Speaker 1: Good morning, Peepsen, and welcome to wok app Daily with
Speaker 1: Me Your Girl Danielle Moody pre recording from the home Bunker, Folks.
Speaker 1: On today's show, we welcome back to the microphone the
Speaker 1: producer of woka app Daily Andrew Marcello, to kind of
Speaker 1: dig into a conversation on media and the failings of
Speaker 1: media and what we have learned as people continue to
Speaker 1: turn off corporate mainstream media and tune into other outlets.
Speaker 1: Whether this is just a blip of this moment of
Speaker 1: anger and frustration, or if it is really time to
Speaker 1: move away from what was the legacy fourth Estate and
Speaker 1: build something new. Right now, there are conversations that bubbling
Speaker 1: around with Donald Trump kind of remaking as he's going
Speaker 1: to just everything in America, but remaking the White House
Speaker 1: Press Corps and getting rid of those that are detractors
Speaker 1: to him, but also ushering in a new age of
Speaker 1: new media, potentially replacing the abcs and the NBCs of
Speaker 1: the world with the bro podcasters that he frequented and
Speaker 1: his administration has frequented in the past. Now, obviously I
Speaker 1: disagree with Trump on a lot of things, on everything actually,
Speaker 1: but on this in terms of where does legacy media
Speaker 1: and new media fit as America is being remade? I
Speaker 1: think is a really important question because storytelling and the narrative,
Speaker 1: as we have seen with this past election, is what
Speaker 1: people held onto. It didn't matter what was actually fact,
Speaker 1: It mattered what they felt about it, right, A lot
Speaker 1: of their feelings came from what they heard from particular
Speaker 1: people and particular outlets. So if we don't open our
Speaker 1: minds up and recognizing that everyone is not getting their
Speaker 1: information in the same place which we've known, but that
Speaker 1: no longer can folks rely on the fourth estate in
Speaker 1: the way that it did, where does that leave us
Speaker 1: and where do we go from here? So we get
Speaker 1: into that conversation Andrew and I which is coming up next, folks,
Speaker 1: I am happy to welcome back on the microphone the
Speaker 1: producer of WOKF Andrew Marcello, who has been on providing
Speaker 1: a lot of insight into not only the gamer male,
Speaker 1: toxic male, toxic perspectives from a gamer no, no, no no,
Speaker 1: I'm saying that you were bringing perspective to us on
Speaker 1: like the rise of toxic male ideology, thinking kind of
Speaker 1: what has become the magaway and showed us how it
Speaker 1: was seated in gaming, you know. And I continue to
Speaker 1: use that show Andrew by the Way, as like a
Speaker 1: primer for people who keep saying, I don't understand what
Speaker 1: happened to men, I don't understand what. I don't understand
Speaker 1: where all of this is coming from. And I was
Speaker 1: just like, well, here's one perspective that I think is important.
Speaker 1: But today, as we are counting down the days until
Speaker 1: January twentieth, which is the inauguration of Donald Trump for
Speaker 1: a second regime, we are watching as mainstream corporate media
Speaker 1: just obeys in advance, capitulates to his anger, to his threats.
Speaker 1: We have seen it most recently with Morning Joe on MSNBC,
Speaker 1: with Mika and Joe admitting to their viewers that they
Speaker 1: went down to mar A Lago to go clear the air,
Speaker 1: right to go and restart conversations, as they've said. We've
Speaker 1: watched it with The Washington Post deciding that they were
Speaker 1: not going to endorse a candidate for the first time
Speaker 1: in their paper's history. We watched it with the La Times.
Speaker 1: We've seen it now with Meta as Zuckerberg congratulating Donald
Speaker 1: Trump on his victory. Can't wait to work with you.
Speaker 1: Tell us what you make of this moment in media.
Speaker 2: In two words, I would say, my take is that
Speaker 2: it's not good. Yeah, it's scary. As someone who works
Speaker 2: in media, even if I'm not working on a mainstream
Speaker 2: media outlet, I have heard and seen reports. I haven't
Speaker 2: heard directly, not to imply that, but I have seen
Speaker 2: reports of people at major media outlets, particularly at MSNBC
Speaker 2: and CNBC, are really worried about their future. And this
Speaker 2: is before we've even had an inauguration. I don't feel that,
Speaker 2: at least right away, we will be thrust into a
Speaker 2: right wing monoculture.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, you don't feel like that will happen right away.
