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Speaker 1: This is Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the

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Speaker 1: Thing from iHeart Radio.

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Speaker 2: Everything Ends.

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Speaker 1: Jeff Bezos has said that Amazon will eventually go bankrupt.

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Speaker 1: Some believe Apple will also go out of business, and

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Speaker 1: my guest today believed that we may be nearing the

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Speaker 1: final days of the Fox News empire. Michael Wolfe is

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Speaker 1: the author of The Fall, The End of Fox News,

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Speaker 1: and The Murdoch Dynasty. Journalist Michael Wolfe has been a

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Speaker 1: publishing powerhouse for decades. He is the author of eleven books,

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Speaker 1: including The Man Who Owns the News Inside The Secret

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Speaker 1: World of Rupert Murdoch, the pre eminent biography of the

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Speaker 1: Fox media mogul. He's served as media critic and columnist

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Speaker 1: for New York magazine, Vanity Fair, British GQ, The Hollywood Reporter,

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Speaker 1: and The Guardian. He's also the founder of the news

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Speaker 1: aggregator website newser and the recipient of two National Magazine Awards.

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Speaker 1: He now has another accolade to add to that list.

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Speaker 1: He's the first repeat guest on this podcast. I first

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Speaker 1: spoke with Michael wolf in twenty eighteen live at town

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Speaker 1: Hall in New York City to discuss his number one bestseller,

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Speaker 1: Fire and Fury inside the Trump White House. This week,

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Speaker 1: Michael Wolfe and I returned to town Hall for a

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Speaker 1: live conversation about his latest book, his writing process, and

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Speaker 1: his unique brand of journalism. Please join me and welcoming

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Speaker 1: my guest author, Michael Wolfe. Now, it occurred to me,

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Speaker 1: because you know everything about these subjects, that I wanted

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Speaker 1: to go a different direction and not talk so much

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Speaker 1: about the book and the murdocks at first. I wanted

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Speaker 1: to talk about your methods and your techniques in writing.

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Speaker 1: I thought about that famous quote by Janet Malcolm that

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Speaker 1: accompanied the Journalist and the murderer of that article she

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Speaker 1: wrote for the New Yorker magazine quote, every journalist too

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Speaker 1: is not too stupid. We're too full of himself to

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Speaker 1: notice what is going on. Knows that what he does

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Speaker 1: is morally indefensible. He's a kind of confidence man, praying

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Speaker 1: on people's vanity, ignorance, or loneliness, gaining their trust and betraying.

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Speaker 2: Them without remorse.

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Speaker 1: Now, when you begin a project and you're interviewing various people,

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Speaker 1: you must have your methods and techniques. You make a

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Speaker 1: list of people you want to interview. There are obviously

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Speaker 1: people you want to interview, you.

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Speaker 3: Know, I think it's different from that I've been doing

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Speaker 3: this for such a long time that I'm around. I'm

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Speaker 3: just always there, and people cease to notice me being there.

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Speaker 3: And actually I think that they find sometimes I think

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Speaker 3: that there are two means and one people, and often

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Speaker 3: very powerful people.

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Speaker 4: They find me to be the soul of discretion.

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Speaker 3: I become a kind of confident. I mean, they just

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Speaker 3: they like to talk, want to I like to listen,

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Speaker 3: you know. I have no animus toward them, like many

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Speaker 3: other journalists might. I have no no political bone to pick.

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Speaker 3: I'm just there. I'm just I'm just listening. I am

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Speaker 3: I am like a palace reporter in the court of

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Speaker 3: whoever Murdoch or Trump or or what have you.

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Speaker 4: And people get used to me being.

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Speaker 2: There and then let down their guard.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, they let down their guard.

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Speaker 3: They treat me like I'm supposed to be there. And

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Speaker 3: I think that they think that I'm have their best interests,

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Speaker 3: or that I'm that I'm somehow we're on the same plane.

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Speaker 3: And and then I go home and the pen starts

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Speaker 3: to write, and it doesn't necessarily align with that other

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Speaker 3: person who was who was there before.

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Speaker 2: It's interesting how you say you were there.

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Speaker 1: Yes, you've been doing this for a long time, and

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Speaker 1: I find that, you know, that's a component of human nature.

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Speaker 1: I had a couple examples. One where I went to

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Speaker 1: go meet the head of a studio and I went

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Speaker 1: and sat with this guy at a restaurant in La

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Speaker 1: and I did something that I rarely do is I

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Speaker 1: didn't say a word for an hour and a half

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Speaker 1: and I let him do all the talking, and no

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Speaker 1: matter what he said, I was so engaged.

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Speaker 2: I was like, no, you're kidding, did they really?

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Speaker 1: And every he just went on and on in an

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Speaker 1: unbroken monologue for an hour and a half.

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Speaker 2: I go home and my agent calls me. He goes,

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Speaker 2: what did you do? I go, what do you mean?

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Speaker 2: He goes, he loved you and people want to talk.

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Speaker 3: It's all you have to do is listen. When I

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Speaker 3: did my Murdoch biography and this was set up and

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Speaker 3: there was a lot of talk, and you know, he

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Speaker 3: finally agreed and I showed up for the first interview.

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Speaker 3: I showed up and we spoke probably for quite some time,

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Speaker 3: an hour and a half perhaps, And at the end

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Speaker 3: he said, have you gotten what you need? And I thought,

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Speaker 3: I thought that what the world was going to end?

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Speaker 3: I mean, this was you know, And I said, you know,

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Speaker 3: I have I have some more questions. And I remember

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Speaker 3: he got up very slowly from his seat and he

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Speaker 3: went around behind his desk and he wrote me into

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Speaker 3: his date book for the next week. This little thing

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Speaker 3: went on for nine months. At the end it was

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Speaker 3: always have you gotten what you need? And that once

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Speaker 3: I said I want to go see your mother objected

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Speaker 3: to her because he didn't.

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Speaker 4: He said, well, why do you want to do that?

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Speaker 4: What's she going to tell you?

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Speaker 3: That I was an okay son, And I said, well,

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Speaker 3: you know, I you know, and she was ninety nine

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Speaker 3: at the time. And then and then he kind of

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Speaker 3: he said, he said, okay, I get it. You need

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Speaker 3: a color graph. That's an old newspaper man.

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Speaker 1: Now, when you when you go see his mother, when

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Speaker 1: you were in the early stages of this, Obviously, Murdoch's

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Speaker 1: been around for a long time. He's been a famous

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Speaker 1: media magnet and so forth here in the UK or

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Speaker 1: you know, Australia, what have you. He's been around for forever.

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Speaker 1: So where does it begin, Like when you want to

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Speaker 1: talk to him, do you kind of warm him up,

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Speaker 1: and it's like small talk and it's just some biographical questions.

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Speaker 1: What's the method when you sit down with someone like him.

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Speaker 4: It's to supply him with a piece of gossip.

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Speaker 2: Right.

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Speaker 3: That was it's like you can see like he's the

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Speaker 3: fish and then he he just goes for it.

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Speaker 4: And so you had to have a piece of piece

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Speaker 4: of gossip.

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Speaker 3: And you know, so I was showing up every week

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Speaker 3: or sometimes twice a week, and I didn't have that

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Speaker 3: much gossip.

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Speaker 4: So what you could do is just make it up.

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Speaker 3: It didn't make any difference to him me or like

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Speaker 3: he appreciated it as much and I and then I

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Speaker 3: would often find that you would, you would make up

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Speaker 3: a piece of gossip and then forty eight hours later

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Speaker 3: it was all over town.

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Speaker 1: Right now when you see you make it up? Is

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Speaker 1: there an art to making up gossip? You feed to

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Speaker 1: Rupert Murdoch?

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Speaker 2: Do you?

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Speaker 1: Is it like Biden has a secret Canadian family? Or

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Speaker 1: what's the gossip in lined with what's it?

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Speaker 2: You know?

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Speaker 3: It was like Michael Bloomberg is going to buy the

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Speaker 3: New York Times, Right, Michael Bloomberg is going to buy

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Speaker 3: the Times?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, get ready?

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Speaker 3: And then that became a rumor, swept, swept everywhere that was.

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Speaker 3: So it's curious because Rupert then gets on the phone

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Speaker 3: because he's a newspaper man, and so he starts to

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Speaker 3: spread it, and then people start to call around and

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Speaker 3: ask if this is true, and suddenly it's everywhere.

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Speaker 1: But isn't it funny how you say that I went

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Speaker 1: to the book party with you the other day, and

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Speaker 1: you're in a room for the people, all of them,

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Speaker 1: you know, many of them, the highest levels of the

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Speaker 1: most elite media in New York, books and publishing and

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Speaker 1: the Times and so forth. These are people who write

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Speaker 1: for the Post or something, you know, and they're there,

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Speaker 1: and what they all have in common I found, when

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Speaker 1: I thought they had in common, was this idea where

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Speaker 1: they just crave information. They are obsessed and addicted to information.

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Speaker 1: Everybody they talked to you literally see the movie How

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Speaker 1: do people move around? Especially when they're all good no,

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Speaker 1: these kind of highbrow, you know, well educated, very smart

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Speaker 1: people and with these really really important positions in media,

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Speaker 1: and you see them moving around. What they do is

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Speaker 1: they go to different groups of people and they mingle

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Speaker 1: and they're like, any new information here, now, next gone.

