1
00:00:01,720 --> 00:00:04,280
Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.

2
00:00:04,400 --> 00:00:06,800
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome to Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff,

3
00:00:07,040 --> 00:00:10,600
Speaker 2: your weekly podcast that whenever there's bad things happening, there's

4
00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:15,240
Speaker 2: people trying to do good things, including not introduced their

5
00:00:15,400 --> 00:00:18,919
Speaker 2: podcast badly. I am your host, Margaret Kiljoy, and this

6
00:00:19,000 --> 00:00:22,160
Speaker 2: week my guest is Sarah Marshall.

7
00:00:22,239 --> 00:00:23,680
Speaker 1: Hi. How are you? Hi?

8
00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:26,600
Speaker 3: I'm so happy to be here. I like how you

9
00:00:26,640 --> 00:00:28,800
Speaker 3: started that off big and then he got it nice

10
00:00:28,800 --> 00:00:33,280
Speaker 3: and small. You know this week, Sarah Marshall, that's true.

11
00:00:33,840 --> 00:00:35,760
Speaker 3: It's an intimate salon.

12
00:00:35,880 --> 00:00:38,879
Speaker 2: Inviting people to get a little closer to the Yeah.

13
00:00:39,240 --> 00:00:42,040
Speaker 3: Well, I've been watching a lot of Kathy Griffin's specials

14
00:00:42,240 --> 00:00:45,400
Speaker 3: because I realized how much I missed Kathy Griffin. And

15
00:00:45,440 --> 00:00:48,480
Speaker 3: she had like nineteen Bravo specials in the two thousands.

16
00:00:48,560 --> 00:00:51,680
Speaker 2: Do you know who that is? Magbie, Nope, no idea.

17
00:00:52,200 --> 00:00:54,080
Speaker 3: She was on Suddenly Susan in the nineties.

18
00:00:54,360 --> 00:00:55,880
Speaker 1: Magpie also doesn't know what that is.

19
00:00:56,040 --> 00:00:57,680
Speaker 2: I've heard of it. I don't know what it is.

20
00:00:58,000 --> 00:01:00,880
Speaker 3: Well, I have this thing called suddenly, so you put

21
00:01:00,920 --> 00:01:03,520
Speaker 3: on pasta salad always makes me think of Suddenly Susan.

22
00:01:03,880 --> 00:01:06,080
Speaker 3: But Kathy Griffin is a stand up comedian. Does this

23
00:01:06,080 --> 00:01:09,760
Speaker 3: thing where she like will start kind of like speaking quieter,

24
00:01:10,000 --> 00:01:12,520
Speaker 3: and she's like while doing a giant show on a

25
00:01:12,520 --> 00:01:14,680
Speaker 3: giant theater, and she's like, I'm talking like this because

26
00:01:14,720 --> 00:01:17,480
Speaker 3: this is GISs between you and me before like a

27
00:01:17,520 --> 00:01:21,039
Speaker 3: particularly juicy piece of celebrity gossip. So like, we're talking

28
00:01:21,120 --> 00:01:23,760
Speaker 3: like this because this GISs between us and all the

29
00:01:23,760 --> 00:01:26,920
Speaker 3: people listening as well the guests, between all of us,

30
00:01:27,640 --> 00:01:28,480
Speaker 3: no one else.

31
00:01:28,720 --> 00:01:30,640
Speaker 2: No one else can listen except for the people who

32
00:01:30,680 --> 00:01:34,080
Speaker 2: are currently listening. Don't tell your friends about this podcast

33
00:01:34,120 --> 00:01:35,959
Speaker 2: because they can't hear it.

34
00:01:37,319 --> 00:01:40,760
Speaker 3: We really need to keep this in a tight intimate circle.

35
00:01:40,959 --> 00:01:42,520
Speaker 2: Yeah, I got to keep them numbers down.

36
00:01:42,600 --> 00:01:45,840
Speaker 3: That's what keeps That's what no one ever says on

37
00:01:45,880 --> 00:01:49,080
Speaker 3: a podcast. I want you to go out and rate

38
00:01:49,240 --> 00:01:53,720
Speaker 3: my podcast. Go ahead and give me a one star rating.

39
00:01:53,800 --> 00:01:55,280
Speaker 3: I hate it when people are like, give us a

40
00:01:55,280 --> 00:01:58,400
Speaker 3: five star rating, because that's presuming that the person listening

41
00:01:58,600 --> 00:01:58,920
Speaker 3: liked it.

42
00:01:59,560 --> 00:02:01,680
Speaker 2: What if they didn't, I know, although it is a

43
00:02:01,680 --> 00:02:03,120
Speaker 2: good reason to do it at the end of the episode,

44
00:02:03,160 --> 00:02:04,680
Speaker 2: So at the beginning of the episode, because by the

45
00:02:04,800 --> 00:02:06,200
Speaker 2: end of the episode, if you may get that far,

46
00:02:06,360 --> 00:02:07,320
Speaker 2: you probably don't hate it.

47
00:02:07,560 --> 00:02:09,760
Speaker 3: Like I probably liked it if I listened for this

48
00:02:09,800 --> 00:02:10,320
Speaker 3: whole hour.

49
00:02:10,560 --> 00:02:13,560
Speaker 2: Yeah, although I say that is if I don't regularly

50
00:02:14,040 --> 00:02:16,160
Speaker 2: listen to podcasts that I do not like at all,

51
00:02:16,480 --> 00:02:19,840
Speaker 2: because I pick a like new interest like every month.

52
00:02:19,919 --> 00:02:21,639
Speaker 2: I mean, you can tell by the theme of this

53
00:02:21,680 --> 00:02:25,520
Speaker 2: podcast that I like new interests. And then I'm like,

54
00:02:25,720 --> 00:02:29,400
Speaker 2: I need to know everything about r ving or sailboats

55
00:02:29,680 --> 00:02:32,320
Speaker 2: or I don't know those are two recently, and then

56
00:02:32,320 --> 00:02:34,120
Speaker 2: I listen to all the podcasts about them, and I

57
00:02:34,200 --> 00:02:36,240
Speaker 2: don't like most of them.

58
00:02:36,639 --> 00:02:39,160
Speaker 3: Yes, because it's hard to find something that's on both

59
00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:41,680
Speaker 3: a topic you like and you like the person doing it.

60
00:02:42,160 --> 00:02:45,000
Speaker 2: I think, I know. Yeah, And if you're listening and

61
00:02:45,040 --> 00:02:46,720
Speaker 2: you're one of those people who kind of hates me

62
00:02:46,960 --> 00:02:51,400
Speaker 2: and just likes my content, I'm not sorry, nice, but

63
00:02:52,200 --> 00:02:53,799
Speaker 2: I do have a producer. I'm Sophie.

64
00:02:53,840 --> 00:02:57,920
Speaker 1: Hi, Sophie, Hi, Mike Pie Hi, Sarah, Hi, Sophie.

65
00:02:58,240 --> 00:03:00,960
Speaker 3: Nice to be here with you wearing your hat that

66
00:03:01,000 --> 00:03:02,120
Speaker 3: says potatoes.

67
00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:05,040
Speaker 2: I am. I know, it's so good. Everyone sends me

68
00:03:05,080 --> 00:03:08,320
Speaker 2: potato memes all the time and it's great, But Sophie's

69
00:03:08,320 --> 00:03:09,079
Speaker 2: the real.