Speaker 2: I don't because of how many people in America, including
Speaker 2: how many people on the right, believe in the First Amendment,
Speaker 2: whatever their interpretation of the First Amendment is. I don't think.
Speaker 2: I hope, I'm optimistic that all of those things overnight
Speaker 2: on January twenty third, or whatever it's going to be,
Speaker 2: there's not going to be a mass shut down of
Speaker 2: mainstream media sources.
Speaker 1: That are.
Speaker 2: Critical of power. However, that being said, I don't think
Speaker 2: there's going to be a formal shut down of these organizations.
Speaker 2: I don't think you know you asked about mainstream outlets
Speaker 2: such as cable news, but I don't think, you know,
Speaker 2: the New York Times or the Washington Post will disappear overnight.
Speaker 2: I don't think MSNBC and CNN, especially NBC News, or
Speaker 2: any network news organizations will disappear overnight. But something I
Speaker 2: am scared of, and something that we're seeing happen right now,
Speaker 2: to go back to your question, is we're seeing these
Speaker 2: legacy media organizations very quickly capitulate. Right so, even if
Speaker 2: it's not going to be like front page, Trump is
Speaker 2: our dear leader, I fear that there will be a
Speaker 2: rapidly slow, insidious creep of There will be a creeping fascism.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you've heard that term before, but
Speaker 2: this is a I think a perfect application for it.
Speaker 2: I think we're going to see a creeping of fascism
Speaker 2: in our news media at essentially all mainstream corporate levels,
Speaker 2: and that is very scary.
Speaker 1: You know, it's funny because I don't think I've heard
Speaker 1: the term, but I don't think that this is a creep.
Speaker 1: If we want to be honest about that, I think
Speaker 1: that we could say then that for the last nine years,
Speaker 1: corporate mainstream media has been creeping fascism, has been capitulating,
Speaker 1: has been sanewashing, whatever the phrases that we want to use.
Speaker 1: If we had had a robust fourth estate, then the
Speaker 1: people of this country would have been educated. With every
Speaker 1: move that Donald Trump made, both during his presidency and.
Speaker 2: After, I don't think enough people noticed some of the
Speaker 2: writing on the wall, or writing on the all sends
Speaker 2: grammar than I mean. I don't think a lot of
Speaker 2: people noticed the signs that were happening in the first
Speaker 2: Trump administration. The New York Times firing their public editor
Speaker 2: Jeff Bezos, acquiring the New York Post or sorry, the
Speaker 2: Washington Post, that either happened shortly before or shortly after
Speaker 2: the election of Trump. NBC News being led by a
Speaker 2: right wing whatever the name is of the person who
Speaker 2: runs NBC News. I remember at the time somebody who
Speaker 2: was right wing took over, and that meant NBC News
Speaker 2: and also MSNBC were actually being run with a conservative
Speaker 2: at the top. And I think a lot of people
Speaker 2: didn't pay attention to those things happening in twenty sixteen,
Speaker 2: twenty seventeen.
Speaker 1: That is fair in terms of who was in the
Speaker 1: c suite, right and who is in the c suite
Speaker 1: dictates what goes on the front page is considered as
Speaker 1: headline news. And you know, over the last nine years,
Speaker 1: we have watched as this country has turned into an
Speaker 1: overt oligarch right, like, oligarchy and the presence of wealth
Speaker 1: and power has always been the foundations of our part
Speaker 1: of the foundation of our democracy. However, it's now overt
Speaker 1: right that you have a Mark Zuckerberg saying on the
Speaker 1: day of the you know, congratulations, can't wait to work
Speaker 1: with you, so excited about what the future holds. And well,
Speaker 1: thanks Mark Zuckerberg, because you spent the election cycle suppressing
Speaker 1: the algorithm so that we couldn't be talking about politics
Speaker 1: on your sites like threads and Facebook and Instagram. Right,
Speaker 1: so it's like we've already experienced what that suppression looks
Speaker 1: like in social media. And and when you have places
Speaker 1: like the Washington Post bought by Jeff Bezos that was
Speaker 1: more concerned with his Amazon contracts than he was with democracy,
Speaker 1: making decisions that are not about the readers but are
Speaker 1: about his shareholders and his own literal self interests. What
Speaker 1: do you think that that is doing to the faith
Speaker 1: that people have, And whether or not. We are seeing
Speaker 1: already that they're turning away from these places, but where
Speaker 1: do they turn to?