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Speaker 1: They're there to call information. They want to learn things,

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Speaker 1: they want to gossip. I mean they're gossip. So you

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Speaker 1: take advantage of that fact, just make it up. What

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Speaker 1: was about Murdoch's childhood and how did he grow up

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Speaker 1: that you think prepared him. You know a lot of people,

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Speaker 1: I know he came from a pretty privileged family. Know

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Speaker 1: they were well to do.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean he came from the most privileged family.

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Speaker 3: I mean he grew up in Australia, in Melbourne, and

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Speaker 3: he was the absolute aristocracy of his father of Australia,

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Speaker 3: which was a kind of otherwise level nation except for

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Speaker 3: Rupert Murdoch. His father ran the most important media company

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Speaker 3: in the country.

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Speaker 1: Right, And so was it just predestined that he would

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Speaker 1: go in that direction? Did he ever have any kind

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Speaker 1: of wild oats he had to sew or was?

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Speaker 2: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: No, he did.

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Speaker 3: I mean he went to I mean, he didn't really

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Speaker 3: get along with his father. He went to Oxford, you know,

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Speaker 3: had you know, a bust of lenin and his father

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Speaker 3: had to send emissaries to say, you know, shape up, kid.

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Speaker 3: And then his father died and he inherited his father

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Speaker 3: actually didn't own the media company. This was you know

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Speaker 3: a company owned by its investors, and all Rupert was

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Speaker 3: left with in the end was a single newspaper from

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Speaker 3: there seventy years later.

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Speaker 1: Now, to get back to your own bio, if you will.

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Speaker 1: You were born in Patterson, New Jersey. I was, and

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Speaker 1: you graduate high school. I guess it's around seventy one,

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Speaker 1: roughly was, and so you were kind of posted we're

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Speaker 1: in kind of an interlude there and the civil rights

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Speaker 1: movement of the sixties and Kennedy is killed and King

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Speaker 1: is killed and Nixon becomes president just three years before.

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Speaker 1: Did you have a period of where you were involved

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Speaker 1: in that, You were an activist? Were you political when

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Speaker 1: you were younger?

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Speaker 3: Well, I was in high school, so my parents wouldn't

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Speaker 3: let me go to demonstration, so they wouldn't I think

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Speaker 3: I was. I once wrote a piece about Christopher Hitchens,

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Speaker 3: who claimed to be you know who was a sixties activist,

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Speaker 3: and I said.

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Speaker 4: Oh, no, no, no, wait a minute. He was twelve at

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Speaker 4: the time, but.

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Speaker 1: He tried to spread some gossips it wasn't true. Also,

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Speaker 1: he just was trying. Now, but when you get out

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Speaker 1: of high school seventy when you go to college, where

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Speaker 1: are you going to grad because you went to Columbia

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Speaker 1: Graduate School.

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Speaker 5: Correct, No, I wasn't undergraduate at Columbia cub what'd you

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Speaker 5: study history?

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Speaker 2: History? And was writing something that was on your mind? Yeah?

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Speaker 3: I went to work for the New York Times when

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Speaker 3: I was a junior at Columbia to do what started

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Speaker 3: at the bottom the guy who fetched the hot dogs.

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Speaker 2: Did they eat a lot of hot dogs at the time.

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Speaker 4: Oh? They did. That's that's it's all they ate in

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Speaker 4: those days. And they looked at.

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Speaker 1: And they looked at yellow skin. When you but but

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Speaker 1: you leeve the Times? How long were you there before

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Speaker 1: you left to go to New Times? I was there

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Speaker 1: for about a year. I hated every second. Why because

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Speaker 1: I figured that The Times is probably, especially back then,

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Speaker 1: a destination for most writers. Why did you feel comfortable

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Speaker 1: just walking away? What didn't you like about it?

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Speaker 4: The smoke? There was so much smoke, and it was

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Speaker 4: and it was so gray, you know, it was.

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Speaker 3: All men, and they were gray men.

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Speaker 4: And and they all had.

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Speaker 2: Ticks, facial ticks.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean hot dogs and cigarettes will do

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Speaker 1: that time.

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Speaker 3: I mean it was like and and you and you

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Speaker 3: had a vision, Oh my god, the rest of my

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Speaker 3: life could be here.

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Speaker 2: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: And when I when I left, when I told them

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Speaker 3: that I was, I was going to leave, and I

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Speaker 3: had done. You know in this time, you know quite well,

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Speaker 3: you kind of get these promotions and you're you begin

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Speaker 3: that you can't sit down, and then you get a

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Speaker 3: seed and it's vaguely Deckenzie and and and I said,

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Speaker 3: I'm I'm gonna quit.

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Speaker 4: And they were like, well, you can't quit.

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Speaker 3: What will you do? Well, you know, I don't know.

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Speaker 3: I'll be a you know, try to be a freelance writer.

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Speaker 3: And then they would tell you how much money a

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Speaker 3: freelance writer made, and that was that was your fate.

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Speaker 4: So you had to stay.

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Speaker 3: You need spam. Yeah, And I was like, I just can't.

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Speaker 3: I just couldn't stay another minute.

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Speaker 1: Now, when you leave The Times, describe for people who

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Speaker 1: don't recall, what was New Times.

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Speaker 2: It was a new magazine.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, when I got out of When I left The Times,

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Speaker 3: it was a fantastic time in New York. There were

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Speaker 3: independent magazines all over the place. An old editor of mine,

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Speaker 3: John Holmans, who died two years ago, used to describe

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Speaker 3: this as the late renaissance of the magazine business. It

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Speaker 3: was a fabulous time and place people paid you rather well,

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Speaker 3: and there were you know, if this magazine didn't watch

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Speaker 3: your piece, then that magazine would watch your piece. You

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Speaker 3: could just kind of go up and down Madison Avenue

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Speaker 3: and sell your wares. It was a fantastic time.

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Speaker 1: Now, describe for me, because you write your first book.

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Speaker 1: Your first book is published what year, nineteen seventy nine,

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Speaker 1: So it wasn't that long.

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Speaker 2: You were very young when you publish your first book

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Speaker 2: twenty five.

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Speaker 4: It was a book called White Kids.

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Speaker 2: About I ask. It's about white kids.

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Speaker 3: Literally, it was about I see. I was early on

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Speaker 3: to the you know, making fun of white people.

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Speaker 1: During this period, I would imagine your hopscotching back and forth.

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Speaker 1: But I mean you once you become an enormously successful writer,

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Speaker 1: I would imagine books preoccupy all your time. But we'll

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Speaker 1: get to that in a minute. The difference between writing

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Speaker 1: for books and magazines, how would you describe that. You

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Speaker 1: wrote for so many big magazines and you're getting a commission,

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Speaker 1: they're telling you what to do work.

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Speaker 4: It's not that different.

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Speaker 3: You know, you're sitting there by yourself for a rather

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Speaker 3: extended period of time, but it's a similar thing. You're

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Speaker 3: telling stories in a similar way. I mean it's a

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Speaker 3: narrative form, you know, beginning, middle, and end, which a

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Speaker 3: magazine piece. That's what a good magazine piece is too. Now,

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Speaker 3: the important thing to realize is that magazine pieces were

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Speaker 3: different than you know, these magazines had singular voices. You know,

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Speaker 3: you opened the magazine, these magazines, and that was a

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Speaker 3: great thing about magazines, and you entered a world, a

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Speaker 3: kind of you know, these extraordinary and kind of complete worlds.

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Speaker 3: You know, I often describe it is that the successful

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Speaker 3: magazine they build a world like a kind of club,

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Speaker 3: which you read it because actually you feel you are

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Speaker 3: not in the club. You know, you read Playboy magazine

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Speaker 3: because you know, it made you feel like everybody was

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Speaker 3: having sex. But you you read Rolling Stone and you

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Speaker 3: felt that everybody was incredibly cool but you and Vanity Fair.

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Speaker 3: Everybody was super glamorous, but you that created this this

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Speaker 3: real formula of entering building these worlds. There's still these

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Speaker 3: brand names around of Vanity Fair. That culture just doesn't

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Speaker 3: exist anymore, and people who work who made their living

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Speaker 3: in that culture don't really exist anymore.

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Speaker 1: Well, now everything is shifted because of digital and everything,

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Speaker 1: because of online and the expediency of the So now

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Speaker 1: The Times is like a magazine. You pick up the

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Speaker 1: newspaper to get a deep dive on a story, and

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Speaker 1: a magazine is like a book. You know, you're really

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Speaker 1: going to sit down and spend two hours reading of

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Speaker 1: the New Yorker magazine. So the way that the digital imperative,

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Speaker 1: the way that online news sources have just pushed everything

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Speaker 1: into another bin, is kind of horrifying to me, because

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Speaker 1: you don't I'm of a generation now where I think

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Speaker 1: you're never going to get the facts online. I mean,

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Speaker 1: almost almost impossible from some venues. And also my perspective

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Speaker 1: is that when I was younger, it was like ninety

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Speaker 1: percent facts and information of news and ten percent opinion.