70
00:03:09,360 --> 00:03:10,160
Speaker 1: A potato head.

71
00:03:10,600 --> 00:03:13,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the word I was thinking you are, and.

72
00:03:13,360 --> 00:03:15,919
Speaker 3: I am too. It's a very pre potato group today.

73
00:03:16,120 --> 00:03:16,360
Speaker 1: Yeah.

74
00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:20,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, I had potatoes and couscous for lunch. Oh nice.

75
00:03:21,360 --> 00:03:23,440
Speaker 2: It was just sort of random storre fry food and

76
00:03:23,440 --> 00:03:24,079
Speaker 2: it was so good.

77
00:03:24,400 --> 00:03:28,000
Speaker 3: I had several mini croissants that I got discounted at

78
00:03:28,040 --> 00:03:28,600
Speaker 3: fred Meyer.

79
00:03:29,320 --> 00:03:32,560
Speaker 2: I like croissants, Sophie, did you have a starch for

80
00:03:32,680 --> 00:03:33,320
Speaker 2: lunch today?

81
00:03:34,080 --> 00:03:38,240
Speaker 1: I had two Italian sausages and an apple sauce.

82
00:03:38,760 --> 00:03:41,680
Speaker 2: Oh. I think you're the healthiest of the three of

83
00:03:41,720 --> 00:03:43,360
Speaker 2: us right now, you're the one.

84
00:03:45,920 --> 00:03:49,040
Speaker 1: Yeah.

85
00:03:49,080 --> 00:03:52,440
Speaker 2: Well. We also have an audio engineer named Eva hi

86
00:03:52,480 --> 00:03:57,000
Speaker 2: Eva Hiva hi Eva, and our theme music was written

87
00:03:57,040 --> 00:04:02,640
Speaker 2: forced by unwoman and you have unwittingly come in in

88
00:04:02,680 --> 00:04:05,400
Speaker 2: the middle of me. It's not a series, but it's

89
00:04:05,480 --> 00:04:08,520
Speaker 2: kind of a series. I've been talking a lot about

90
00:04:08,560 --> 00:04:11,480
Speaker 2: the alter globalization movement of the late nineties and early

91
00:04:11,520 --> 00:04:14,920
Speaker 2: oughts for the past couple months because I've been talking

92
00:04:14,960 --> 00:04:18,880
Speaker 2: a lot about the sort of protest infrastructure that people built,

93
00:04:19,040 --> 00:04:22,320
Speaker 2: and so I've been focusing on various groups that came

94
00:04:22,360 --> 00:04:27,839
Speaker 2: together to create the modern protest infrastructure, and specifically this

95
00:04:28,000 --> 00:04:32,200
Speaker 2: grand movement of movements that relied on decentralized organizing I'm

96
00:04:32,200 --> 00:04:33,800
Speaker 2: going to do this long build up before I give

97
00:04:33,800 --> 00:04:37,440
Speaker 2: you the topic. And the movement of movements especially kind

98
00:04:37,480 --> 00:04:41,040
Speaker 2: of came from decentralized organizing techniques developed by the Zapatistas

99
00:04:41,080 --> 00:04:44,240
Speaker 2: in Chiapus, Mexico, as well as anarchist traditions, and they

100
00:04:44,400 --> 00:04:49,800
Speaker 2: challenged neoliberalism and the challenge the way that structural adjustment

101
00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:53,120
Speaker 2: programs are destroying country's economies and basically just destroying the

102
00:04:53,160 --> 00:04:56,520
Speaker 2: global self. We talked about how the Zapatistas in Mexico

103
00:04:56,760 --> 00:05:00,360
Speaker 2: broke from traditional leftist organizing by introducing indigenous ae ideas

104
00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:04,000
Speaker 2: around decentralization and bottom up democracy, and we talked about

105
00:05:04,040 --> 00:05:06,920
Speaker 2: how they started to organize various grassroop groups and movements

106
00:05:06,920 --> 00:05:10,039
Speaker 2: from around the world to call for a movement against neoliberalism.

107
00:05:10,240 --> 00:05:12,320
Speaker 2: And what we're going to talk about today is one

108
00:05:12,360 --> 00:05:15,240
Speaker 2: of the mechanisms by which they were able to do

109
00:05:15,279 --> 00:05:16,920
Speaker 2: some of that organizing. But I'm still not going to

110
00:05:16,960 --> 00:05:18,320
Speaker 2: tell you what we're going to talk about yet. I'm

111
00:05:18,360 --> 00:05:20,680
Speaker 2: building it up as if it's like this dramatic reveal,

112
00:05:20,760 --> 00:05:24,119
Speaker 2: but I love it. We also talked about the Black

113
00:05:24,120 --> 00:05:27,080
Speaker 2: Bloc protesters that started in Germany and spread across Europe

114
00:05:27,120 --> 00:05:29,159
Speaker 2: to the rest of the world, how they provided an

115
00:05:29,200 --> 00:05:33,760
Speaker 2: alternative to the existing dichotomy with like either regimented nonviolence

116
00:05:33,760 --> 00:05:36,359
Speaker 2: on one side or like armed guerrilla movements on the

117
00:05:36,360 --> 00:05:39,760
Speaker 2: other side. We talked about the National Lawyer's Guild, and

118
00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:42,640
Speaker 2: we talked about street medics and maybe I'm just listening

119
00:05:42,640 --> 00:05:43,839
Speaker 2: to all these things because if you like come in

120
00:05:43,880 --> 00:05:45,680
Speaker 2: on just this one, they're like, oh wow, all those

121
00:05:45,680 --> 00:05:48,800
Speaker 2: things sound great too. We also talked about street theater

122
00:05:48,960 --> 00:05:52,240
Speaker 2: and giant puppets. But this week we were going to

123
00:05:52,240 --> 00:05:58,080
Speaker 2: talk about yet another component of the successful protests, independent media.

124
00:05:58,560 --> 00:06:03,000
Speaker 2: This week are going to talk about the decentralized grassroots

125
00:06:03,000 --> 00:06:07,599
Speaker 2: collective of independent journalists fundamentally changed our media landscape forever,

126
00:06:08,880 --> 00:06:11,640
Speaker 2: sometimes in ways that made it much worse. This week

127
00:06:11,920 --> 00:06:15,880
Speaker 2: we are talking about indie media I N D Y Media.

128
00:06:16,000 --> 00:06:19,960
Speaker 2: You ever heard of them? Hmmm, excellent? Then this will

129
00:06:19,960 --> 00:06:23,560
Speaker 2: be fun. I'm excited. This is the Independent Media Center

130
00:06:23,760 --> 00:06:26,479
Speaker 2: or the IMC as no one remembers it. If people

131
00:06:26,520 --> 00:06:28,600
Speaker 2: remember it at all, they remember it as indie media,

132
00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:31,960
Speaker 2: spelled with the Y. This is still around, but in

133
00:06:32,000 --> 00:06:38,320
Speaker 2: a much diminished form, but its impacts are outsized. I

134
00:06:38,360 --> 00:06:40,760
Speaker 2: am going to draw a direct link from indie media

135
00:06:40,800 --> 00:06:43,520
Speaker 2: to Twitter and therefore the destruction of all of our brains.