Speaker 2: You think To answer the last question, I think where
Speaker 2: things will go probably with distrust in the mainstream media,
Speaker 2: sources will continue to be a fracturing, a decentralization. I
Speaker 2: think you've already seen it with the right wing, and
Speaker 2: we've seen it in conversations that you and me have
Speaker 2: had talking about Breitbart News, and to extrapolate a little further,
Speaker 2: the Daily Wire and quote unquote sources like that. The
Speaker 2: Onion now owns Alex Jones's former outlet and they're going
Speaker 2: to be turning that into some kind of satire website,
Speaker 2: but for a time that was a major source as well.
Speaker 2: What I don't think having said that, I don't think
Speaker 2: we're going to see a left wing Bright Bart, a
Speaker 2: left wing Daily Caller, And the reason for that is
Speaker 2: because I don't see there being money put behind something
Speaker 2: like that. And so in lieu of that, I think
Speaker 2: where people who are liberal minded will probably continue to
Speaker 2: go is online sources, websites, social media platforms, YouTube, live streaming.
Speaker 2: But I think also about like that's on the left,
Speaker 2: and that's liberal minded people like you, even have stuff
Speaker 2: like the Young Turks. But then there's a whole lot
Speaker 2: of people who are in the median and I actually
Speaker 2: can't say because I genuinely have no insight where the
Speaker 2: median person is going to go. A lot of people
Speaker 2: still watch TV. So maybe what will happen is people
Speaker 2: who are actively politically minded on the right and on
Speaker 2: what is the left in America will find those sources
Speaker 2: for themselves with the power of the Internet and the
Speaker 2: power of non traditional media sources. But for the countless
Speaker 2: millions who are in the median, I think they're probably
Speaker 2: going to keep watching TV and also hear stuff from
Speaker 2: their fringe friends. So on a note that we ended
Speaker 2: a previous make sure that you are the friend in
Speaker 2: your median political person's friend's ear, because if it's not
Speaker 2: you on the left, it might be someone on the right.
Speaker 1: I want to go back to something that you said
Speaker 1: with regard to not seeing the left version of some
Speaker 1: of the right wing and dare I say white supremacy
Speaker 1: extremist sites that you named not seeing a left wing
Speaker 1: version of that? Do you think that we need a
Speaker 1: left wing version of that? As some people have said, Oh,
Speaker 1: we need our version of Joe Rogan, we need our
Speaker 1: version of X, Y and Z. When you hear that,
Speaker 1: how does that land for you?
Speaker 2: The left had version of Joe Rogan. His name was
Speaker 2: John Stewart, and I think he's actually back on TV
Speaker 2: a little bit. But like, I have a trigger finger
Speaker 2: reaction sort of when people say, like, we need a
Speaker 2: left wing version of Joe Rogan, because I understand what
Speaker 2: it's really getting at, which is, like, Joe Rogan is
Speaker 2: a very popular figure among disaffected young white men, sis straight,
Speaker 2: et cetera. And the thing with Joe Rogan is he's
Speaker 2: a useful idiot. Please don't get mad at me, Joe Rogan.
Speaker 2: Don't come after me with lawyers. But like you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, he's someone who he can have anyone
Speaker 2: on his show. If Kamala Harris had gone on his show,
Speaker 2: did she I don't.
Speaker 1: Did you know she didn't?
Speaker 3: She didn't.
Speaker 2: But if she had, though, if she could have said
Speaker 2: anything for twenty minutes and.
