray of 0:09:00.520 --> 0:09:03.240 Democrats have a favorable rating of the FBI forty five percent. 0:09:03.240 --> 0:09:09.800 It shows you that it hasn't totally trickled down just yet. There, 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.880 For what it's worth, there actually are places where both 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:17.080 where there isn't a polarized view of certain federal agencies. 0:09:18.080 --> 0:09:23.720 The National Park Service basically seventy percent of Republicans and 0:09:23.840 --> 0:09:26.480 Democrats have a favorable view of the National Park Service. 0:09:27.120 --> 0:09:30.040 Let's see how the dosee cuts impact that over time. 0:09:30.840 --> 0:09:33.640 The National Weather Service has a fairly high favorable rating 0:09:33.679 --> 0:09:38.320 sixty one percent of Republicans, seventy three percent of Democrats. Oddly, 0:09:39.080 --> 0:09:43.160 NASA is a bit more polarized, believe it or not. 0:09:43.679 --> 0:09:47.080 While it has a net favorable rating, more Democrats have 0:09:47.160 --> 0:09:51.280 a higher favorable rating of NASA than Republicans. And the 0:09:51.320 --> 0:09:54.360 Social Security Administration is a huge partisan divide, with more 0:09:54.400 --> 0:10:01.560 Republicans having a positive view of it versus versus Democrats. 0:10:01.559 --> 0:10:04.480 But the point is, we are living in a time 0:10:04.600 --> 0:10:08.480 where I think most Americans, and I think correctly now 0:10:08.600 --> 0:10:16.320 view the at least the federal law enforcement agencies through 0:10:16.840 --> 0:10:22.280 very partisan eyes. Because they are being run by very 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:27.680 partisan actors who are not trying to hide their partisanship. Right, 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:32.040 Pambody is a Republican operative in the role of Attorney General, 0:10:32.120 --> 0:10:35.480 Cash Bettel a Republican operative in the role of FBI director. 0:10:37.080 --> 0:10:41.080 That's not healthy for our society. This is why there 0:10:41.280 --> 0:10:44.760 is a real debate here if the more the president 0:10:44.840 --> 0:10:50.160 wants to concentrate power through him in the executive branch 0:10:50.200 --> 0:10:55.080 and control these agencies that multiple presidents left and right 0:10:55.200 --> 0:11:00.000 believe they had to create some distance from in order 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:03.760 to keep credibility with these agencies, whether it is the FBI, 0:11:04.160 --> 0:11:07.640 whether it is the Department of Justice, whether it is 0:11:07.800 --> 0:11:11.920 the Federal Reserve. And when you concentrate all this in 0:11:12.000 --> 0:11:17.600 moments like we're dealing with where we need where a 0:11:17.720 --> 0:11:21.760 very political response is the last thing the situation needs, 0:11:23.160 --> 0:11:28.640 you're going to have extraordinarily partisan actors whose first instinct 0:11:28.760 --> 0:11:35.640 is to exploit for partisan gain, and it is only 0:11:35.720 --> 0:11:40.800 going to erode the credibility of these agencies. Right now, 0:11:41.000 --> 0:11:49.760 I gave you the partisan leanings here. Essentially, independence are 0:11:49.840 --> 0:11:54.240 essentially moving there. In these cases, the Independence look slightly 0:11:54.280 --> 0:11:57.680 more left than right as far as their ratings are concerned, 0:11:57.679 --> 0:12:00.400 and I think independence just look at it a little 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.400 more straightforward, not necessarily through a partisan lens, but through 0:12:04.080 --> 0:12:09.480 a reality lens. And the reality is the right believes 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:13.160 the left politicize these agencies, the left believes the rights 0:12:13.160 --> 0:12:17.000 politicizing these agencies. If both sides are saying these agencies 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:19.000 have been politicized over the last two years, I promise 0:12:19.040 --> 0:12:21.440 you independents