136
00:06:44,000 --> 00:06:46,640
Speaker 2: That's my plan today. Oh well, you ever heard of

137
00:06:46,640 --> 00:06:50,880
Speaker 2: Twitter's sorry, that sounded terrible. Certain you've heard of Twitter.

138
00:06:51,120 --> 00:06:52,919
Speaker 3: It is like, don't you feel though that Twitter, like,

139
00:06:53,040 --> 00:06:56,400
Speaker 3: even when it was at its biggest, felt a little

140
00:06:56,400 --> 00:06:59,080
Speaker 3: bit too quaint in a way because it was based

141
00:06:59,120 --> 00:07:03,159
Speaker 3: on words, you know, like you could feel it being

142
00:07:03,200 --> 00:07:05,520
Speaker 3: the last big thing based on sentences.

143
00:07:05,800 --> 00:07:08,320
Speaker 2: Oh interesting, Like it was doomed because it's not going

144
00:07:08,360 --> 00:07:11,080
Speaker 2: to be because the next one was photo and the

145
00:07:11,120 --> 00:07:12,239
Speaker 2: next one after that was video.

146
00:07:12,440 --> 00:07:15,600
Speaker 3: Just yeah, this feeling of like this is sort of

147
00:07:15,640 --> 00:07:20,480
Speaker 3: like the last gasp of language based sort of viral

148
00:07:20,560 --> 00:07:24,280
Speaker 3: media online or language based social media as opposed to

149
00:07:24,360 --> 00:07:27,080
Speaker 3: image based, because you could get really big on Twitter

150
00:07:27,160 --> 00:07:29,320
Speaker 3: as an ugly person, is what I'm really saying here.

151
00:07:30,320 --> 00:07:34,840
Speaker 3: That's true, and those doors aren't open anymore.

152
00:07:35,280 --> 00:07:39,280
Speaker 2: I hate every single time I have to do video

153
00:07:39,320 --> 00:07:41,760
Speaker 2: for something. Every single time someone's like, hey, can you

154
00:07:41,800 --> 00:07:45,480
Speaker 2: promote this thing that you're doing? Sent just just really quick,

155
00:07:45,520 --> 00:07:47,360
Speaker 2: just send us a sixty second video of it. And

156
00:07:47,360 --> 00:07:50,320
Speaker 2: I'm like, oh, yeah, that's a that's a real quick.

157
00:07:50,320 --> 00:07:52,400
Speaker 3: You're like, are you telling me to act like a

158
00:07:52,440 --> 00:07:55,559
Speaker 3: normal person? Who's you know, impression of a normal person.

159
00:07:55,600 --> 00:07:57,880
Speaker 3: People won't pick apart until I want to leave this

160
00:07:58,000 --> 00:07:59,800
Speaker 3: industry forever. Like that's going to take me.

161
00:08:01,080 --> 00:08:04,160
Speaker 2: I know, I know, I have to either wear makeup

162
00:08:04,240 --> 00:08:06,120
Speaker 2: or not. I have to think about it. I gotta

163
00:08:06,160 --> 00:08:08,920
Speaker 2: cut my fucking bangs. I gotta like figure out my

164
00:08:09,040 --> 00:08:11,760
Speaker 2: lightning and backdrop. It is.

165
00:08:12,360 --> 00:08:14,560
Speaker 3: It's a whole production to be a person.

166
00:08:14,680 --> 00:08:17,760
Speaker 2: It really is, well, especially to be like a similacro

167
00:08:17,840 --> 00:08:19,960
Speaker 2: of a person on the internet. Being a person's fine.

168
00:08:19,960 --> 00:08:22,240
Speaker 2: I'll go out in public. Public is fine. It's the

169
00:08:22,280 --> 00:08:23,520
Speaker 2: Internet that's a problem.

170
00:08:23,880 --> 00:08:25,840
Speaker 3: Well, And you know what I think about with that

171
00:08:26,120 --> 00:08:29,200
Speaker 3: is Nicole Kidman and To Die For. Yeah, you know,

172
00:08:29,360 --> 00:08:32,320
Speaker 3: she plays this character who's like a product of like

173
00:08:32,400 --> 00:08:35,959
Speaker 3: tabloid media and nineties TV news, and she's got this

174
00:08:36,080 --> 00:08:38,640
Speaker 3: speech about how like if everyone were on TV, then

175
00:08:38,640 --> 00:08:40,840
Speaker 3: everyone would be paved better because we would all be

176
00:08:40,840 --> 00:08:44,760
Speaker 3: being watched all the time. But also if everyone's on TV,

177
00:08:44,880 --> 00:08:47,720
Speaker 3: then who's gonna watch us? And it's like that's what

178
00:08:47,760 --> 00:08:48,520
Speaker 3: we're doing right now.

179
00:08:48,559 --> 00:08:53,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's the present. Although I feel like instead

180
00:08:53,040 --> 00:08:55,800
Speaker 2: it's just like we've created like weird micro celebrity culture

181
00:08:55,960 --> 00:09:00,160
Speaker 2: and I don't know, I mean not that podcasting me

182
00:09:00,200 --> 00:09:02,360
Speaker 2: into it. But at least it's just my voice. That's

183
00:09:02,360 --> 00:09:03,000
Speaker 2: how I feel.

184
00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:08,000
Speaker 3: About it, exactly. At least you're not performing in more

185
00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:12,200
Speaker 3: ways than the way that you consented to. Maybe that's

186
00:09:12,200 --> 00:09:12,920
Speaker 3: appealing to me.

187
00:09:14,000 --> 00:09:16,560
Speaker 2: Yeah. All I have to do is get on Mike,

188
00:09:16,760 --> 00:09:19,760
Speaker 2: pretend like my day has been wonderful and have energy

189
00:09:20,160 --> 00:09:21,000
Speaker 2: for a little while.

190
00:09:21,320 --> 00:09:23,760
Speaker 3: That's all I gotta do, or at least pretend like

191
00:09:24,400 --> 00:09:26,520
Speaker 3: my day hasn't been distractingly bad.

192
00:09:26,960 --> 00:09:29,679
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, And I actually had a nice day

193
00:09:29,679 --> 00:09:33,040
Speaker 2: to day, although literally all of my day today was

194
00:09:34,280 --> 00:09:38,959
Speaker 2: writing this script to finishing this script. But it was

195
00:09:39,000 --> 00:09:39,560
Speaker 2: a nice day.

196
00:09:39,800 --> 00:09:42,440
Speaker 3: But if that's a nice day, Benny, I'm extra excited

197
00:09:42,480 --> 00:09:43,959
Speaker 3: for it.

