Speaker 1: It's Wednesday, November four. I'm Oscar Ramires from the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast in Los Angeles, and this is reopening America.
Speaker 1: The election this year will also mark the end of
Speaker 1: an era for the media, and things will change no
Speaker 1: matter what. The media has revolved around the president for
Speaker 1: the last four years, and the pandemic has advanced the
Speaker 1: new landscape digitally by years. There will be a wave
Speaker 1: of retirements in places like the l a Times, Washington Post,
Speaker 1: and even the New York Times. Battles over free speech
Speaker 1: and censorship will also continue when it comes to big
Speaker 1: social media platforms. Ben Smith, media columnist at the New
Speaker 1: York Times, joins us for how the media will be
Speaker 1: changing after the election. Thanks for joining us, Ben, Thanks
Speaker 1: for having me out. After this election is going to
Speaker 1: be a lot of interesting things changing for the media.
Speaker 1: And really, no matter who wins, the landscape has been
Speaker 1: changed throughout these last four years of President Trump's presidency,
Speaker 1: being attacked as fake news, a lot of distrust in
Speaker 1: certain ways, but he's also kind of made these legacy
Speaker 1: media eight again, so to speak, to use his verbiage.
Speaker 1: You know, he's put so much emphasis on them and
Speaker 1: such a spotlight on them that really they were booming.
Speaker 1: Business was booming in that sense. So then you wrote
Speaker 1: an article about how it is the end of an
Speaker 1: era for the media no matter who wins. Tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about what you're seeing on what's going
Speaker 1: to happen after this election. Well, I think you know,
Speaker 1: you had a situation whereas anybody knows, people are consuming
Speaker 1: media on their phones, not sitting down on the couch
Speaker 1: and watching broadcast news anymore. And I think Donald Trump's
Speaker 1: obsession with things like CNN, like the NBC nightly News
Speaker 1: kind of kept them more relevant than any expect anybody
Speaker 1: expected them to be. The same is true by the
Speaker 1: way of the New York Times and the Washington Post
Speaker 1: in places like that. Just that there was a Trump's
Speaker 1: personal obsession with these legacy media kind of kept them
Speaker 1: in the center of the conversation. That there was always
Speaker 1: a time limit on that. And I think just you know,
Speaker 1: you're already starting to see a recognition among the particularly
Speaker 1: the big broadcasters, to the future is going to be digital,
Speaker 1: and that they've really got to figure it out and
Speaker 1: take it seriously and can no longer have to stop
Speaker 1: thinking about themselves as television channels and it's a very
Speaker 1: hard transition that they've been putting off for a long time.
Speaker 1: I think when you look at the big newspaper is
Speaker 1: one of the really interesting things. The New York Times,
Speaker 1: the Washington Post, Los Angeles Times in particular, all of
Speaker 1: their editors in chief are on the way out the
Speaker 1: door over the next months and year. Yeah, talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about that, because that's an interesting shift, right.
Speaker 1: There are people that have been in these posts for
Speaker 1: so long are going to be leaving soon depending on
Speaker 1: who comes in. It's going to change the landscape again,
Speaker 1: and how we cover presidents, how we cover just everyday
Speaker 1: occurrences in life. So all that's going to change. So
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit about what you're hearing on
Speaker 1: that front. I think there are really two different things
Speaker 1: going on. One is that you have a generation of
Speaker 1: leaders who really see, you know, our newspaper men Marty
Speaker 1: Baron at the Washington posting Decay at the Times and
Speaker 1: Norman Pearlstein at the Los Angeles Times, and who really
Speaker 1: oversaw a fairly painful transition from newsrooms that were print
Speaker 1: newspapers to digital brands, and those transitions, at least at
Speaker 1: the Post in the Times are close are getting close
Speaker 1: to being complete, and there's an opportunity for new leaders
Speaker 1: to come in and really fully inhabit this new world
Speaker 1: rather than having to manage transition to it. And then
Speaker 1: I think right there these big questions around does the
Speaker 1: media pull back toward a more sort of conservative just
Speaker 1: the facts, ma'am approach. Then under Donald Trump, I think
Speaker 1: it was so much of Trump's politics were directly about
Speaker 1: attacking these big media brands. There wasn't much choice around
Speaker 1: engaging him. You know. It wasn't just that he was
Speaker 1: lying and said he was lying about us and making
Speaker 1: us the focus and pulling us sort of into the arena.
Speaker 1: And I think there's a question which I think is
Speaker 1: not at all a done deal, about whether these institutions
Speaker 1: try to retreat back more toward traditional roles or whether
Speaker 1: they try to kind of like blean into this more
Speaker 1: engaged posture that, by the way, maybe drives digital subscriptions
Speaker 1: a little better. And I think that's a big question
Speaker 1: that I don't really know the answer to how it
Speaker 1: comes out. You mentioned a little bit about how the
Speaker 1: big media giants are you going to have to really
Speaker 1: complete that transition to digital things like that, But on
Speaker 1: the other side of those things, social media and the
Speaker 1: big social media giants like Twitter and Facebook and all that.
Speaker 1: They've been coming under a lot of scrutiny recently about
Speaker 1: censorship things like that, especially on the conservative side. And
Speaker 1: there was a term that was coined by something that
Speaker 1: you mentioned the article called the attention wars and kind
Speaker 1: of basically all these different outlets grasping for your attention everything.