are going to view that the agencies are 0:12:21.480 --> 0:12:24.520 always being politicized, and they're going to line up essentially 0:12:24.559 --> 0:12:29.800 against the political party and power in that one. And 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.360 I think that's the situation that we're going to see 0:12:33.400 --> 0:12:38.520 here and let's see, let's see how political this investigation 0:12:38.640 --> 0:12:42.840 itself gets. But this is we are dealing with a 0:12:43.120 --> 0:12:47.640 very with a very skeptical public in general right now, 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:53.560 where everybody is looking at sees everything through a very 0:12:53.559 --> 0:12:56.880 partisan lens, and in many cases that's exactly the way 0:12:56.920 --> 0:12:59.439 Donald Trump. This is a feature of the Trump administration. 0:13:00.240 --> 0:13:07.840 They don't view They're okay, if it's seen positively only 0:13:07.880 --> 0:13:12.559 by their voters, that is an acceptable outcome, and that's 0:13:13.120 --> 0:13:16.640 that's I think the ultimate problem with the current situation 0:13:16.720 --> 0:13:19.319 we're living in is that this is the first administration 0:13:19.400 --> 0:13:24.160 that didn't care whether people that didn't vote for them 0:13:24.480 --> 0:13:28.160 respected their ability to govern one and two whether they 0:13:28.160 --> 0:13:31.840 ought to govern for people that didn't vote for them. 0:13:31.880 --> 0:13:37.480 And I think this is this is unfortunately a time 0:13:37.520 --> 0:13:40.800 where you need max trust in your law enforcement agencies, 0:13:43.120 --> 0:13:45.160 and we are at a time where we probably are 0:13:45.200 --> 0:13:48.400 as low as it's been probably since the nineteen seventies, 0:13:50.200 --> 0:13:54.160 certainly has polarized on these agencies. We didn't have the 0:13:54.200 --> 0:13:57.400 same amount of polling that we do today, and how 0:13:57.400 --> 0:14:03.360 often would we do it. But it is nonetheless a 0:14:05.160 --> 0:14:06.840 we're in a period of low trust. We know this 0:14:07.559 --> 0:14:13.800 across the board, and so it is like, again, you 0:14:13.960 --> 0:14:18.920 hope that the moment is heavy enough that even the 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:22.080 most partisan actor realizes this is not the time for partisanship. 0:14:24.560 --> 0:14:32.120 But if passed his prologue, it's unlikely that your hope 0:14:32.560 --> 0:14:46.160 is going to turn into reality. Let's get into some 0:14:46.200 --> 0:14:51.960 asshat ask Chuck. First question comes from Jeff, and it's 0:14:52.000 --> 0:14:55.760 a perfectly timed sports and politics question. He says, Hey, Chuck, 0:14:55.840 --> 0:14:57.920 Jeff from Pittsburgh. Here. I just dropped off my oldest 0:14:57.920 --> 0:15:00.600 son off for his first year at university. He has 0:15:00.640 --> 0:15:03.480 a great interest in journalism, particularly sports and politics. Hey, 0:15:03.640 --> 0:15:05.880 that's familiar to me, But my fear as a parent 0:15:05.960 --> 0:15:08.520 is naturally the dying legacy of legacy outlets. I've heard 0:15:08.560 --> 0:15:10.480 you mentioned in passing on the podcast about how local 0:15:10.480 --> 0:15:13.360 sports coverage may have the potential to transform, support other 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:16.360 local coverage, or remake the media landscape. Can you elaborate 0:15:16.400 --> 0:15:21.600 on this? Yes, Look, I've been examining the local news 0:15:21.680 --> 0:15:27.880 landscape for quite some time through a variety of potential 0:15:27.880 --> 0:15:30.960 business proposals. For one, I'm going to keep some of 0:15:31.000 --> 0:15:34.480 it a bit cryptic on that, but here's the basic premise. 