198
00:09:43,960 --> 00:09:45,800
Speaker 2: It was a like moment where I was explaining to

199
00:09:45,840 --> 00:09:47,679
Speaker 2: someone the thing that I've researched, and I've been like,

200
00:09:48,559 --> 00:09:51,120
Speaker 2: I'm going to explain a really niche topic. I'm glad

201
00:09:51,120 --> 00:09:54,720
Speaker 2: I have a good guest. The short version of indie

202
00:09:54,760 --> 00:09:59,400
Speaker 2: media is that, basically in the late nineties, at the

203
00:09:59,720 --> 00:10:03,560
Speaker 2: Big Seattle protests against the World Trade Organization November nineteen

204
00:10:03,600 --> 00:10:08,000
Speaker 2: ninety nine, people were like, we actually need a media infrastructure,

205
00:10:08,480 --> 00:10:11,960
Speaker 2: We need a structure of independent media. And it actually

206
00:10:12,000 --> 00:10:15,400
Speaker 2: comes out of not just like random people who want

207
00:10:15,400 --> 00:10:19,360
Speaker 2: to post conspiracy theory stuff though we'll get to that later,

208
00:10:19,679 --> 00:10:23,640
Speaker 2: but it comes out of like people who are journalists

209
00:10:23,760 --> 00:10:26,320
Speaker 2: who are like, the existing infrastructure is not going to

210
00:10:26,360 --> 00:10:28,280
Speaker 2: work for what we're going to try and do. They

211
00:10:28,320 --> 00:10:31,120
Speaker 2: got together with a bunch of techies and they created

212
00:10:32,360 --> 00:10:37,800
Speaker 2: what's not the first status update based website, but the

213
00:10:37,840 --> 00:10:43,280
Speaker 2: first big one, the first idea that people can be like, oh,

214
00:10:43,320 --> 00:10:46,680
Speaker 2: this is what happened today, and people can all post

215
00:10:46,720 --> 00:10:51,679
Speaker 2: that and share that and see that, and that allowed

216
00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:56,240
Speaker 2: the protest movement to accomplish amazing things. It also allowed

217
00:10:56,280 --> 00:10:59,480
Speaker 2: that protest movement to not be disappeared as much by

218
00:10:59,480 --> 00:11:03,960
Speaker 2: mainstream media, and it led to a lot of knock

219
00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:06,240
Speaker 2: on effects, and not like an indirect way. I'm going

220
00:11:06,280 --> 00:11:08,880
Speaker 2: to like name specific people who are the through line

221
00:11:09,160 --> 00:11:12,720
Speaker 2: between the modern social media landscape and this thing that

222
00:11:12,800 --> 00:11:16,520
Speaker 2: was put together for some protests. That's the basic idea

223
00:11:16,520 --> 00:11:21,160
Speaker 2: of indie media. I love it. Yeah, Indie media was

224
00:11:21,280 --> 00:11:26,120
Speaker 2: like my political awakening in a lot of ways. When

225
00:11:26,160 --> 00:11:29,120
Speaker 2: I was a teenager. I was an art student, and

226
00:11:29,160 --> 00:11:31,040
Speaker 2: I was brand new to politics, and I was living

227
00:11:31,080 --> 00:11:33,920
Speaker 2: in New York City, and I walked in off the

228
00:11:33,960 --> 00:11:36,920
Speaker 2: street to an Indie Media New York meeting and I

229
00:11:36,960 --> 00:11:40,440
Speaker 2: got to play this like tiny minor part in running

230
00:11:40,480 --> 00:11:43,720
Speaker 2: a newspaper, like a print newspaper that's still around today,

231
00:11:44,080 --> 00:11:47,439
Speaker 2: and join a video collective of people putting together video.

232
00:11:47,520 --> 00:11:49,800
Speaker 2: I just spent all of this time talking trash on video,

233
00:11:49,960 --> 00:11:54,760
Speaker 2: but I absolutely well, I didn't worry as much about

234
00:11:54,800 --> 00:11:58,480
Speaker 2: how I looked when I was nineteen years old. A

235
00:11:58,559 --> 00:12:02,480
Speaker 2: year later, I was living in Portland, Oregon, and I

236
00:12:02,640 --> 00:12:05,960
Speaker 2: was essentially working full time with the indie media video

237
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:10,000
Speaker 2: collective there. In exchange for shooting and editing videos and

238
00:12:10,040 --> 00:12:12,080
Speaker 2: helping run events, I was given a room in a

239
00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:16,240
Speaker 2: tiny apartment over an auto shop, and less than a

240
00:12:16,320 --> 00:12:18,880
Speaker 2: year after dropping out of art school, a film I

241
00:12:19,000 --> 00:12:21,160
Speaker 2: edited sold out a movie theater, and I was giving

242
00:12:21,200 --> 00:12:24,760
Speaker 2: talks at universities to students that were older than me. Wow,

243
00:12:25,360 --> 00:12:28,680
Speaker 2: So I'm really fond of indie media, or I'm really

244
00:12:28,679 --> 00:12:31,480
Speaker 2: fond of what it was in two thousand and two. Man,

245
00:12:32,320 --> 00:12:34,920
Speaker 2: But what is it? Where did it come from? I

246
00:12:34,960 --> 00:12:37,839
Speaker 2: know that you want context. So one of the things

247
00:12:37,880 --> 00:12:40,520
Speaker 2: that comes up all the time when I'm researching this shit,

248
00:12:41,160 --> 00:12:44,520
Speaker 2: and I suspect we didn't talk about what you do.

249
00:12:44,920 --> 00:12:47,679
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, you run a podcast called You're wrong about

250
00:12:48,400 --> 00:12:52,120
Speaker 2: I Do. You're right about that? Sorry? Oh shit, Oh no,

251
00:12:52,440 --> 00:12:57,160
Speaker 2: you're allowed to make terrible jokes about That's true. That's

252
00:12:57,160 --> 00:12:57,840
Speaker 2: how that works.

253
00:12:58,840 --> 00:13:01,480
Speaker 3: If you listen to podcast, people have probably like bothered

254
00:13:01,520 --> 00:13:03,400
Speaker 3: you about it at some point, and if you're like me,

255
00:13:03,559 --> 00:13:06,160
Speaker 3: then you haven't listened to it, because at some point

256
00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:08,600
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty one you were like, stop bringing this

257
00:13:08,760 --> 00:13:11,600
Speaker 3: show up, is what I would assume. And so either

258
00:13:11,640 --> 00:13:13,520
Speaker 3: you have or you haven't listened to it, And if

259
00:13:13,559 --> 00:13:16,520
Speaker 3: you haven't listened to it, then like, look, I'm not

260
00:13:16,640 --> 00:13:19,320
Speaker 3: gonna persuade yet. You get to decide what you do

261
00:13:19,440 --> 00:13:20,200
Speaker 3: with your own time.

262
00:13:20,280 --> 00:13:20,880
Speaker 2: It's fine.

263
00:13:21,400 --> 00:13:24,679
Speaker 3: But it started off as a show about misremembered history

264
00:13:24,760 --> 00:13:28,840
Speaker 3: and sort of classic tabloid narratives like Tiny Harding and

265
00:13:28,880 --> 00:13:31,160
Speaker 3: Lorraina Bobbitt and stories that we.

266
00:13:31,120 --> 00:13:31,640
Speaker 2: Sort of.

267
00:13:33,080 --> 00:13:35,560
Speaker 3: That people sort of like kind of could remember but

268
00:13:35,800 --> 00:13:38,520
Speaker 3: would often sort of remember through USNL parodies, which is

269
00:13:38,559 --> 00:13:40,600
Speaker 3: certainly how I learned history. And now it's kind of

270
00:13:40,600 --> 00:13:44,160
Speaker 3: expanded into like, you know, I like to talk about

271
00:13:44,400 --> 00:13:48,520
Speaker 3: things through that lens of historical misunderstanding and misremembering and

272
00:13:48,600 --> 00:13:51,040
Speaker 3: sort of how the truth gets obscured. But also it's just,

273
00:13:51,880 --> 00:13:54,200
Speaker 3: you know, a show about stuff I find interesting. And

274
00:13:54,280 --> 00:13:57,040
Speaker 3: so our most recent episode that we just put out

275
00:13:57,040 --> 00:13:59,520
Speaker 3: this week is on the history of the Corn Maze.