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Speaker 1: And now that's been flipped. You beat articles in the Atlantic,

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Speaker 1: good writers, You beat the articles in all these places,

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Speaker 1: and it is a lot of opinion and this much fact,

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Speaker 1: you know, and I find that appalling.

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Speaker 3: I mean, that's partly because opinion is cheap. You don't

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Speaker 3: have to do the reporting on opinion. You don't have

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Speaker 3: to good, you don't have to find yourself. You know,

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Speaker 3: much of the opinion is about the Trump era, and

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Speaker 3: that's easier than actually finding yourself in the Trump White.

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Speaker 1: House, now you have three books in a row about Trump.

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Speaker 1: Your last book, Too Famous, the Rich, the Powerful, the Wishful,

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Speaker 1: the Notorious, the Damned was about quote, monsters, media whores

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Speaker 1: and vain glorious figures unquote. And now Rubert Murdoch. You

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Speaker 1: spend a lot of time with unsavory people.

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Speaker 4: I get along with them.

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Speaker 2: They're my people, my metier. Yeah, they're metier. What's it

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Speaker 2: like for you?

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Speaker 1: Many of the ownership class who I'm friendly with, some

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Speaker 1: of them, I'm friendly with somebody who knows them. And

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Speaker 1: I go around these people and they all admire Murdoch

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Speaker 1: to the hilty, because I mean, you know, the number

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Speaker 1: one in New York money is money. If you made

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Speaker 1: a big pile of money, people admire you, unless you're

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Speaker 1: a criminal, and and even then they might tip their

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Speaker 1: hat to you now and then another party. But Murdoch,

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Speaker 1: I mean, I'll never forget. There were friends of mine

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Speaker 1: who I thought politically they would at least not express

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Speaker 1: any positive feelings about. But they all admire Murdoch deeply.

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Speaker 1: Did you get that sense? You know, well, what are they?

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Speaker 3: They admire him because not really because of the money,

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Speaker 3: but because of the power. And the power is the

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Speaker 3: currency of our time. Who has the power? Who has

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Speaker 3: more power? I mean having more money? Nobody really cares

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Speaker 3: about about that. It's it's what do you have the

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Speaker 3: money to buy more power? In the probably in the

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Speaker 3: late eighties. Murdoch at that point had or he established

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Speaker 3: his effective empire newspapers around the world. He had bought

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Speaker 3: twentieth Century Fox, he had started the Fox Network, he

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Speaker 3: had bought Sky Television in the UK. And I had

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Speaker 3: actually proposed the biography of him then and no one

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Speaker 3: was interested. He was a kind of low rent sleeves ball.

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Speaker 3: Why would you want to write a biography about him?

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Speaker 3: Twenty years later, and so much in the culture had changed,

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Speaker 3: then suddenly I made the same proposal, and that was

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Speaker 3: suddenly this was now a seventh figure project with everybody

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Speaker 3: bidding on it. So something very very clearly had changed

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Speaker 3: in the way we would regard people like Murdoch, who, otherwise,

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Speaker 3: if you stripped it away, is just a tabloid publisher.

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Speaker 3: He contributes nothing and has ruined many things.

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Speaker 1: Journalist Michael Wolfe. If you enjoy conversations with astute authors,

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Speaker 1: check out my episode with Sam Wasson, author of The

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Speaker 1: Big Goodbye. His book on the making of the movie Chinatown.

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Speaker 1: What was it about Evans that he wanted to have

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Speaker 1: great films that made money and won awards.

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Speaker 6: He loved it, he loved it, he loved show business,

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Speaker 6: he loved movies, he loved people, he loved talent. It's

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Speaker 6: actually that simple. I asked him this question. I said, Evans,

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Speaker 6: is it as simple as you bet on talent? Do

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Speaker 6: you have an easy job? And he said, you goddamn right,

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Speaker 6: It's true.

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Speaker 1: To hear more of my conversation with Sam Wasson, go

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Speaker 1: to Here's the Thing dot org. After the break, Michael

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Speaker 1: wolf shares what kept Rupert Murdoch from acquiring CNN. I'm

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Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. Author

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Speaker 1: Michael Wolfe is known for infiltrating some tight circles, from

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Speaker 1: gathering information at cocktail parties and martini lunches to being

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Speaker 1: a fly on the wall in Trump's White House. The

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Speaker 1: result is three books on the Trump administration and two

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Speaker 1: on Titan Rupert Murdoch. Yet from time to time he's

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Speaker 1: received some criticism from the media on the veracity of

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Speaker 1: his reporting. I wanted to know how he felt about

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Speaker 1: getting under the skin of his fellow journalists.

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Speaker 3: I think most journalism is kind of crappy. I think

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Speaker 3: it's I think it's boring. I think it's repetitive. I

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Speaker 3: think it's kind of sour puss literal, it's humorless. It's

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Speaker 3: you know, and no one really has has much interest

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Speaker 3: in character or apparently much ability to express what character,

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Speaker 3: what makes someone what they are? You know, I think

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Speaker 3: it's also more and more journalism is a negotiated reality.

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Speaker 3: You make deals with the pr people, or you have

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Speaker 3: to negotiate with the institution that you work for. And

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Speaker 3: everyone works for an institution, so it's lawyers, editors, layers

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Speaker 3: of editors, often fact checkers, and in the end, you know,

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Speaker 3: it's it's a kind of a committee product. And I

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Speaker 3: kind of not to be too high falutin, but but

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Speaker 3: I try to make a distinction, be at least for myself,

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Speaker 3: between being a journalist and being a writer.

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Speaker 4: You know, I'm.

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Speaker 3: Interested in in, you know, why people do things, how

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Speaker 3: they got to be who they are, how they talk,

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Speaker 3: how they smelly, how they roll, and maybe the in

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Speaker 3: the end, the big difference I see between myself and

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Speaker 3: everybody else is it's just me. I don't work for

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Speaker 3: a company. I don't work for It's on the page.

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Speaker 3: You just get me, and you can be assured of that.

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Speaker 3: It's not something else, it's not some other committee.

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Speaker 1: I find these things interesting because I didn't pick up

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Speaker 1: on this. I watched chunks of Succession. I didn't really

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Speaker 1: binge that show that much, which people indicated to me

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Speaker 1: was somewhat about the Murdoch family and their dynasty.

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Speaker 2: Did you watch Succession?

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Speaker 1: Yes you did, And did you see knowing as well

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Speaker 1: as you do the Murdoch schematics.

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Speaker 2: Did you see the Murdoch's vividly in those portrayals?

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Speaker 4: No, no, it isn't.

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Speaker 3: I mean, it's about a Murdoch like structure of a family.

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Speaker 3: But you know, the Succession guy is a kind of

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Speaker 3: ordering on violence all the time. Rupert is not like

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Speaker 3: that at all. Rupert is incredibly mannerly, courtly. You'll be

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Speaker 3: received in the most gracious way. Tucker Carlson was describing

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Speaker 3: this to me, his relationships with Murdoch and pointing out

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Speaker 3: the same thing, it's so nice to be with him.

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Speaker 3: And then Tucker said, of course he's a savage, but

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Speaker 3: you never see that. And the savagery is always carried

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Speaker 3: out by someone else. He himself is incredibly conflict averse.

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Speaker 3: He doesn't do that anything to avoid a conflict. You know,

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Speaker 3: within the company, they say, one of the best things

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Speaker 3: to do is to be hired by Murdoch because then

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Speaker 3: he would pay you a lot of money. But they said,

438
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:33,480
Speaker 3: but even better is to be fired by Murdoch, because

439
00:23:33,480 --> 00:23:36,040
Speaker 3: then he would really pay you a lot of money.

440
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:40,040
Speaker 1: Do you recall how was Fox News received when it

441
00:23:40,119 --> 00:23:42,520
Speaker 1: was first launched and they and were they as ham

442
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:45,439
Speaker 1: fisted in their right wing a few points.

443
00:23:46,560 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 3: I mean, the first thing what Murdoch wanted was he

444
00:23:49,840 --> 00:23:51,000
Speaker 3: had tried to buy CNN.

445
00:23:51,040 --> 00:23:53,080
Speaker 4: They wouldn't let him buy CNN.

446
00:23:53,080 --> 00:23:54,680
Speaker 2: So he wanted in the government.

447
00:23:55,000 --> 00:23:58,560
Speaker 3: No they being CNN, I mean the owners of CNN,

448
00:23:58,880 --> 00:24:02,400
Speaker 3: you know, just kind of because he was still regarded

449
00:24:02,440 --> 00:24:05,760
Speaker 3: as a kind of a low rent sleeves ball. So

450
00:24:05,800 --> 00:24:08,119
Speaker 3: he said, you know, damn them, and I will start

451
00:24:08,200 --> 00:24:12,239
Speaker 3: my own news network. And he hired Roger Ales. And

452
00:24:12,400 --> 00:24:14,880
Speaker 3: Murdoch is a cheap skates, So it was, you know,

453
00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:18,080
Speaker 3: it was starting this network on the cheap. But it

454
00:24:18,240 --> 00:24:22,840
Speaker 3: really was not about any particular political viewpoint, I mean,

455
00:24:23,359 --> 00:24:28,159
Speaker 3: other than the general Murdoch tabloid sensibility, and it was

456
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:31,840
Speaker 3: Ales who came in and said, no, there's this unserved

457
00:24:32,480 --> 00:24:35,080
Speaker 3: audience and we can serve it with the kind.