0:15:35.320 --> 0:15:39.040 You know, local news they had two main revenue streams 0:15:39.520 --> 0:15:43.920 for a long time, right advertised, well, three main revenue streams, advertising, 0:15:44.400 --> 0:15:48.720 subscriptions and classified. And it was really classified that were 0:15:48.760 --> 0:15:52.080 the sort of the reliable revenue generator. ADS. ADS would 0:15:52.080 --> 0:15:55.880 go up and down, if you will, and even like subscriptions, 0:15:56.360 --> 0:15:59.920 you know, yes that mattered, but in some cases it 0:16:00.200 --> 0:16:02.520 wasn't you know, you know, they were just dying to 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:03.880 make sure you got the pay. You know, it was 0:16:03.960 --> 0:16:07.240 more important for them to have higher circulation numbers to 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:11.720 sell to advertisers than it was necessarily to get direct 0:16:12.040 --> 0:16:18.840 subscription income revenue from each household. So that's why I've 0:16:18.840 --> 0:16:22.080 always looked at it more as two primary primary resources there. 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:25.600 And you know, as i've you may have heard me 0:16:25.640 --> 0:16:27.840 say this on this podcast, I say it wherever I go. 0:16:27.920 --> 0:16:31.440 I said, a man named Craig decided classified zuta be free. YadA, 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:35.880 YadA YadA, Donald Trump became president. Because what happened is, 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.520 I do think when we knocked out local and classified, 0:16:39.560 --> 0:16:42.720 when when you got rid of classified revenue for basically 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:45.560 any news newspaper that had a circulation of fifty thousand 0:16:45.600 --> 0:16:48.560 or less, that was sixty to seventy percent of their revenue. 0:16:49.480 --> 0:16:52.200 So look, let me speed through this part, which is 0:16:53.440 --> 0:16:56.160 I don't think nonprofit is a way to is a 0:16:56.240 --> 0:16:59.120 long term solution to the local news crisis that we 0:16:59.120 --> 0:17:03.200 have in America. Uh So, I think that you got 0:17:03.240 --> 0:17:06.480 to find a revenue stream. And I actually think the 0:17:06.640 --> 0:17:09.600 fact that for all the reasons I just talked about 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.080 in this episode about how much money is coming into college, 0:17:13.240 --> 0:17:15.640 how much money is being poured into high school sports 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:18.399 to prepare to get your opportunity in college now and 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:21.400 this is no longer just about basketball and football. This 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:26.600 is across the board, right beach volleyball, lacrosse, both men's 0:17:26.600 --> 0:17:31.200 and women's soccer, both men's and women's women's softball, even 0:17:31.240 --> 0:17:34.440 men's baseball in some places is a net positive revenue 0:17:34.440 --> 0:17:39.920 sport and what that's going to do even as we're 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.560 at this weird demographic cliff where we were actually stagnant 0:17:43.640 --> 0:17:49.400 when it comes to to growth of the under seventeen generation, 0:17:49.560 --> 0:17:51.679 Like you know, universities have been talking about this that 0:17:51.760 --> 0:17:56.840 this was the beginning of this demographic cliff where we 0:17:57.520 --> 0:17:59.520 you know, and then you throw in that we're a 0:17:59.560 --> 0:18:02.840 little more restrictive on immigration, so are we are? We 0:18:02.880 --> 0:18:05.960 are getting older as a country, not younger. But when 0:18:05.960 --> 0:18:10.359 it comes to youth sports, it's primarily been pretty boy heavy, 0:18:10.400 --> 0:18:12.840 and I think now with the amount of opportunity in 0:18:13.160 --> 0:18:17.160 women's sports, you're going to see gender parity among youth sports. 