276
00:14:00,120 --> 00:14:01,240
Speaker 3: That was so fun for me to do.

277
00:14:01,640 --> 00:14:03,800
Speaker 2: You do love corn? That's cool.

278
00:14:04,240 --> 00:14:07,360
Speaker 3: I love Coorn, and I'm okay with mazes. I mainly

279
00:14:07,400 --> 00:14:10,160
Speaker 3: love corn and I had I'm Chelsea Webber Smith who

280
00:14:10,200 --> 00:14:12,760
Speaker 3: loves mazes, and so that even doubt a good fit.

281
00:14:13,360 --> 00:14:17,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is good. So do you run across this

282
00:14:17,920 --> 00:14:21,520
Speaker 2: thing where people have an idea about how people were

283
00:14:21,520 --> 00:14:24,560
Speaker 2: in the past, and how ideas that we take for

284
00:14:24,640 --> 00:14:27,720
Speaker 2: granted right now people think just like have been around

285
00:14:27,720 --> 00:14:29,600
Speaker 2: forever and are actually reasonably new.

286
00:14:30,680 --> 00:14:33,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think one of the really interesting

287
00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:36,880
Speaker 3: sort of aspects of history and historian ship I guess

288
00:14:36,960 --> 00:14:39,920
Speaker 3: to me is like things that are way newer than

289
00:14:39,960 --> 00:14:42,120
Speaker 3: we would think, and things that are way more timeless

290
00:14:42,160 --> 00:14:45,320
Speaker 3: as human behavior than we would think, you know, because

291
00:14:45,360 --> 00:14:47,280
Speaker 3: I think both of those things occur.

292
00:14:47,920 --> 00:14:49,760
Speaker 2: The example that I'm going to use in this script

293
00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:53,200
Speaker 2: although it's not totally related. Is that the idea of

294
00:14:53,200 --> 00:14:57,280
Speaker 2: being a homosexual or of being a heterosexual about one

295
00:14:57,360 --> 00:14:58,800
Speaker 2: hundred to one hundred and fifty years.

296
00:14:58,640 --> 00:15:01,800
Speaker 3: Old, right, I know, And that's the kind of thing

297
00:15:01,800 --> 00:15:05,640
Speaker 3: that like feels shocking, but also when you think about it,

298
00:15:05,760 --> 00:15:10,280
Speaker 3: you're like, hmm, yeah.

299
00:15:08,800 --> 00:15:11,560
Speaker 2: No, totally. The first time someone was like, being straight

300
00:15:11,920 --> 00:15:14,840
Speaker 2: a is about one hundred year old idea, I was like,

301
00:15:15,280 --> 00:15:17,600
Speaker 2: there's no way that's true. And then I read about

302
00:15:17,600 --> 00:15:19,480
Speaker 2: it and I was like, oh, yeah, no, that kind

303
00:15:19,480 --> 00:15:20,720
Speaker 2: of makes sense actually.

304
00:15:20,440 --> 00:15:22,400
Speaker 3: And then you're like, of course straightness is a new

305
00:15:22,440 --> 00:15:24,360
Speaker 3: concept because it's just so weird.

306
00:15:24,840 --> 00:15:25,440
Speaker 2: Yeah.

307
00:15:25,480 --> 00:15:28,360
Speaker 3: Absolutely, If it were innate, it wouldn't be so hard

308
00:15:28,360 --> 00:15:29,760
Speaker 3: to make people, do you know?

309
00:15:30,000 --> 00:15:33,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. If the gender binary is so obvious and natural,

310
00:15:33,840 --> 00:15:35,680
Speaker 2: then why do we need laws to enforce it.

311
00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:40,680
Speaker 3: It's a great question. There aren't any laws enforcing gravity, interestingly.

312
00:15:40,200 --> 00:15:45,840
Speaker 2: Enough, Yeah, yeah, totally. All objects must fall down. Yeah no,

313
00:15:45,880 --> 00:15:52,479
Speaker 2: one's like damn you birds except hunters maybe, but yeah.

314
00:15:52,640 --> 00:15:55,920
Speaker 2: So another idea that is about as old is the

315
00:15:56,000 --> 00:15:59,320
Speaker 2: idea of being gay or straight is the idea of

316
00:15:59,400 --> 00:16:00,920
Speaker 2: journalistic objectivity.

317
00:16:01,560 --> 00:16:03,680
Speaker 3: Oh boy, yeah, I guess that makes sense.

318
00:16:04,400 --> 00:16:07,680
Speaker 2: The idea that a journalist presents the facts and not

319
00:16:07,800 --> 00:16:11,080
Speaker 2: opinions is brand new in the grand scheme of things.

320
00:16:11,520 --> 00:16:14,160
Speaker 3: Yeah see, and I never thought about that. But then

321
00:16:14,200 --> 00:16:16,520
Speaker 3: you're like, yeah, how long of journalists even existed?

322
00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:19,480
Speaker 2: For not that long? Yeah no, I don't I know

323
00:16:19,480 --> 00:16:22,120
Speaker 2: about the journalistic objectivity. But now I'm like, I wonder

324
00:16:22,160 --> 00:16:25,520
Speaker 2: how long our concept of journalism? I wonder how that is?

325
00:16:25,840 --> 00:16:27,920
Speaker 3: Right, or just like you know, if you look at

326
00:16:27,920 --> 00:16:30,800
Speaker 3: like the Great you know what like all these dead

327
00:16:30,840 --> 00:16:33,120
Speaker 3: guys who like in cells like to have is their

328
00:16:33,160 --> 00:16:36,560
Speaker 3: profile pictures for some reason, right, like all the dead Greeks.

329
00:16:37,000 --> 00:16:39,600
Speaker 3: I don't know how that happened. But like herodotus, it's like,

330
00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:42,640
Speaker 3: what's history about? It's like, well, you just make stuff

331
00:16:42,720 --> 00:16:45,760
Speaker 3: up mainly, and then you sort of, yeah, it's fun.

332
00:16:46,120 --> 00:16:47,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, we start.

333
00:16:47,280 --> 00:16:50,600
Speaker 3: To care about accuracy and academia probably not that long ago.

334
00:16:51,960 --> 00:16:55,560
Speaker 2: Well, what's interesting is the idea of journalistic objectivity. It's

335
00:16:55,600 --> 00:16:58,760
Speaker 2: not as like a one sided thing as I actually

336
00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:00,760
Speaker 2: kind of would have expected going into this, because it's

337
00:17:00,760 --> 00:17:03,560
Speaker 2: not like before this everyone just lied for fun, right,

338
00:17:04,480 --> 00:17:07,639
Speaker 2: But if you go back into the New York Times

339
00:17:07,720 --> 00:17:10,000
Speaker 2: archives and read their nineteenth century reporting, which I've had

340
00:17:10,000 --> 00:17:12,400
Speaker 2: to do a bunch of times for the show. Nay, yeah,

341
00:17:12,520 --> 00:17:17,479
Speaker 2: it is blatantly opinionated. And the thing is is that

342
00:17:17,520 --> 00:17:21,280
Speaker 2: New York Times is one of the main places that

343
00:17:21,320 --> 00:17:25,840
Speaker 2: the concept of objective journalism comes from, just decades elating.