458
00:24:34,960 --> 00:24:38,399
Speaker 1: Of so Als was more responsible for the total DNA

459
00:24:38,520 --> 00:24:39,040
Speaker 1: of the network.

460
00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:41,959
Speaker 3: I mean, Murdock has literally nothing to do with with

461
00:24:42,119 --> 00:24:45,399
Speaker 3: the creation of Fox. It's Ales who says, you know,

462
00:24:45,520 --> 00:24:47,920
Speaker 3: let's just serve up kind of I mean, Al said

463
00:24:48,119 --> 00:24:50,320
Speaker 3: said to me in one discussion, he said, you know,

464
00:24:50,600 --> 00:24:54,000
Speaker 3: you know this was in I think twenty sixteen, somewhat

465
00:24:54,040 --> 00:24:56,639
Speaker 3: before before he died, and he said, he said, you know,

466
00:24:56,680 --> 00:24:58,960
Speaker 3: the people you know they live now, they live in

467
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:02,920
Speaker 3: two thousand and six, he said, the people I program

468
00:25:03,000 --> 00:25:06,800
Speaker 3: for they live in nineteen sixty five, you know. And

469
00:25:06,840 --> 00:25:08,320
Speaker 3: that's that kind of thing, you know. You know, he

470
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:12,080
Speaker 3: built a network which really looks like television from nineteen

471
00:25:12,160 --> 00:25:16,120
Speaker 3: sixty five, looks like that kind of daytime quiz show.

472
00:25:16,040 --> 00:25:17,119
Speaker 4: Television time.

473
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:20,040
Speaker 3: Well it's it's that, but even more it's more the

474
00:25:20,600 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 3: you know, the girls, the graphics whatever.

475
00:25:23,520 --> 00:25:23,760
Speaker 4: You know.

476
00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:26,720
Speaker 1: It was the girls meeting the correspondent to the blonde

477
00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:27,720
Speaker 1: Fox type.

478
00:25:27,760 --> 00:25:30,439
Speaker 3: See yeah, and then he figured out you could you know,

479
00:25:30,520 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 3: Als is a political guy. He figured out that politics

480
00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:36,920
Speaker 3: was actually kind of you know, narrative drama. You could

481
00:25:37,440 --> 00:25:45,560
Speaker 3: monetize politics. Politics is conflict. Just emphasize the conflict and

482
00:25:45,680 --> 00:25:51,879
Speaker 3: it becomes irresistible and people tune in, and soon enough

483
00:25:51,960 --> 00:25:56,600
Speaker 3: it's the most profitable news operation that there has ever been.

484
00:25:57,119 --> 00:25:57,560
Speaker 2: Exactly.

485
00:25:57,600 --> 00:26:00,800
Speaker 1: They're the envy of everybody in that industry, people who

486
00:26:00,840 --> 00:26:03,360
Speaker 1: will admit it. I had a little brief moment where

487
00:26:03,359 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: I was going to do an interview show for MSNBC,

488
00:26:06,600 --> 00:26:08,520
Speaker 1: and I was sitting there with the people that ran

489
00:26:08,560 --> 00:26:10,520
Speaker 1: the show over there, and I was talking about, you know,

490
00:26:10,560 --> 00:26:13,640
Speaker 1: simple things like my sets. What kind of set would

491
00:26:13,640 --> 00:26:15,520
Speaker 1: we have? And I said, I'd like to have it

492
00:26:15,560 --> 00:26:17,200
Speaker 1: be a little bit different from you. I said, most

493
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:20,160
Speaker 1: of your sets are like some Soviet police station. They're

494
00:26:20,200 --> 00:26:23,720
Speaker 1: all like white, and everything's lit really brightly and everybody

495
00:26:23,760 --> 00:26:26,840
Speaker 1: looks like shit. And I said, I'd like to do

496
00:26:26,840 --> 00:26:28,959
Speaker 1: something a little bit differently. And I'll never forget. We

497
00:26:28,960 --> 00:26:31,120
Speaker 1: were having these meetings and I wasn't saying the right

498
00:26:31,200 --> 00:26:34,800
Speaker 1: thing to engender the love of the people I was

499
00:26:34,840 --> 00:26:36,800
Speaker 1: going to go work for. And one woman who was

500
00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:39,720
Speaker 1: a longtime producer walked up to me outside in the

501
00:26:39,720 --> 00:26:41,040
Speaker 1: hallway and I'll never forget.

502
00:26:40,720 --> 00:26:42,480
Speaker 2: She said to me. She goes, I need to tell

503
00:26:42,520 --> 00:26:43,880
Speaker 2: you something. I go, what's that?

504
00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:46,480
Speaker 1: She goes, everybody here used to work at the Mothership,

505
00:26:46,640 --> 00:26:49,920
Speaker 1: meaning NBC regular news, broadcast news, network news. She was

506
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,399
Speaker 1: an hour over here, and we're all getting paid, and

507
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:53,080
Speaker 1: she said.

508
00:26:53,119 --> 00:26:54,360
Speaker 2: And nobody is watching.

509
00:26:55,200 --> 00:26:59,400
Speaker 1: As a pause, and she went, so sh she said,

510
00:26:59,400 --> 00:27:02,399
Speaker 1: stop complet like, we're here doing a job. And this

511
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:05,240
Speaker 1: whole game is rigged by carriage fees that they pull

512
00:27:05,280 --> 00:27:07,439
Speaker 1: off when they kind of give people the boys and

513
00:27:07,480 --> 00:27:13,240
Speaker 1: pill of MSNBC Murdoch's children. Was it inevitable, like did

514
00:27:13,880 --> 00:27:17,280
Speaker 1: James Murdoch always kind of indicate the people he was

515
00:27:17,320 --> 00:27:18,240
Speaker 1: going to go the way he went?

516
00:27:18,280 --> 00:27:20,679
Speaker 2: And was it inevitable that Lachlan would prevail?

517
00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:21,680
Speaker 4: No?

518
00:27:21,680 --> 00:27:25,760
Speaker 3: No, it was seesaws back and forth and has for

519
00:27:26,400 --> 00:27:31,040
Speaker 3: nearly nearly twenty years, you know. But the interesting thing is, okay,

520
00:27:31,200 --> 00:27:33,480
Speaker 3: that this is set up and this is the succession.

521
00:27:33,680 --> 00:27:36,520
Speaker 3: What is not true in the success The key point

522
00:27:36,600 --> 00:27:41,080
Speaker 3: here is that Rupert Murdoch cannot pick his own successor.

523
00:27:41,840 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 3: He bargained that right away on his second divorce, he

524
00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:51,840
Speaker 3: got divorced in California, community property state could have sundered

525
00:27:52,240 --> 00:27:56,680
Speaker 3: the empire. Instead, his then wife Anna made a deal

526
00:27:56,840 --> 00:28:00,359
Speaker 3: one hundred million dollars virtually a tip at that point,

527
00:28:01,400 --> 00:28:05,800
Speaker 3: if you'll freeze the trust for the existing children, that

528
00:28:05,920 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 3: means no other children can If you have other children,

529
00:28:09,400 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 3: which he did, they can't be part of the trust,

530
00:28:12,320 --> 00:28:15,119
Speaker 3: and you can't change the terms of the trust. The

531
00:28:15,240 --> 00:28:18,600
Speaker 3: terms of the trust is when you die, there are

532
00:28:18,640 --> 00:28:23,080
Speaker 3: four votes that will determine what happens. So he agreed

533
00:28:23,119 --> 00:28:26,520
Speaker 3: to that, and then ever since been stuck with this.

534
00:28:27,440 --> 00:28:31,679
Speaker 3: He can't appoint his successor that in the end it

535
00:28:31,760 --> 00:28:36,440
Speaker 3: will be the decision of his four oldest children, and

536
00:28:36,480 --> 00:28:39,440
Speaker 3: that alignment has has shifted in.

537
00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:42,040
Speaker 1: That like succession wasn't a big part of succession them

538
00:28:42,560 --> 00:28:44,120
Speaker 1: jockeying to succeed the father.

539
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:48,120
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, but he always had the power to appoint

540
00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:48,640
Speaker 3: someone else.

541
00:28:48,840 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: You imagine, you don't get your next crop of children,

542
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:54,880
Speaker 1: don't get any piece of the action. And so he's

543
00:28:54,920 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 1: having dinner with Wendy Dang and he says, I've got

544
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:01,320
Speaker 1: to tell you that and if we were to have children,

545
00:29:01,760 --> 00:29:04,320
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be able to inherit any of my fortune.

546
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 2: And she's like, let's skip dessert.

547
00:29:09,280 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 4: This actually happened. And then she made that.

548
00:29:13,560 --> 00:29:16,600
Speaker 2: That's gossip I made up. I learned that from you.

549
00:29:16,800 --> 00:29:19,200
Speaker 4: I mean she threw him out. It was, it was

550
00:29:19,240 --> 00:29:19,560
Speaker 4: a thing.