0:18:18.040 --> 0:18:20.480 So it is going it is a huge growth area 0:18:21.080 --> 0:18:22.959 and there is just a ton of money. And I 0:18:23.000 --> 0:18:25.840 think if a way you're trying to build a local 0:18:25.880 --> 0:18:30.959 news organization, and I've I've there are some good examples 0:18:30.960 --> 0:18:33.720 that I've come across in my research of the local 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:39.840 news ecosystem that local sports is a pretty good uh 0:18:40.000 --> 0:18:43.320 magnet to get readers to get people interested in what 0:18:43.359 --> 0:18:47.280 you're doing. And if you can become in the same way, right, 0:18:47.320 --> 0:18:50.359 then my friends at NBC through a bunch of money 0:18:50.359 --> 0:18:53.119 to get the NBA because in there and you know, 0:18:53.200 --> 0:18:55.639 live sports during the week is sort of one of 0:18:55.680 --> 0:18:58.919 these last ways you can get people to turn on 0:18:59.000 --> 0:19:01.439 a legacy TV each It's the same thing in local 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:05.440 if you can become the hub and I believe if 0:19:05.440 --> 0:19:08.719 you can become the local hub of how the community 0:19:08.880 --> 0:19:14.080 watches the local high school football game or watches the 0:19:14.160 --> 0:19:17.040 twelve you travel teams in your community play each other, 0:19:18.200 --> 0:19:20.520 and maybe you put that behind a paywall, but you 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:24.840 also are creating a friendly or advertising environment. Small businesses 0:19:24.960 --> 0:19:29.000 love being associated with youth sports. Right. It's not polarizing 0:19:29.720 --> 0:19:33.159 as a as somebody who cares about trying to glue 0:19:33.280 --> 0:19:36.680 communities back together between red and blue. I think sports 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:39.040 is one of the safe zones that you can do 0:19:39.119 --> 0:19:42.000 that with. You can if you start with sports, you 0:19:42.040 --> 0:19:45.280 build your trust that way, and then over time you 0:19:45.320 --> 0:19:47.520 can build trust with them and then eventually they will 0:19:47.520 --> 0:19:49.040 believe you when you say and oh, by the way, 0:19:49.080 --> 0:19:50.919 we're also doing this reporting over here to tell you 0:19:50.920 --> 0:19:55.600 that your city councilman's corrupt. So that's the that's that's 0:19:55.720 --> 0:20:02.880 my that's my thesis, and it's one I've put together 0:20:02.920 --> 0:20:05.680 in a business plan and it's one I really believe in. 0:20:06.080 --> 0:20:08.439 I know this the youth sports world is going to 0:20:08.480 --> 0:20:13.879 be is growing, and it's growing extraordinarily fast, and it's 0:20:13.920 --> 0:20:16.240 only going to get bigger, and there's a whole bunch 0:20:16.240 --> 0:20:19.439 of people wanting to invest money in it. There's not 0:20:19.480 --> 0:20:21.600 as many people that want to invest money in local news. 0:20:21.640 --> 0:20:24.199 They've sort of almost written it off, thinking, oh, it 0:20:24.200 --> 0:20:26.720 should be just a project of nonprofit. Well, I'm not 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:29.360 ready to write it off, and I'm like, can we 0:20:29.400 --> 0:20:33.560 marry these two entities if you will right? Ultimately, you 0:20:33.680 --> 0:20:38.280 need a local publisher to let you know that the 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:42.360 youth sports tree fell in the forest and here's the scores, 0:20:42.400 --> 0:20:45.600 and somebody's got to deal with the infrastructure to make 0:20:45.600 --> 0:20:48.520 sure the stream lives somewhere and you can have a 0:20:48.520 --> 0:20:51.960 place to see the highlights, etc. So I just think 0:20:51.960 --> 0:20:55.000 that this is one of these things where it's when, 0:20:55.280 --> 0:20:58.480 if you will right, we can rebuild a more trusted 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:03.600 local ecosystem and oh, by the way, we're providing a 0:21:03.640 --> 0:21:07.679 service to the community. That it really wants. Trust me, 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.159 as a parent of two kids that were pretty active 0:21:10.160 --> 0:21:13.480 in the youth sports space, five or six different apps 0:21:13.640 --> 0:21:16.200 you'd run late you didn't want to miss an app bat, 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:20.840 you know, towards the end of their youth sports careers. 