344
00:17:26,840 --> 00:17:29,040
Speaker 3: And now they've come full circle. So that's really good.

345
00:17:29,280 --> 00:17:31,080
Speaker 2: Well, that's part of the danger. It's actually part of

346
00:17:31,080 --> 00:17:33,239
Speaker 2: why endi media exists, right, is that you have this

347
00:17:33,320 --> 00:17:36,160
Speaker 2: thing where like, oh, we're the objective people. So when

348
00:17:36,160 --> 00:17:39,679
Speaker 2: they have an obvious bias, it's not presented as an

349
00:17:39,680 --> 00:17:43,639
Speaker 2: obvious bias, right, It's presented as the objective truth unless

350
00:17:43,640 --> 00:17:46,240
Speaker 2: it's on the opinion page, you know, which is why

351
00:17:46,359 --> 00:17:50,879
Speaker 2: the Onion is the only true newspaper. All journalism is

352
00:17:50,880 --> 00:17:54,560
Speaker 2: still biased. Some journalists hide that bias, some journalists try

353
00:17:54,560 --> 00:17:57,720
Speaker 2: to counteract their own biases, and others are a little

354
00:17:57,720 --> 00:18:03,000
Speaker 2: bit more blatant about their bias. But journalistic objectivity didn't

355
00:18:03,040 --> 00:18:06,320
Speaker 2: become the standard because it was like better or more moral.

356
00:18:07,400 --> 00:18:09,000
Speaker 2: It was because it's sold better.

357
00:18:10,480 --> 00:18:13,360
Speaker 3: Wow, Okay, that's interesting. I would not have thought that.

358
00:18:13,560 --> 00:18:15,600
Speaker 2: I wouldn't have thought it either, and it doesn't always

359
00:18:15,680 --> 00:18:18,439
Speaker 2: sell better, but it was able to stand out in

360
00:18:18,480 --> 00:18:22,119
Speaker 2: the field, because in the eighteen nineties you have a

361
00:18:22,200 --> 00:18:25,480
Speaker 2: lot of like yellow journalism, which is basically tabloid journalism.

362
00:18:25,720 --> 00:18:28,160
Speaker 2: It's the journalism of scandal and half lies and full

363
00:18:28,200 --> 00:18:32,679
Speaker 2: lies scandal. That is how if I was a yellow journalist,

364
00:18:32,720 --> 00:18:35,760
Speaker 2: I would tell you that that's how it's pronounced because

365
00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:36,919
Speaker 2: it sounds better, it might sell more.

366
00:18:36,960 --> 00:18:38,679
Speaker 3: No, you don't have to tell the truth. Yeah, and

367
00:18:38,720 --> 00:18:42,280
Speaker 3: this is like, how important was Hurst in the history

368
00:18:42,280 --> 00:18:45,120
Speaker 3: of yellow journalism. He's like, based on my seventh grade education,

369
00:18:45,280 --> 00:18:48,159
Speaker 3: I assume, So, okay, it's good to know that the.

370
00:18:48,560 --> 00:18:53,000
Speaker 2: New York Journal I think was his paper. And yeah,

371
00:18:53,119 --> 00:18:56,360
Speaker 2: pullets are in Hurst. Wait, pullets are in Hurst. They

372
00:18:56,400 --> 00:19:02,000
Speaker 2: think we're not. Oh we not. No, it's crazy. We

373
00:19:02,040 --> 00:19:04,080
Speaker 2: did a whole episode. I'm no, I don't think you

374
00:19:04,119 --> 00:19:06,960
Speaker 2: were the guests. No, but I was cheering from afar.

375
00:19:07,280 --> 00:19:09,680
Speaker 2: We did a whole two parter on the actual newsy strike.

376
00:19:09,720 --> 00:19:11,359
Speaker 2: If anyone wants to go back and hear.

377
00:19:11,359 --> 00:19:14,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, everybody should. I mean, it's very inspiring to me.

378
00:19:14,640 --> 00:19:17,480
Speaker 3: How in the actual history you're like, oh, they actually

379
00:19:17,480 --> 00:19:21,679
Speaker 3: did like terrify all these industries who were like, oh no,

380
00:19:22,000 --> 00:19:25,640
Speaker 3: we can't let children get this many ideas about labor unions.

381
00:19:25,640 --> 00:19:26,800
Speaker 3: This could really screw us.

382
00:19:26,960 --> 00:19:28,680
Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's actually a lot of I mean when

383
00:19:28,720 --> 00:19:31,520
Speaker 2: I think back of like twentieth century journalism that claims

384
00:19:31,560 --> 00:19:34,560
Speaker 2: to be very objective and then I see its lies,

385
00:19:34,800 --> 00:19:38,000
Speaker 2: it's very rarely that I'm like, ah, they printed things

386
00:19:38,040 --> 00:19:41,640
Speaker 2: that were untrue, but instead by like choosing where their

387
00:19:41,680 --> 00:19:44,800
Speaker 2: focus is. I'm like, when labor history is written out

388
00:19:44,800 --> 00:19:46,719
Speaker 2: of history, you're like, oh, yeah, there's probably some protests

389
00:19:46,760 --> 00:19:49,960
Speaker 2: here and there, you know, And then you're like, oh,

390
00:19:50,480 --> 00:19:53,840
Speaker 2: protest and disruption is like the engine of progress.

391
00:19:54,480 --> 00:19:56,960
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that the reaction against it is like the

392
00:19:57,080 --> 00:19:59,479
Speaker 3: driving force shaping the world we now live in.

393
00:19:59,680 --> 00:20:00,000
Speaker 2: Yeah.

394
00:20:00,280 --> 00:20:03,399
Speaker 3: Absolutely, Yeah, and that like the crime of like lying

395
00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:07,159
Speaker 3: by omission is actually seems a lot more serious in

396
00:20:07,200 --> 00:20:07,760
Speaker 3: many ways.

397
00:20:08,000 --> 00:20:10,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's harder to fact check, right, because you're like, well,

398
00:20:10,880 --> 00:20:12,120
Speaker 2: I guess everything you wrote is true.

399
00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:15,040
Speaker 3: God, Yeah, because you can't fact check. Leaving stuff out

400
00:20:15,080 --> 00:20:18,200
Speaker 3: of the record, it's just like, well, we had limited space,

401
00:20:18,280 --> 00:20:19,800
Speaker 3: we couldn't fit in another page.

402
00:20:19,920 --> 00:20:22,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, not one more page. There's a lot of people

403
00:20:22,320 --> 00:20:25,400
Speaker 2: who've been very important in history, and other parts about

404
00:20:25,440 --> 00:20:27,480
Speaker 2: them are left out of it, right, like, it's very

405
00:20:27,520 --> 00:20:32,000
Speaker 2: hard to find when people did sex work. If someone

406
00:20:32,040 --> 00:20:34,280
Speaker 2: did sex work and they did something important, no one

407
00:20:34,320 --> 00:20:37,320
Speaker 2: talks about the sex work. But also if someone was

408
00:20:37,320 --> 00:20:41,800
Speaker 2: a radical leftist and they're not known for being a

409
00:20:41,920 --> 00:20:45,240
Speaker 2: radical leftist, that is left out. Are you thinking about

410
00:20:45,280 --> 00:20:49,320
Speaker 2: Helen Keller, Oh yeah, that's a perfect example. Yeah, it

411
00:20:49,400 --> 00:20:50,720
Speaker 2: is completely left out.