Speaker 1: So how did these social media giants fit into this?
Speaker 1: You know, I think the sort of wide open, kind
Speaker 1: of wild West era of Facebook and Twitters is and
Speaker 1: and YouTube is really ending, and they're coming under a
Speaker 1: sort of political pressure to kind of clean up the platforms,
Speaker 1: which means, by the way, marginalizing voices that had been unconventional.
Speaker 1: Means if you're looking for a conservative voice on YouTube,
Speaker 1: increasingly you're going to find Fox News, not some random
Speaker 1: YouTuber for better or for worse. And if you're looking
Speaker 1: for a liberal voice, you're probably more likely to find MSNBC.
Speaker 1: And I think there's also sort of a wave of
Speaker 1: regulatory pressure coming that's going to make them more responsible
Speaker 1: for things maybe not from being posted on the platform,
Speaker 1: but are things that get wide distribution, for things that
Speaker 1: go viral and it's not something Americans pail a lot
Speaker 1: of attention to, but they're under a lot of pressure
Speaker 1: in Australia and in Europe. And I think because the
Speaker 1: US traditionally doesn't regulate these platforms and it's very you know,
Speaker 1: does not regulate speech, that doesn't mean they don't have
Speaker 1: to operate in other parts of the world. And I
Speaker 1: think the practices that developed their tend to kind of
Speaker 1: bleed back into the US, and I think I think
Speaker 1: that is really ramping up. And so there's just a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of different factors that are pushing them toward
Speaker 1: a more control the ecosystem. Doesn't this really mean censorship
Speaker 1: per se that thinks you can getting deleted? I think
Speaker 1: it means it's gonna be harder for you or for
Speaker 1: me as an outsider to come in and try to
Speaker 1: make a message spread on these platforms. And what is
Speaker 1: going on in Australia in the European Union. Obviously these
Speaker 1: companies operate across all these countries. So are these countries
Speaker 1: making specific laws that are regulating them that then in
Speaker 1: turn impacts the way we do it? You know? What's
Speaker 1: going on there? Yeah? You know, I think we in
Speaker 1: the US have had this sort of philosophy of Wow,
Speaker 1: these new technology companies are so amazing and magical that
Speaker 1: we don't want to regulate them. We want to let
Speaker 1: them flourish. We're not going to treat them like normal businesses.
Speaker 1: We're gonna let them do whatever they want. And I
Speaker 1: think there's an argument that did help them become these
Speaker 1: dominant world global forces and incredibly vibrant American businesses. But
Speaker 1: in Australia they're saying, well, Google is the monopoly, just
Speaker 1: like a railroad or like a port, and they put
Speaker 1: again the assigned a guy who's been his career regulating
Speaker 1: railroads and ports to like figure out how much they
Speaker 1: ought to pay to use the content of news publishers
Speaker 1: and things like that. And in Europe there, you know,
Speaker 1: they're saying, well, if, like, if Google News is going
Speaker 1: to take a headline from a newspaper, they should pay
Speaker 1: for that headline and that stuff that he's sort of
Speaker 1: unthinkable here, but they're there. They don't really see any
Speaker 1: reason to treat these tech companies any different from any
Speaker 1: other company. They're just making some laws and demanding they
Speaker 1: follow them. One last thing that I wanted to ask
Speaker 1: as well that you mention your article when we're talking
Speaker 1: about all these different types of media now even pay
Speaker 1: for media. There's a place called sub stack, which you mentioned,
Speaker 1: is kind of like a Twitter premium where people can
Speaker 1: kind of subscribe to journalists, their favorite journalists or whatnot,
Speaker 1: and continue to get their newsletters and their con t
Speaker 1: How does this figure into the future of media and
Speaker 1: how and how it will be changing as these big
Speaker 1: social media giants sort of consolidate and make it harder
Speaker 1: for independent voices and outsiders to cut through, you know,
Speaker 1: whether those are really creative, interesting, constructive voices or people
Speaker 1: spreading hate. Meanwhile, there are these tools that allow individuals
Speaker 1: to go direct to their consumers in a in a
Speaker 1: way that isn't controllable I think by the big central platforms,
Speaker 1: and I think you're in sub stack and email newsletter
Speaker 1: platform is one of those. But they're just technical tools
Speaker 1: now that allow you or me to start a newsletter,
Speaker 1: start a video channel, and if we have a lot
Speaker 1: of people who like our content, to get paid doing it.
Speaker 1: And it's sort of easy now in a way that
Speaker 1: it used to be hard. I think you'll see, you know,
Speaker 1: both big stars and kind of knit people who have
Speaker 1: small but passionate follow us start to go that way. Well,
Speaker 1: everything's going to change after the election. Will see how
Speaker 1: it all plays out. Ben Smith, media columnist at The
Speaker 1: New York Times, thank you very much for joining us,
Speaker 1: Thanks for having me out. I'm Oscar Romes and this
Speaker 1: has been reopening America. Don't forget that. For today's big
Speaker 1: news stories, you can check me out on the Daily
Speaker 1: Dive podcast every Monday Friday. So follow us on I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio or wherever you get your podcast.