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.560 There'd be the occasional parent that says, hey, I've created 0:21:23.600 --> 0:21:26.679 a live stream, go to this what was it Vimeo? 0:21:27.000 --> 0:21:28.960 I think is the Mayo. I don't know if I've 0:21:29.000 --> 0:21:32.800 said it right, and you could kind of watch it 0:21:32.880 --> 0:21:35.879 and all this stuff. So I do think this is 0:21:35.920 --> 0:21:38.399 actually and it goes back to what I believe a 0:21:38.480 --> 0:21:42.359 successful local news publication has to be, which is a 0:21:42.400 --> 0:21:47.240 service journalism, meaning you really are in service to the community. 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:49.399 You're helping people in the community live their lives. So 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:52.440 one part of that is making it easier for them 0:21:52.480 --> 0:21:55.080 to keep up with the youth sports scene. But another 0:21:55.200 --> 0:21:57.760 might be you hire an influencer who's just there to 0:21:57.800 --> 0:22:01.439 help you save money on food. They keep track of, 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:03.560 you know, the price of chicken on everywhere, the price 0:22:03.600 --> 0:22:06.600 of eggs, and what restaurant makes it easier to take 0:22:06.760 --> 0:22:10.560 two small children to go out and not break the bank, 0:22:10.640 --> 0:22:14.600 et cetera. Right, you essentially recreate the old As I say, 0:22:14.800 --> 0:22:17.920 you're recreating what everybody loved about the newspaper bundle. Right. 0:22:18.080 --> 0:22:20.360 I've always said this about the old newspaper. We all 0:22:20.400 --> 0:22:22.680 got it, but only ten percent of it cared about 0:22:22.680 --> 0:22:26.160 the news part. The other ninety percent had something else 0:22:26.160 --> 0:22:28.960 we had in there. It was just a terrific bundle. Well, 0:22:29.119 --> 0:22:31.480 you start to unpack that bundle and say, what is 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:33.560 it that helped you know? So you need to find 0:22:33.560 --> 0:22:35.199 out what's going on in your community. You need to 0:22:35.240 --> 0:22:37.119 find out how to save money in your community. You 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:39.840 need to find out what's the weather in my area 0:22:39.960 --> 0:22:41.919 going to be, not just on the other side of 0:22:41.920 --> 0:22:45.960 the county. Well, my goodness, weather forecasting has never been more. 0:22:46.359 --> 0:22:49.200 The only good local news the Washington Post does anymore 0:22:49.359 --> 0:22:51.879 is its weather in Capital Weather Gang. Because of the 0:22:51.920 --> 0:22:55.840 ability to micro forecast, they literally can have pretty accurate 0:22:55.840 --> 0:23:01.000 forecasts of my neighborhood and the neighborhoo next door and 0:23:01.080 --> 0:23:05.520 be correct it is it is, and so every community. 0:23:05.560 --> 0:23:08.280 If I were running a local news operation, whether it's 0:23:08.280 --> 0:23:13.040 in Pittsburgh, Kansas or Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, I'd be hiring a 0:23:13.080 --> 0:23:17.119 local meteorologist. By the way, my daughter's minoring and meteorology, 0:23:18.320 --> 0:23:20.840 so she needs a job too. And one other thing 0:23:21.119 --> 0:23:28.600 to sort of alleviate you your concern about about journalism 0:23:28.600 --> 0:23:31.600 as a career for your for your for your son. 0:23:33.520 --> 0:23:38.000 When I entered the information ecosystem, space journalism, whatever we 0:23:38.040 --> 0:23:40.479 want to call it anymore, in the early nineties, it 0:23:40.520 --> 0:23:44.320 was at a time of media contraction. But there was 0:23:44.359 --> 0:23:47.800 a whole bunch of startups, and I got a whole 0:23:47.840 --> 0:23:51.760 bunch of early experience and startups where the old legacy 0:23:51.800 --> 0:23:55.439 reporters didn't want to bother understanding what the internet was. 0:23:55.680 --> 0:23:59.560 And at twenty three, because I was comfortable on the internet, 0:23:59.720 --> 0:24:02.480 you know, I you know, had an early political column. 