551
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:21,760
Speaker 3: And then he had to go to his other children

552
00:29:21,880 --> 00:29:25,000
Speaker 3: and say and say, you know, literally on bended knee

553
00:29:25,040 --> 00:29:27,920
Speaker 3: and that banded knee is is I will give you.

554
00:29:28,160 --> 00:29:30,520
Speaker 3: They didn't have any real money because it was all

555
00:29:30,560 --> 00:29:33,120
Speaker 3: tied up in shares, and he said, I'll give you,

556
00:29:33,200 --> 00:29:36,720
Speaker 3: I'll pay you, I'll give you, I'll give you money

557
00:29:36,800 --> 00:29:40,160
Speaker 3: if you cut in your half siblings, your half siblings.

558
00:29:41,080 --> 00:29:43,720
Speaker 3: And they each got fifty million dollars and they cut

559
00:29:43,760 --> 00:29:48,880
Speaker 3: in the siblings. Well then yes that at that point

560
00:29:49,000 --> 00:29:52,640
Speaker 3: that that was it. I mean they would all since

561
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:56,040
Speaker 3: after that get two billion dollars. But but anyway, they

562
00:29:56,080 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 3: cut them in. But they didn't give the new siblings

563
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:02,280
Speaker 3: any kind of vote, so they just got they get

564
00:30:02,280 --> 00:30:03,120
Speaker 3: the money.

565
00:30:03,560 --> 00:30:04,480
Speaker 2: Here's fifty million.

566
00:30:04,520 --> 00:30:08,960
Speaker 1: But just keep your mouth shut in Now, what surprised you,

567
00:30:09,200 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: if anything that you can say about Murdoch that you

568
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:13,720
Speaker 1: got to know about him, Like, what surprised me was

569
00:30:14,080 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 1: I learned of during this research that he supported Obama?

570
00:30:18,240 --> 00:30:21,040
Speaker 2: Is that true? He did? He did? What do you

571
00:30:21,040 --> 00:30:22,200
Speaker 2: think that was about.

572
00:30:22,760 --> 00:30:25,960
Speaker 3: Well, he supported Obama because Obama was going to win

573
00:30:27,040 --> 00:30:30,840
Speaker 3: number one, but number two, you know, enormous pressure from

574
00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:34,720
Speaker 3: his children. You know, his children are you know, we're like,

575
00:30:35,120 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 3: you know, okay, Obama, I mean, this is a you know,

576
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:42,280
Speaker 3: the the world is changing. We have to do this.

577
00:30:42,280 --> 00:30:45,320
Speaker 3: This is important and we should be there. And so

578
00:30:46,080 --> 00:30:49,840
Speaker 3: you know, Murdoch is you know, begrudgingly okay, you know,

579
00:30:49,960 --> 00:30:52,200
Speaker 3: let's just I can hear the mumble now.

580
00:30:52,640 --> 00:30:53,280
Speaker 4: And he did it.

581
00:30:53,320 --> 00:30:55,600
Speaker 3: And in fact, and he sat down with Obama, they

582
00:30:55,600 --> 00:30:58,360
Speaker 3: got along and he did it. I mean he supported

583
00:30:58,400 --> 00:31:02,280
Speaker 3: Blair in the U. Okay, this is not unknown unknown

584
00:31:02,400 --> 00:31:06,080
Speaker 3: territory for Murdoch. Who's gonna you know, I mean the

585
00:31:06,120 --> 00:31:09,800
Speaker 3: first and foremost of all his political positions is who's

586
00:31:09,840 --> 00:31:13,880
Speaker 3: the winner, and then after that the power it's you know, yes,

587
00:31:14,000 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 3: then it's like, you know, okay, who's the you know,

588
00:31:16,760 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 3: who's gonna who's gonna protect my money?

589
00:31:19,240 --> 00:31:19,480
Speaker 2: More?

590
00:31:20,440 --> 00:31:22,440
Speaker 1: Now you spelled it out for us that a lot

591
00:31:22,440 --> 00:31:26,320
Speaker 1: of the decisions that involved Fox News was Ales territory.

592
00:31:26,480 --> 00:31:28,560
Speaker 1: Uh so is Ale's the one that hired all that

593
00:31:28,680 --> 00:31:32,560
Speaker 1: talent totally Als is the one who identified Hannity or riot.

594
00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:35,480
Speaker 3: Murdoch is not a television guy. Murdoch doesn't even watch

595
00:31:35,600 --> 00:31:38,560
Speaker 3: television news. You know, he can't sit there, He gets up,

596
00:31:38,600 --> 00:31:42,680
Speaker 3: he leaves, he leaves the room. He's not a television guy, certainly,

597
00:31:42,680 --> 00:31:47,200
Speaker 3: not a television programmer, not even a television executive. So

598
00:31:47,680 --> 00:31:51,680
Speaker 3: this was entirely Ales' business. And you know, Ales once

599
00:31:51,720 --> 00:31:53,400
Speaker 3: told me that Murdoch had made a vow.

600
00:31:53,560 --> 00:31:54,200
Speaker 4: They had a.

601
00:31:54,120 --> 00:31:58,720
Speaker 3: Written agreement that Murdoch would never interfere. Now, Murdoch has

602
00:31:58,720 --> 00:32:02,920
Speaker 3: made that written agreement throughout his career and always broken it.

603
00:32:03,320 --> 00:32:06,760
Speaker 3: But he did not break it with Fox because a

604
00:32:06,920 --> 00:32:08,760
Speaker 3: it was television. I mean, he always broke it in

605
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:11,160
Speaker 3: terms of newspapers because he could put out a newspaper

606
00:32:11,160 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 3: but than anyone at least he believed. But he never

607
00:32:14,240 --> 00:32:18,000
Speaker 3: felt that way about television. Plus, on top of that,

608
00:32:18,280 --> 00:32:21,720
Speaker 3: it was making so much money, unbelievable amounts of money,

609
00:32:22,280 --> 00:32:26,640
Speaker 3: even for Murdoch. It was staggering and breathtaking.

610
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:30,280
Speaker 1: Sure, now, someone told me that not all the people

611
00:32:30,320 --> 00:32:34,000
Speaker 1: who are these stars, if you will, the leading lights

612
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:37,120
Speaker 1: of Fox News, really believe everything that they're engaged with

613
00:32:37,200 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 1: on the air, like Hannity or whatever. I mean, I've

614
00:32:39,400 --> 00:32:42,080
Speaker 1: always had the lowest opinion of these people. I've always

615
00:32:42,120 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 1: said that Hannity was a guy who, like you, filled

616
00:32:44,200 --> 00:32:47,320
Speaker 1: in when somebody drops it at their desk that somebody's

617
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:49,640
Speaker 1: in a studio at Fox and they dropped dead, and

618
00:32:49,680 --> 00:32:52,000
Speaker 1: Hannity's like a janitor there or something. They get in

619
00:32:52,040 --> 00:32:53,760
Speaker 1: the booth kit you're going to be you're doing the

620
00:32:53,760 --> 00:32:56,320
Speaker 1: show tonight, Like he just fell into it because I mean,

621
00:32:56,480 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: to me, Hannity has a rufer.

622
00:32:57,840 --> 00:33:00,560
Speaker 4: He was the roof for O'Reilly always called them the roof.

623
00:33:01,160 --> 00:33:02,960
Speaker 1: But the point is is that someone told me these

624
00:33:02,960 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 1: people don't necessarily embrace everything that they say on the air.

625
00:33:06,160 --> 00:33:06,640
Speaker 2: Is that true?

626
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:11,560
Speaker 3: Well, it's television, right, who embraces everything they say on television?

627
00:33:11,640 --> 00:33:15,320
Speaker 3: You're there to cater to an audience on whatever, and.

628
00:33:15,400 --> 00:33:17,160
Speaker 2: Doesn't reflect their own feelings.

629
00:33:17,200 --> 00:33:18,160
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you're there.

630
00:33:18,200 --> 00:33:20,960
Speaker 3: You're going to maintain ratings or you're going to be

631
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:25,080
Speaker 3: fired somewhat. The difference is that Fox is that the

632
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:28,440
Speaker 3: ratings are even bigger than everywhere else. You're going to

633
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,880
Speaker 3: get more you're being paid more money. The response is

634
00:33:31,920 --> 00:33:36,760
Speaker 3: more intense. So you're you're you're on the program.

635
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:39,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, the last couple of questions I want to

636
00:33:39,440 --> 00:33:41,280
Speaker 1: ask you about media in general.

637
00:33:41,720 --> 00:33:43,120
Speaker 2: And then, as you know, we live in a world now.

638
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:44,720
Speaker 1: When I was a kid, it was an appointment to

639
00:33:44,720 --> 00:33:47,840
Speaker 1: watch the news. It was six o'clock Cronkite, Huntley Brinkley.