412
00:20:50,840 --> 00:20:54,200
Speaker 3: And then yeah, honorary Wobbly Helen Keller.

413
00:20:54,119 --> 00:20:59,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So to quote about yellow journalism, I'm

414
00:20:59,320 --> 00:21:02,200
Speaker 2: going to quote Joseph Patrick mccerns from the book History

415
00:21:02,240 --> 00:21:06,400
Speaker 2: of American Journalism. The yellow journalism of the eighteen nineties

416
00:21:06,440 --> 00:21:09,160
Speaker 2: and the tabloid journalism of the nineteen twenties and thirties

417
00:21:09,600 --> 00:21:12,960
Speaker 2: stigmatize the press as a profit motivated purveyor of cheap

418
00:21:13,000 --> 00:21:17,679
Speaker 2: thrills and vicarious experiments. To its many critics, it seemed

419
00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:20,200
Speaker 2: as though the press was using the freedom from regulation

420
00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:23,639
Speaker 2: it enjoyed under the First Amendment to make money instead

421
00:21:23,640 --> 00:21:26,040
Speaker 2: of using it to fulfill its vital role as an

422
00:21:26,119 --> 00:21:31,840
Speaker 2: independent source of information in a democracy. So yellow journalism

423
00:21:31,880 --> 00:21:35,520
Speaker 2: is popular, right, but it is heavily criticized. So it

424
00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:39,840
Speaker 2: creates this niche for someone to be like, yeah, fuck

425
00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:43,159
Speaker 2: that stuff. We're going to give you the truth, and

426
00:21:43,200 --> 00:21:45,800
Speaker 2: do you know what the best way to pay for

427
00:21:46,040 --> 00:21:50,600
Speaker 2: the truth is advertising advertising. It's the part where you

428
00:21:50,680 --> 00:21:54,320
Speaker 2: just say this part's a lie and everyone drops pretending

429
00:21:54,400 --> 00:22:03,760
Speaker 2: like anything's objective, like what's about to happen, and we're back.

430
00:22:04,640 --> 00:22:07,600
Speaker 2: The biggest like turning point for yellow journalism, or at

431
00:22:07,640 --> 00:22:10,200
Speaker 2: least in history, when people look back and they're like, oh,

432
00:22:10,280 --> 00:22:12,920
Speaker 2: that didn't do us any good, at least in the

433
00:22:13,040 --> 00:22:17,280
Speaker 2: United States context, is when yellow journalism and Hurst sparked

434
00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:18,200
Speaker 2: a whole ass war.

435
00:22:19,200 --> 00:22:21,880
Speaker 3: Yeah, that does seem to be taking things too far.

436
00:22:22,000 --> 00:22:24,240
Speaker 3: The Newsy's made out very well though.

437
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:26,440
Speaker 2: That's true. That's true. Well, no, they actually had to

438
00:22:26,480 --> 00:22:28,480
Speaker 2: fight really hard in order to make out half decent.

439
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:30,040
Speaker 2: They lived horrible conditions.

440
00:22:30,040 --> 00:22:31,840
Speaker 3: But yes, oh no, but I mean they could sell

441
00:22:31,880 --> 00:22:33,080
Speaker 3: papers about the war.

442
00:22:33,200 --> 00:22:34,840
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah. I used to write.

443
00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:37,240
Speaker 3: About that my fan fiction and have my newsies being

444
00:22:37,280 --> 00:22:44,080
Speaker 3: nostalgic for the Spanish American War. That's amazing. Can folks

445
00:22:44,080 --> 00:22:50,280
Speaker 3: find this fan fiction? I hope they don't, but if

446
00:22:50,280 --> 00:22:52,399
Speaker 3: you do, you know, God bless you. It was like

447
00:22:52,600 --> 00:22:57,919
Speaker 3: I was his writing the horniest stuff. Okay, maybe I

448
00:22:57,920 --> 00:23:01,280
Speaker 3: don't need to know it if it's yeah, all right, Really,

449
00:23:01,320 --> 00:23:04,800
Speaker 3: I strove her historical accuracy the entire time.

450
00:23:05,480 --> 00:23:10,800
Speaker 2: I suspect that the average like weird erotic thing historical

451
00:23:10,800 --> 00:23:15,600
Speaker 2: fiction is going to be more accurate than like other

452
00:23:15,680 --> 00:23:18,600
Speaker 2: mainstream things, because I think that it takes a certain mindset.

453
00:23:19,000 --> 00:23:20,800
Speaker 3: You have to be kind of detail oriented.

454
00:23:21,080 --> 00:23:23,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, probably exactly.

455
00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:26,240
Speaker 3: I just want to solve the prop coffee cup problem.

456
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:28,359
Speaker 3: It would be so hard to put something a little

457
00:23:28,359 --> 00:23:31,679
Speaker 3: bit heavy in those things. You know, when you have

458
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:34,600
Speaker 3: like actors handling empty coffee cups and they're just like

459
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:39,119
Speaker 3: flinging them around as if there's nothing inside them, drives

460
00:23:39,119 --> 00:23:45,440
Speaker 3: me insane anyway. Yeah, yeah, when you cause a war

461
00:23:45,560 --> 00:23:47,359
Speaker 3: that does seem rather extreme.

462
00:23:47,840 --> 00:23:50,680
Speaker 2: And what happened was is that the Spanish American War

463
00:23:50,800 --> 00:23:54,639
Speaker 2: was in many ways caused by the USS. Main was

464
00:23:54,680 --> 00:23:58,719
Speaker 2: sunk in eighteen ninety eight in Havana, and the New

465
00:23:58,800 --> 00:24:01,240
Speaker 2: York Journal made a huge, huge scandal out of it,

466
00:24:01,440 --> 00:24:03,760
Speaker 2: and it drove popular outcry to go to war. And

467
00:24:03,960 --> 00:24:06,000
Speaker 2: I don't remember all of the ins and outs of

468
00:24:06,040 --> 00:24:08,760
Speaker 2: it enough to get more into it here, but I've

469
00:24:08,800 --> 00:24:09,720
Speaker 2: known it more before.

470
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:13,000
Speaker 3: But is it like arguably it just sort of like

471
00:24:13,080 --> 00:24:14,600
Speaker 3: sank for normal reasons.

472
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:17,080
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's what I remember. The last time I

473
00:24:17,080 --> 00:24:17,800
Speaker 2: looked into this.

474
00:24:17,960 --> 00:24:21,040
Speaker 3: Like a boiler exploded or something like that. Yeah, because

475
00:24:21,040 --> 00:24:22,440
Speaker 3: ships do sink famously.

476
00:24:22,840 --> 00:24:27,520
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So by the end of the nineteenth century,

477
00:24:27,560 --> 00:24:29,600
Speaker 2: people are starting to get extra critical about all the

478
00:24:29,640 --> 00:24:33,200
Speaker 2: fake news of yellow journalism, and a local conservative rag

479
00:24:33,200 --> 00:24:36,080
Speaker 2: in New York City with the uninspired name no one's

480
00:24:36,080 --> 00:24:40,000
Speaker 2: ever heard of this paper, The New York Times pivoted

481
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:42,800
Speaker 2: to being all about being objective.