Speaker 3: It would go oh huh yeah, oh huh wow. Oh
Speaker 3: I didn't know that, But don't people say? And then
Speaker 3: something his producer feeds him and then she says an
Speaker 3: oh wow, oh I never thought it out it that
Speaker 3: way and conservatives have a great time with someone who
Speaker 3: is wide eyed and someone who will easily believe what
Speaker 3: they're being told and not to be critical of it
Speaker 3: for themselves and for their audience. I definitely I do
Speaker 3: not think that the left needs that. I don't think
Speaker 3: the left needs a Joe Rogan. I think what the
Speaker 3: left needs is someone who is strongly spoken, someone who
Speaker 3: can easily articulate left wing views and perspectives, which is
Speaker 3: why my mind first went to John Stuart because he
Speaker 3: was someone who was liberally minded, left of center, and
Speaker 3: could easily articulate these ideas to an audience regardless of
Speaker 3: their intelligence level and regardless of their investment in.
Speaker 2: The day to day news. And also something that John
Speaker 2: Stewart had was a well funded and consistent platform. Yep.
Speaker 2: And that's a really important part of it. That's the
Speaker 2: thing I'm pessimistic about at the moment, unfortunately.
Speaker 1: I mean, the fact that you're only pessimistic about one
Speaker 1: thing is I think, great.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of people who qualify for the first
Speaker 2: two things I said, but without the third thing, none
Speaker 2: of that matters.
Speaker 1: And I wonder you know if you think then because
Speaker 1: money matters, right, Like money is what is when we're
Speaker 1: looking at the breakdowns in terms of how much money
Speaker 1: was given into investment in social media and into TV
Speaker 1: for this election, A lot of money Elon Musk put in,
Speaker 1: you know, almost one hundred and fifty million dollars. We
Speaker 1: know that Russia was paying right wing TikTokers, right and
Speaker 1: funneling money in to these different places to create this
Speaker 1: echo chamber. Is it necessary then that the left have
Speaker 1: its own oligarch? You know, like if we're just all
Speaker 1: pawns on their chessboard, right, and Elon Musk can make
Speaker 1: a joke you know about well, how much does MSNBC cost?
Speaker 1: Because I can buy it right, like, and they would
Speaker 1: sell it to him because no one has any integrity,
Speaker 1: Like they don't care right about what would happen to
Speaker 1: the channel and the content and the you know, like
Speaker 1: they don't care right at the end of the day.
Speaker 1: So it's like, do we just then try and like
Speaker 1: court and find our own billionaire oligarch that is like
Speaker 1: Elon Musk, but is for our issues.
Speaker 2: I won't say exactly like Elon Musk, but I will
Speaker 2: agree I think the left rather than saying the left
Speaker 2: needs their own Joe Rogan. I actually do think people
Speaker 2: should be saying the left needs their own Elon Musk.
Speaker 2: Where is Warren Buffett? Where is beyond? Say there are
Speaker 2: billionaires who supposedly hold left wing views? Where are they?
Speaker 2: Where is their money?
Speaker 1: I don't know. A part of me has always said that,
Speaker 1: Oh is it that you know the Bill Gates and
Speaker 1: Bill Gates is not a good right, He's not a
Speaker 1: good example, you know?
Speaker 2: Is it that I was actually gonna say, maybe we
Speaker 2: need a left wing Bill Gates? Bill Gates, I know
Speaker 2: for all the good that he Okay, I will say
Speaker 2: Bill Gates' money has gone to good things in Africa, and.
Speaker 1: It's philanthropy, right, But the fact is is that all
Speaker 1: of them are bad people to a certain extent.
Speaker 2: Like that's not about to get on this mic and
Speaker 2: say Beyonce is a bad person, but she's self not Beyonce.
Speaker 1: But like Beyonce has a fraction a fraction of the
Speaker 1: of the billions that we're talking about, right, Like a
Speaker 1: Beyonce and Oprah they have like a billion dollars, right,
Speaker 1: or two billion dollars. I'm talking about people that have
Speaker 1: tens of billions of dollars, right, hundreds of billions of dollars,
Speaker 1: Like when you're getting into that place, that's a different place,
Speaker 1: where like one hundred and fifty million dollars to Elon
Speaker 1: Musk is you know, ten dollars to an average person.
Speaker 1: So like when I'm saying, is it understanding that the
Speaker 1: game is just all about money and needing to court?