0:24:02.480 --> 0:24:04.600 I was doing analysis on the days, all because the 0:24:04.640 --> 0:24:07.520 old legacy reporters didn't want to do it. So what 0:24:07.520 --> 0:24:10.919 I would say is that if there's ever an exciting 0:24:11.000 --> 0:24:14.320 time to be in in the world of journalism, it's 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:16.840 when you're in your twenties, not when you're like me 0:24:16.880 --> 0:24:19.560 in your fifties. And here's one other way to give 0:24:19.600 --> 0:24:21.720 you some to give you a little bit more comfort 0:24:22.119 --> 0:24:25.040 that this isn't a wasted degree for your for your son, 0:24:25.920 --> 0:24:29.719 more and more Fortune five hundred. There is now this 0:24:29.800 --> 0:24:32.200 belief in the in the in the corporate world that 0:24:33.359 --> 0:24:36.240 you've got to run your own communications. This isn't just 0:24:36.320 --> 0:24:39.119 about finding a media outlet that will be friendly to 0:24:39.200 --> 0:24:41.440 you when you roll out your new logo or your 0:24:41.480 --> 0:24:45.399 new this. You've got to create your own content. And 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:48.080 more and more Fortune five hundred companies want to be 0:24:48.119 --> 0:24:52.920 their own publishers. They're setting up comm shops that look 0:24:53.000 --> 0:24:59.000 more like newsrooms than they are just marketing material, and 0:24:59.200 --> 0:25:01.480 so there is a actually a demand. There's quite a 0:25:01.520 --> 0:25:04.240 few of my former colleagues are going into the corporate 0:25:04.280 --> 0:25:10.760 world to essentially set up be a news newsletter publisher, 0:25:11.040 --> 0:25:14.639 or be a content creator for their TikTok page, or 0:25:14.680 --> 0:25:20.119 to set up podcasts, you know, maybe a weekly podcast 0:25:20.160 --> 0:25:22.000 that the CEO is a part of, or that they 0:25:22.040 --> 0:25:27.280 do for communication. So I think that the while the 0:25:27.400 --> 0:25:30.000 narrow when you look at the world of journalism through 0:25:30.000 --> 0:25:32.280 the narrow lens of sort of what we thought of 0:25:32.280 --> 0:25:36.040 as journalism twenty years ago, it looks like a shrinking field. 0:25:36.080 --> 0:25:40.240 When you look at it through the prism of communications 0:25:40.920 --> 0:25:45.320 and managing media, well, then suddenly the same skills are 0:25:45.359 --> 0:25:49.399 necessary and many more entities want to hire people with 0:25:49.480 --> 0:25:54.400 this skill set. So I think it's a I think 0:25:54.440 --> 0:25:58.719 there's more opportunity than you realize. So I, you know, 0:25:58.960 --> 0:26:01.280 I want to make you feel better Jeff that this 0:26:01.359 --> 0:26:05.359 is I get it. But if you sort of sort 0:26:05.359 --> 0:26:10.399 of what is it? Widen your aperture here of what is? 0:26:10.760 --> 0:26:15.800 You know, the traditional jobs are gone, but there are 0:26:16.119 --> 0:26:20.080 suddenly a lot of other opportunities that also exist where 0:26:20.119 --> 0:26:23.800 getting this journalism degree is going to be an asset 0:26:24.240 --> 0:26:29.920 not a liability, I promise. Okay. Next question comes from Bobs. 0:26:30.160 --> 0:26:32.879 A lot of smack talk here on football. Looks like 0:26:33.119 --> 0:26:34.840 I've been a long time listening to your podcast, always 0:26:34.880 --> 0:26:36.840 enjoyed your work on me the Press. I'm listening in 0:26:36.880 --> 0:26:38.720 listening to your most recent podcast has struck me that 0:26:38.720 --> 0:26:41.119 two of your favorite sport teams sports teams happen to 0:26:41.160 --> 0:26:42.879 be playing two of my favorite sports teams in their 0:26:42.920 --> 0:26:45.440 opening games. That said, let me make these predictions. Notre 0:26:45.480 --> 0:26:49.040 Dame beats Miami in a close game. Detroit's Bank screen Bay. Thanks. 0:26:49.280 --> 0:26:51.159 Should these results come to fruition, I just hope it 0:26:51.160 --> 0:26:53.639