640
00:33:48,320 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: We had a relationship with media, and the world wasn't

641
00:33:52,040 --> 00:33:54,400
Speaker 1: pulsing us with news. You know, Now you have a

642
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:56,760
Speaker 1: device in your pocket and you're able to find that

643
00:33:57,200 --> 00:33:59,600
Speaker 1: everything in real time, in an instant and much of

644
00:33:59,600 --> 00:34:02,000
Speaker 1: it that and much if it's something more important that

645
00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: you can have no hope of influencing whatsoever. And I'm

646
00:34:05,120 --> 00:34:08,040
Speaker 1: wondering which was better? Was it better then when we

647
00:34:08,080 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: could consume news and think about it, but it had

648
00:34:10,520 --> 00:34:12,839
Speaker 1: its place in our lives in my opinion, and then

649
00:34:12,880 --> 00:34:14,719
Speaker 1: we lived our lives the rest of the time, you know,

650
00:34:14,760 --> 00:34:16,759
Speaker 1: I mean, or the way we live now, where we

651
00:34:16,840 --> 00:34:18,359
Speaker 1: live in this hot tub.

652
00:34:18,400 --> 00:34:21,800
Speaker 2: We're in the fucking hot tub all day long.

653
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 1: The news, the news, the news, what's happening to And

654
00:34:25,000 --> 00:34:26,920
Speaker 1: again much of which was what are you supposed to

655
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:27,440
Speaker 1: do about it?

656
00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:29,000
Speaker 2: What are you supposed to do about it?

657
00:34:29,040 --> 00:34:32,960
Speaker 3: I actually think it might be something more complicated than that,

658
00:34:33,160 --> 00:34:36,799
Speaker 3: which is that most people don't listen to news. I mean,

659
00:34:36,880 --> 00:34:40,319
Speaker 3: remember people get their news from cable news. These are

660
00:34:40,400 --> 00:34:44,240
Speaker 3: audiences of I mean Fox says will do two million

661
00:34:45,080 --> 00:34:48,840
Speaker 3: a night. You know CNN will do six hundred thousand

662
00:34:48,840 --> 00:34:51,799
Speaker 3: a night. These are relatively small nunder.

663
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:54,040
Speaker 2: A million, yeah, does under a million?

664
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:56,719
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean these are small numbers compared to the

665
00:34:56,719 --> 00:34:59,240
Speaker 3: news that you're talking about when it was twenty million

666
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:02,880
Speaker 3: or thirty million in a NII. So we have that

667
00:35:03,000 --> 00:35:07,800
Speaker 3: kind of thing. News is more intense but servicing fewer people.

668
00:35:08,280 --> 00:35:10,560
Speaker 3: But then we have this other side of this in

669
00:35:10,600 --> 00:35:15,080
Speaker 3: which people are involved with this political culture, but they

670
00:35:15,120 --> 00:35:17,320
Speaker 3: don't really follow this political culture.

671
00:35:17,560 --> 00:35:18,160
Speaker 4: It's more a.

672
00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:22,800
Speaker 3: Point of identity than it is of information or events

673
00:35:23,200 --> 00:35:28,040
Speaker 3: or anything that we would otherwise have associated with politics.

674
00:35:29,160 --> 00:35:32,040
Speaker 2: Murdoch is old. Murdock is very old.

675
00:35:32,440 --> 00:35:34,439
Speaker 3: I got to call last week from the Daily Mail.

676
00:35:34,520 --> 00:35:36,919
Speaker 3: They said they were running down a rumor that we've

677
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:38,040
Speaker 3: heard Rupert is dead.

678
00:35:39,600 --> 00:35:43,960
Speaker 1: We did that on thirty Rock. Yes, don geis. They

679
00:35:43,960 --> 00:35:47,840
Speaker 1: put him in the freezer, been torn anyway. The point

680
00:35:47,880 --> 00:35:51,520
Speaker 1: is that when Murdoch is gone, I mean he's alive now,

681
00:35:51,600 --> 00:35:54,720
Speaker 1: and who knows his how much he has his hand

682
00:35:54,760 --> 00:35:56,440
Speaker 1: and things now, even though he's retired.

683
00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,160
Speaker 3: Well he hasn't really, you know, that was a weird retirement. Know,

684
00:36:00,280 --> 00:36:03,360
Speaker 3: I'm I'm going to step I'm not going to step down.

685
00:36:03,480 --> 00:36:06,000
Speaker 3: I'm going to step back. What does that mean, I'm

686
00:36:06,000 --> 00:36:08,840
Speaker 3: going to step back. What it probably meant immediately is

687
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:11,000
Speaker 3: that he doesn't want to testify, looking for a way

688
00:36:11,040 --> 00:36:15,680
Speaker 3: out of testifying. In this other big case, this Smartmatic,

689
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 3: another voting machine company that when they're selling Suing for

690
00:36:19,080 --> 00:36:21,960
Speaker 3: I think two point seven billion dollars.

691
00:36:22,160 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 2: In boldened no doubt by the.

692
00:36:24,400 --> 00:36:27,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, and so and and he can't testify when

693
00:36:27,560 --> 00:36:30,360
Speaker 3: he you know, the deposition that he gave and dominion

694
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 3: was a catastrophe. So they're trying to trying to get them.

695
00:36:34,960 --> 00:36:37,839
Speaker 1: But when he's work, when he's when he really is

696
00:36:37,880 --> 00:36:40,720
Speaker 1: not stepping back, But he's gone, I mean in terms

697
00:36:40,719 --> 00:36:44,360
Speaker 1: of not just not passed away, but eventually, eventually, I

698
00:36:44,360 --> 00:36:46,640
Speaker 1: guess he won't. Maybe he'll find a way to have

699
00:36:46,680 --> 00:36:50,000
Speaker 1: an influence on the company after his dad. Who knows,

700
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:52,480
Speaker 1: but he But what do you think is going to happen?

701
00:36:52,760 --> 00:36:55,000
Speaker 1: His kids just don't seem to have the same skill

702
00:36:55,040 --> 00:36:55,719
Speaker 1: set he does.

703
00:36:55,760 --> 00:36:56,320
Speaker 2: Is that fair?

704
00:36:57,080 --> 00:37:00,359
Speaker 3: I mean, they're they're rich kids. They each have, as

705
00:37:00,400 --> 00:37:03,160
Speaker 3: I said, two billion dollars in their pocket. So that

706
00:37:03,239 --> 00:37:08,640
Speaker 3: creates a whole different sense of motivation. Clearly, you know,

707
00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:11,960
Speaker 3: I mean think Lachlan now runs the company and wants

708
00:37:11,960 --> 00:37:15,200
Speaker 3: to hold on to his job. James, his brother, wants

709
00:37:15,280 --> 00:37:18,719
Speaker 3: to take the company from him. I will take the

710
00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:23,319
Speaker 3: company from my brother. I will turn Fox News into

711
00:37:23,360 --> 00:37:26,880
Speaker 3: a force for good air, quotes.

712
00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: Author Michael wolf If you're enjoying this conversation, tell a

713
00:37:35,040 --> 00:37:38,120
Speaker 1: friend and be sure to follow Here's the Thing on

714
00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:42,839
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio app, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

715
00:37:43,320 --> 00:37:47,080
Speaker 1: When we come back, Michael wolf answers listener questions from

716
00:37:47,160 --> 00:38:00,200
Speaker 1: our audience at town Hall in New York City. I'm

717
00:38:00,239 --> 00:38:03,160
Speaker 1: Alec Baldwin and you're listening to Here's the Thing. I

718
00:38:03,280 --> 00:38:06,080
Speaker 1: spoke with Michael Wolfe live at town Hall in New

719
00:38:06,160 --> 00:38:09,719
Speaker 1: York City about his latest book, The Fall, The End

720
00:38:09,760 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 1: of Fox News and the Murdoch Dynasty, before he answered

721
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:17,080
Speaker 1: some questions from the audience. I couldn't help but wonder

722
00:38:17,120 --> 00:38:21,840
Speaker 1: if wolf is aware that he resembles curiously his book's subject,

723
00:38:22,320 --> 00:38:23,080
Speaker 1: Rupert Murdock.

724
00:38:24,120 --> 00:38:24,279
Speaker 4: Yeah.

725
00:38:24,320 --> 00:38:27,080
Speaker 5: No, no, all the time, all the time. Yeah, because

726
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:31,040
Speaker 5: I mean vaguely you do you? Yeah, no, it was

727
00:38:31,080 --> 00:38:32,560
Speaker 5: part of him trusted thought he.

728
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:34,480
Speaker 4: Was talking to him so disconcerting.

729
00:38:36,480 --> 00:38:39,840
Speaker 2: He trusted you.

730
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:43,080
Speaker 3: He sort of would look at me sometimes and kind

731
00:38:43,120 --> 00:38:47,560
Speaker 3: of notice this. And and I said to him, I said,

732
00:38:47,680 --> 00:38:49,520
Speaker 3: you kind of look like my grandfather.

733
00:38:49,560 --> 00:38:52,640
Speaker 4: He says, your grandfather says, I look like you.

734
00:38:54,920 --> 00:38:57,640
Speaker 2: I love this. Steve from New Jersey. How can Fox

735
00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:00,400
Speaker 2: News save itself? Can it?

736
00:39:01,680 --> 00:39:05,000
Speaker 3: It's a funny question that presupposes that Fox would want

737
00:39:05,040 --> 00:39:06,000
Speaker 3: to save itself.

738
00:39:06,960 --> 00:39:11,240
Speaker 4: Fox believes it doesn't need to say it is the winner.