Speaker 1: Who's got next? I guess is what I'm wondering. Or
Speaker 1: do they wake up on their own or are these
Speaker 1: people that supposedly have too much integrity to want to
Speaker 1: put their thumbs on the scale even though on the
Speaker 1: right they've literally put their entire body on the scale.
Speaker 2: I'm looking at the list of billionaires right now. First
Speaker 2: of all, it's not promising, but second of all, it's
Speaker 2: you know, I remember when Warren Buffett was the wealthiest
Speaker 2: man in the world, and I think it was like
Speaker 2: between him and Bill Gates for a while, like neck
Speaker 2: and neck. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and a lot
Speaker 2: of other tech guys have just so easily outpaced them.
Speaker 2: But at the same time, Warren Buffett still has one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty billion dollars. I used to hear so
Speaker 2: much about, you know, Warren Buffett, he has money coming
Speaker 2: in regardless, like he couldn't give it away fast enough,
Speaker 2: and from what I understood, he at least talked about
Speaker 2: wanting to give it away as quickly as he could.
Speaker 2: And this is something that he or any supposedly right minded,
Speaker 2: well minded whatever billionaire could possibly do. And maybe there
Speaker 2: should be more narrative around it. Maybe there should be
Speaker 2: more public push for it. Maybe that's what we need.
Speaker 2: Maybe there needs to be more recognition that money is power.
Speaker 2: So much of money and power is concentrated behind right wing, conservative,
Speaker 2: fascist political organizing, that we should really be pushing some
Speaker 2: of these ultra billionaires to put their money where their
Speaker 2: mouths are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know when I have to depend on
Speaker 1: the kindness, the clarity, and the consciousness of billionaires.
Speaker 2: I know that the thing is we all do though, unfortunately,
Speaker 2: reshaping of society aside. If any of us who have
Speaker 2: a job, any of us who are making money right now,
Speaker 2: making income, at some point in the chain that is
Speaker 2: coming down. This makes it sound like I'm talking about
Speaker 2: trickle down economics. It's not. Trickle down economics isn't real,
Speaker 2: but like in the current makeup of our capital economy,
Speaker 2: at some point the money is flowing down from a
Speaker 2: billionaire to pay your paycheck, and that's the unfortunate reality.
Speaker 3: M M.
Speaker 2: I mean it is for me, and I'm independently employed,
Speaker 2: so I can only imagine.
Speaker 1: I know, and it just like leaves such a disgusting
Speaker 1: taste in my mouth and frankly, like I just want out.
Speaker 2: I think that's something though, Like Bill, I understand, listen
Speaker 2: me too, but I think that maybe that's part of
Speaker 2: what gets reckoned with, you know, it is an uncomfortable
Speaker 2: feeling to have to reckon with, Like this whole system
Speaker 2: really is this horribly rigged long form device that ends
Speaker 2: up with instead of trickling down more like money, like
Speaker 2: rolling down a hill and getting smaller and smaller and
Speaker 2: smaller and smaller and small, small and small smaller till
Speaker 2: it finally reaches your pocket. But if more of us
Speaker 2: can recognize that and reckon with that, then maybe we
Speaker 2: have a better chance at navigating how power really operates
Speaker 2: in the twenty first century world. Yeah, and without power,
Speaker 2: like we really we as a people and we as
Speaker 2: a political movement, like whatever, we don't have anything. If
Speaker 2: we don't have power, one, well, we will leave it
Speaker 2: there to just run in a different direction it did.
Speaker 1: There's a lot on the mind, but we do we
Speaker 1: need to have a different conversation about.
Speaker 2: Power, local billionaire and.
Speaker 1: What that looks like, because this ain't it. Andrew As always,
Speaker 1: thank you so very much for everything you do for
Speaker 1: WOKF and giving us food for thought today. I appreciate you.
Speaker 2: To any billionaires or legal representation of billionaires listening, everything
Speaker 2: that was stated in this interview was parody and is
Speaker 2: non actionable under fair use.
Speaker 1: That is it for me here, Folks on Woke af
Speaker 1: AS always power to the people and to all the people. Power,
Speaker 1: get woke and stay woke as fuck.