739
00:39:11,800 --> 00:39:17,800
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I mean James Murdoch does probably have the

740
00:39:17,920 --> 00:39:21,920
Speaker 3: votes or could possibly have the votes to take Fox

741
00:39:22,000 --> 00:39:25,319
Speaker 3: and to turn it into something the opposite of what

742
00:39:25,440 --> 00:39:28,160
Speaker 3: it is. How he does that? And he would have

743
00:39:28,200 --> 00:39:30,680
Speaker 3: to do that on the back of his shareholder's money,

744
00:39:30,800 --> 00:39:33,719
Speaker 3: which would probably not make them happy, but he could.

745
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:37,600
Speaker 3: He's a decent television executive. He ran Sky News, which

746
00:39:37,600 --> 00:39:40,160
Speaker 3: is a pretty down the middle product.

747
00:39:41,120 --> 00:39:41,720
Speaker 4: Could happen.

748
00:39:42,280 --> 00:39:45,520
Speaker 1: Marissa from Brooklyn asks would you go on Fox News

749
00:39:45,520 --> 00:39:47,520
Speaker 1: to promote your book if you were asked?

750
00:39:47,680 --> 00:39:51,600
Speaker 3: You know, this is an interesting thing in that not

751
00:39:51,640 --> 00:39:57,600
Speaker 3: only am I banned from Fox News and this is

752
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,400
Speaker 3: this is a Murdoch thing. But they can't say my

753
00:40:00,560 --> 00:40:04,520
Speaker 3: name on Fox News, which has spared me a lot

754
00:40:04,560 --> 00:40:08,880
Speaker 3: of grief because that whole part of the world doesn't

755
00:40:08,920 --> 00:40:12,200
Speaker 3: know that I'm, you know, not in agreement with them,

756
00:40:12,239 --> 00:40:14,880
Speaker 3: that I that I write books about Donald Trump that

757
00:40:14,920 --> 00:40:17,680
Speaker 3: they probably would not like, which as a matter of fact,

758
00:40:17,680 --> 00:40:19,960
Speaker 3: that I can tell this the Here's the last time

759
00:40:20,000 --> 00:40:24,520
Speaker 3: I saw Rupert Murdoch. This was in twenty sixteen. I

760
00:40:24,520 --> 00:40:27,799
Speaker 3: had been visiting Roger Ayles, whose office was on the

761
00:40:27,840 --> 00:40:32,640
Speaker 3: second floor, and I came down on the elevers. I

762
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:36,719
Speaker 3: was alone in the elevator, and the doors opened the

763
00:40:36,800 --> 00:40:41,920
Speaker 3: lobby and there's Rupert Murdoch and here's me. Now, Rupert

764
00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:44,440
Speaker 3: and I had spent a year together, so we were

765
00:40:44,680 --> 00:40:48,120
Speaker 3: extremely well known to each other, and we had not

766
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,240
Speaker 3: spoken in a long time because he hated my book.

767
00:40:50,640 --> 00:40:53,080
Speaker 3: And we're looking at each other and we don't know

768
00:40:53,160 --> 00:40:58,800
Speaker 3: what to do. I mean, it's like both of us.

769
00:40:59,280 --> 00:41:01,960
Speaker 3: And I finally put out my hand and I said hello, Ruper.

770
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:05,520
Speaker 3: He throws up his hands so as not to have

771
00:41:05,600 --> 00:41:10,719
Speaker 3: to shake my hand, charges pass me into the elevator

772
00:41:11,120 --> 00:41:15,840
Speaker 3: twenty sixteen, knocks my shoulder as he goes by, and

773
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:19,399
Speaker 3: then I step out and think, well that went well.

774
00:41:22,560 --> 00:41:26,480
Speaker 3: I got another elevator's story. I'm on the elevator. This

775
00:41:26,560 --> 00:41:29,680
Speaker 3: is in two thousand and nine. I has just spent

776
00:41:29,719 --> 00:41:33,200
Speaker 3: the morning with Murdoch in his apartment in this building.

777
00:41:33,239 --> 00:41:35,280
Speaker 4: It was a Trump building on fifty ninth.

778
00:41:35,080 --> 00:41:39,520
Speaker 3: In Park Park, where, yeah, where Avonka and Jared live

779
00:41:40,320 --> 00:41:44,399
Speaker 3: or lived. So we're talking and having coffee and then

780
00:41:44,480 --> 00:41:47,439
Speaker 3: we leave together. We get on the elevator, go down

781
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:51,719
Speaker 3: a couple of floors, elevator stops, elevator's doors open, and

782
00:41:51,920 --> 00:41:56,200
Speaker 3: Donald Trump gets onto the elevator with us, and Murdoch

783
00:41:56,440 --> 00:42:00,759
Speaker 3: greets him in a friendly, neighborly way, and Murdoch is,

784
00:42:01,280 --> 00:42:04,920
Speaker 3: he's just an incredible mumbler, you know. The first thing

785
00:42:04,960 --> 00:42:10,280
Speaker 3: he talks into us, it is an exciting and Donald

786
00:42:11,520 --> 00:42:16,400
Speaker 3: Trump turns to me and says, do you ever understand

787
00:42:16,440 --> 00:42:17,040
Speaker 3: a word?

788
00:42:17,200 --> 00:42:24,240
Speaker 1: He says, A rare moment of insight by Donald Trump.

789
00:42:27,000 --> 00:42:30,399
Speaker 1: Last question is from Don from New York City. How

790
00:42:30,400 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 1: do you know I love this? How do you know

791
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:37,080
Speaker 1: when or if your sources are bullshitting you, they're just

792
00:42:37,120 --> 00:42:37,799
Speaker 1: making it up?

793
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:39,239
Speaker 2: How do you know? I mean?

794
00:42:39,280 --> 00:42:42,919
Speaker 3: It's a good question, and I guess the answer is, well,

795
00:42:42,960 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 3: you don't, but you become very close to these people.

796
00:42:47,200 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 3: I mean, this is not just you know, you know,

797
00:42:49,360 --> 00:42:51,600
Speaker 3: I'm calling somebody up and saying, can you tell me

798
00:42:51,680 --> 00:42:57,360
Speaker 3: blah blah. I end up in long relationships with these people,

799
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:02,760
Speaker 3: you know. And this is people within the Murdoch circle

800
00:43:02,800 --> 00:43:05,440
Speaker 3: who I've now known for years and years and years,

801
00:43:05,840 --> 00:43:08,799
Speaker 3: and people in the Trump circle who I've now known

802
00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,880
Speaker 3: for well since twenty sixteen, and over the course of

803
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:18,160
Speaker 3: three books. So you kind of come to understand who

804
00:43:18,200 --> 00:43:20,920
Speaker 3: they are, what their agenda might be, and then also

805
00:43:20,960 --> 00:43:23,920
Speaker 3: the test of time when they told me that, then

806
00:43:24,080 --> 00:43:26,760
Speaker 3: did it turn out to be true? Or how true

807
00:43:26,800 --> 00:43:29,080
Speaker 3: did it turn out to be? And that's sort of

808
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:33,120
Speaker 3: the game, the inexact science of what we do.

809
00:43:33,520 --> 00:43:35,040
Speaker 2: I'll use well, this is my last question.

810
00:43:35,080 --> 00:43:39,040
Speaker 1: I'll use one example, which is the FINCINN regulations, the

811
00:43:39,120 --> 00:43:43,480
Speaker 1: regulations that are prohibited for many, many years, network television

812
00:43:43,560 --> 00:43:47,640
Speaker 1: from producing their own programming fin Sin, which was killed

813
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:50,400
Speaker 1: by Clinton of all people, because supporters of his and

814
00:43:50,520 --> 00:43:53,239
Speaker 1: media wanted it to be killed because they weren't making

815
00:43:53,360 --> 00:43:56,719
Speaker 1: enough money. The network television audience was eroding, so they

816
00:43:56,760 --> 00:43:58,640
Speaker 1: needed to be able to be more competitive. So they

817
00:43:58,680 --> 00:44:00,920
Speaker 1: needed to be able to produce their own shows. So

818
00:44:01,080 --> 00:44:04,520
Speaker 1: you have NBC launches, NBC Studios, ABC Studio. They're going

819
00:44:04,560 --> 00:44:06,719
Speaker 1: to make their own product. And when you put a

820
00:44:06,760 --> 00:44:10,120
Speaker 1: show on NBC. I'm not going to pick on them,

821
00:44:10,120 --> 00:44:11,839
Speaker 1: but any network you put a show on that what

822
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:14,239
Speaker 1: they demand as they're vague to put your show on

823
00:44:14,320 --> 00:44:17,799
Speaker 1: the air is become appalling. Like it was like you

824
00:44:17,920 --> 00:44:20,239
Speaker 1: used to give the networks twenty five percent of the

825
00:44:20,280 --> 00:44:22,080
Speaker 1: profits at the back end of the show. Then it

826
00:44:22,120 --> 00:44:24,880
Speaker 1: went to fifty. Now I think it's like sixty five

827
00:44:25,000 --> 00:44:27,120
Speaker 1: or seventy. When you come and work for them and

828
00:44:27,160 --> 00:44:29,439
Speaker 1: they control the network, they pocket a lot of money

829
00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:31,560
Speaker 1: now to even put you on the air. It's like

830
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:35,000
Speaker 1: Paul Newman told me about shelving fees. So one of

831
00:44:35,040 --> 00:44:37,480
Speaker 1: the problems when he sold Newman's own products, he had

832
00:44:37,480 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 1: to pay payola to the supermarkets to put his stuff

833
00:44:40,640 --> 00:44:43,800
Speaker 1: on an eye level shelf. You don't want your stuff

834
00:44:43,840 --> 00:44:45,480
Speaker 1: down here, you want it up here at eye level,

835
00:44:45,520 --> 00:44:46,719
Speaker 1: and you have to hand them a check for two

836
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:49,440
Speaker 1: hundred and fifty thousand dollars to that store to put

837
00:44:49,480 --> 00:44:51,960
Speaker 1: your product on the right shelf. So all this hocus

838
00:44:52,000 --> 00:44:56,480
Speaker 1: pocus that these companies do Finns in the fairness doctrine.

839
00:44:56,719 --> 00:45:00,560
Speaker 1: The government has become nonexistent in regulating media in this country.

840
00:45:00,600 --> 00:45:02,799
Speaker 1: Do you think that's a problem. And if you were

841
00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:05,960
Speaker 1: to make a change, a regulatory change im media today,

842
00:45:06,160 --> 00:45:06,799
Speaker 1: what would that be.

843
00:45:06,880 --> 00:45:10,120
Speaker 3: Well, the background now is the media business is collapsing,

844
00:45:10,600 --> 00:45:15,160
Speaker 3: the television business is collapsing, the movie business is collapsing.

845
00:45:16,080 --> 00:45:20,759
Speaker 3: So all of this stuff controls, not controls whatever is

846
00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 3: at this point kind of immaterial. We are going into

847
00:45:25,040 --> 00:45:29,640
Speaker 3: a period of radical transition out of which I mean

848
00:45:29,680 --> 00:45:33,240
Speaker 3: no one yet can imagine what the shape to come

849
00:45:33,440 --> 00:45:35,360
Speaker 3: is going to be. I mean, it is going to

850
00:45:35,400 --> 00:45:38,759
Speaker 3: be very different. And what will media if it will

851
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:42,400
Speaker 3: be something other than what we think of it now.

852
00:45:42,800 --> 00:45:45,920
Speaker 3: Other people will be in charge than those now. You

853
00:45:45,960 --> 00:45:51,080
Speaker 3: know Murdoch, he is both lucky and smart and based

854
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:57,520
Speaker 3: in two thousand and eighteen, basically sold off most of

855
00:45:57,560 --> 00:46:00,000
Speaker 3: his company. I mean, he got out of the entertainment

856
00:46:00,080 --> 00:46:05,040
Speaker 3: in business, twentieth century Fox, all the cable stations except

857
00:46:05,080 --> 00:46:10,879
Speaker 3: for Fox sold TODs sold to Disney at the top

858
00:46:10,960 --> 00:46:12,840
Speaker 3: of the market. And matter of fact, the only things

859
00:46:12,880 --> 00:46:15,040
Speaker 3: that he kept were things that Disney didn't want. He

860
00:46:15,040 --> 00:46:18,400
Speaker 3: would have sold those two, but they didn't want Fox

861
00:46:18,440 --> 00:46:20,920
Speaker 3: for obvious reasons, and there were other things they couldn't

862
00:46:20,920 --> 00:46:26,719
Speaker 3: take for regulatory reasons. But Murdoch, being Murdoch, understood, you know,

863
00:46:26,840 --> 00:46:28,600
Speaker 3: let's take the money and run.

864
00:46:29,040 --> 00:46:30,919
Speaker 1: Let me just say this, which is that I can't

865
00:46:30,920 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 1: think of anybody in my lifetime who's had more of

866
00:46:33,960 --> 00:46:37,280
Speaker 1: an influence on our society and our culture than Rubert Murdoch.

867
00:46:37,920 --> 00:46:39,480
Speaker 1: When I grew up, we lived in a world where

868
00:46:39,520 --> 00:46:42,840
Speaker 1: there were political opinions you had that were not very measured.

869
00:46:42,880 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 1: They were very volatile, They were very very bitter, they

870
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:48,560
Speaker 1: were very very judgmental, they were harsh, and you kept

871
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:52,200
Speaker 1: those opinions to yourself. The society that I grew up in,

872
00:46:52,719 --> 00:46:55,440
Speaker 1: in terms of media and people on TV, that was

873
00:46:55,440 --> 00:46:57,719
Speaker 1: a kind of a there was a professionalism to them

874
00:46:57,760 --> 00:47:01,480
Speaker 1: that was just this is absent today. And what Murdoch

875
00:47:01,520 --> 00:47:03,799
Speaker 1: did was he unleashed the monster, if you will, of

876
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:07,759
Speaker 1: Fox News just encouraging people to complain and complain and

877
00:47:07,880 --> 00:47:11,759
Speaker 1: bitch and not solve any problems. These people are all

878
00:47:11,800 --> 00:47:14,160
Speaker 1: about destroying. They're not about building anything. All they do

879
00:47:14,200 --> 00:47:17,320
Speaker 1: is destroy everything in their path. And I want to

880
00:47:17,360 --> 00:47:20,799
Speaker 1: say that that an understanding of that in terms of

881
00:47:20,880 --> 00:47:24,960
Speaker 1: how that happened and who the person is who's in

882
00:47:25,080 --> 00:47:25,719
Speaker 1: charge of that.

883
00:47:26,239 --> 00:47:26,680
Speaker 2: Murdoch.

884
00:47:27,120 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful to have you with me because this

885
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:31,520
Speaker 1: is a wonderful book, and I encourage everybody here to

886
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:34,800
Speaker 1: buy this book and read. You know, who is Murdoch

887
00:47:34,960 --> 00:47:38,600
Speaker 1: and a historical context in our lives in terms of

888
00:47:38,680 --> 00:47:41,560
Speaker 1: media and our country and the world. This is a

889
00:47:41,680 --> 00:47:44,279
Speaker 1: great opportunity for you to learn about that by reading

890
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:44,640
Speaker 1: this one.

891
00:47:44,640 --> 00:47:47,800
Speaker 3: Well, if I can just add, it is also catching

892
00:47:47,880 --> 00:47:51,839
Speaker 3: him at this moment, the inflection point of a good

893
00:47:51,920 --> 00:47:55,400
Speaker 3: story like this, of having a man who has devoted

894
00:47:55,440 --> 00:48:01,400
Speaker 3: his life to amassing this level of power, more power,

895
00:48:01,600 --> 00:48:05,560
Speaker 3: more influence for a longer period of time than anyone

896
00:48:06,080 --> 00:48:07,319
Speaker 3: in our Again, that's not.

897
00:48:07,280 --> 00:48:10,239
Speaker 2: Good for our country. And then liberal or conservative.

898
00:48:09,840 --> 00:48:13,520
Speaker 3: Yes, And then but here we catch him losing it.

899
00:48:14,320 --> 00:48:17,960
Speaker 3: And that's when you really start to see who someone

900
00:48:18,120 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 3: is and the pathos, the tragedy in its own way

901
00:48:22,680 --> 00:48:24,880
Speaker 3: of what you can't take with you.

902
00:48:25,520 --> 00:48:28,000
Speaker 1: Well, I want to say this is our first repeat customer.

903
00:48:28,040 --> 00:48:31,000
Speaker 1: This is our second interview here at town Hall about

904
00:48:31,040 --> 00:48:34,000
Speaker 1: his book. We did Fire and Fury before. How huge

905
00:48:34,040 --> 00:48:38,759
Speaker 1: I mean, look at me huge book. It's amazing how

906
00:48:38,760 --> 00:48:41,040
Speaker 1: you do somebody for a while and you don't stop.

907
00:48:41,600 --> 00:48:42,560
Speaker 2: Even my wife said that to me.

908
00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:44,200
Speaker 1: I'll sit there, I go I want to go to

909
00:48:44,239 --> 00:48:48,280
Speaker 1: dinner and I want to have dinner, maybe some Japanese food.

910
00:48:48,520 --> 00:48:50,279
Speaker 1: And my wife was like, will you stop? I mean,

911
00:48:50,280 --> 00:48:53,439
Speaker 1: what's wrong with you? So anyway, I want to say

912
00:48:54,000 --> 00:48:57,360
Speaker 1: thank you to the great, great, great journalist and writer

913
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:08,600
Speaker 1: Michael wolf Thank you so much, thank you. My thanks

914
00:49:08,640 --> 00:49:13,080
Speaker 1: to author Michael Wolfe. This episode was recorded at Town

915
00:49:13,160 --> 00:49:16,280
Speaker 1: Hall in New York City, where produced by Kathleen Brusso,

916
00:49:16,640 --> 00:49:20,280
Speaker 1: Zach MacNeice, and Maureen Hoben. Our engineer is Frank Imperial.

917
00:49:20,560 --> 00:49:24,520
Speaker 1: Our social media manager is Danielle Gingrich. I'm Alec Baldwin.

918
00:49:24,719 --> 00:49:27,400
Speaker 1: Here's the thing is brought to you by iHeart Radio.