482
00:24:43,680 --> 00:24:46,720
Speaker 3: That's so interesting that people like, don't you find it

483
00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:50,080
Speaker 3: kind of heartening to think of people being like, hey,

484
00:24:50,119 --> 00:24:53,439
Speaker 3: I actually do not like being lied to, you know,

485
00:24:54,640 --> 00:24:56,440
Speaker 3: like I guess everyone, you know, a lot of people

486
00:24:56,440 --> 00:24:58,520
Speaker 3: are saying that today. But then there's so many other

487
00:24:58,560 --> 00:25:01,520
Speaker 3: people who seem to be louder who were like I

488
00:25:01,560 --> 00:25:05,480
Speaker 3: love being lied too, and it's hard to think straight.

489
00:25:06,800 --> 00:25:10,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I am sure there are people who went

490
00:25:10,320 --> 00:25:12,520
Speaker 2: in that direction because they felt those their moral duty

491
00:25:12,520 --> 00:25:14,800
Speaker 2: to be objective. But as interesting is even at like

492
00:25:14,880 --> 00:25:16,840
Speaker 2: some of the more tabloidy papers at the time, they

493
00:25:16,840 --> 00:25:19,679
Speaker 2: would have like signs on the wall that are like truth,

494
00:25:19,760 --> 00:25:21,480
Speaker 2: the truth matters. But it was kind of in this

495
00:25:21,600 --> 00:25:24,400
Speaker 2: like tell the truth, but as like wildly and sensationally

496
00:25:24,400 --> 00:25:25,760
Speaker 2: as possible, you know.

497
00:25:25,880 --> 00:25:29,159
Speaker 3: Like tell what's technically the truth, or like you know,

498
00:25:29,280 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 3: and beyond belief factor fiction whether like that one's true,

499
00:25:33,240 --> 00:25:36,679
Speaker 3: it's based on actual events, based on our research, and

500
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:37,120
Speaker 3: you're like.

501
00:25:37,160 --> 00:25:38,400
Speaker 2: Well, that doesn't make sense.

502
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 3: True, it was like a grain of truth maybe in it,

503
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:44,800
Speaker 3: but that's not you know, it's like the showing me

504
00:25:44,880 --> 00:25:47,119
Speaker 3: a pearl and saying this is made out of sand,

505
00:25:47,240 --> 00:25:49,000
Speaker 3: and it's like in a way.

506
00:25:49,200 --> 00:25:55,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, totally so, at least according to an article

507
00:25:55,240 --> 00:25:58,560
Speaker 2: in Just or Daily. In the late nineteenth century, being

508
00:25:58,640 --> 00:26:02,280
Speaker 2: really into science was in vogue, and so this idea

509
00:26:02,880 --> 00:26:07,440
Speaker 2: of objectivity was a way to be like the proper

510
00:26:07,960 --> 00:26:10,160
Speaker 2: modern scientific person.

511
00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:13,679
Speaker 3: Actually, that does sound a little bit too like you know,

512
00:26:15,200 --> 00:26:18,880
Speaker 3: male culture today, because like you know, I'm sure all

513
00:26:18,920 --> 00:26:23,080
Speaker 3: these very objective people also didn't realize anger was an emotion.

514
00:26:23,480 --> 00:26:27,600
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, but good for them. Well, I mean,

515
00:26:27,600 --> 00:26:29,880
Speaker 2: they only have one emotion, so they're just real good

516
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:31,399
Speaker 2: at it, and they just not recognize as part of

517
00:26:31,440 --> 00:26:32,480
Speaker 2: the larger palette.

518
00:26:32,800 --> 00:26:34,560
Speaker 3: Just seems like background noise.

519
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:37,960
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah. The New York Times and other papers were

520
00:26:37,960 --> 00:26:40,560
Speaker 2: really into kind of just cashing in on this trend

521
00:26:40,600 --> 00:26:43,760
Speaker 2: of being the like worthy, objective people. We are the

522
00:26:43,840 --> 00:26:47,600
Speaker 2: good scientific people, we are the modern people.

523
00:26:47,760 --> 00:26:49,480
Speaker 3: This is pretty charming as a trend.

524
00:26:49,960 --> 00:26:52,480
Speaker 2: It's true. I do prefer this. I want to be clear,

525
00:26:52,600 --> 00:26:56,440
Speaker 2: I'm being cynical about it, but it's like better than

526
00:26:56,520 --> 00:27:02,320
Speaker 2: just everyone lying. Yeah, exactly, I'll take what I can get. Yeah, totally.

527
00:27:02,760 --> 00:27:05,840
Speaker 2: A trade paper at the time called The Journalist wrote, quote,

528
00:27:06,359 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 2: the most successful journalists are those that are able to

529
00:27:08,640 --> 00:27:10,879
Speaker 2: give the facts, the whole facts, and nothing but the

530
00:27:10,880 --> 00:27:14,800
Speaker 2: facts and brief, pithy sentences, the majority of which contain

531
00:27:14,880 --> 00:27:17,679
Speaker 2: not more than a dozen words. And so it was this, like,

532
00:27:18,080 --> 00:27:20,920
Speaker 2: that's the new style of news. So they just kind

533
00:27:20,920 --> 00:27:24,040
Speaker 2: of invented the news one day. Yeah, I mean they

534
00:27:24,040 --> 00:27:26,240
Speaker 2: had the news, but the way we understand the news,

535
00:27:26,280 --> 00:27:30,800
Speaker 2: they invented the news. It's news two point oh yeah, totally. Yeah. Oh,

536
00:27:30,800 --> 00:27:32,800
Speaker 2: which is interesting because NDI media is literally going to

537
00:27:32,800 --> 00:27:34,360
Speaker 2: invent the web two point zero.

538
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:35,560
Speaker 1: Well.

539
00:27:35,800 --> 00:27:39,360
Speaker 2: Yeah. The point of view of journalists was slowly stripped

540
00:27:39,359 --> 00:27:42,160
Speaker 2: out of the news journalists present to present themselves as

541
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:45,360
Speaker 2: to quote another paper at the time of the writer quote,

542
00:27:45,880 --> 00:27:48,560
Speaker 2: to be the unmoved observer of events, to see things

543
00:27:48,600 --> 00:27:51,400
Speaker 2: exactly as they are, without regard to possible motives which

544
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:54,320
Speaker 2: may have produced them.

545
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:57,000
Speaker 3: Which is also sexually a Victorian mail view of like

546
00:27:57,080 --> 00:28:00,439
Speaker 3: what's possible, where it's like who could do that?

547
00:28:01,080 --> 00:28:03,840
Speaker 2: Right? And so we start seeing now you can start

548
00:28:03,880 --> 00:28:07,720
Speaker 2: seeing some of the downsides of this turn. Right, You're like, oh, yeah,

549
00:28:07,760 --> 00:28:10,600
Speaker 2: we're not going to talk about why someone was so

550
00:28:10,680 --> 00:28:14,119
Speaker 2: mad that they did this thing. Right, Like a riot

551
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:18,359
Speaker 2: or broke a window is modern news, right, but not

552
00:28:19,640 --> 00:28:22,400
Speaker 2: someone who has been impoverished by capitalism is lashing out

553
00:28:22,440 --> 00:28:26,879
Speaker 2: against what's happening right, right, And so it's another form

554
00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:28,640
Speaker 2: of lie by emission sometimes.

555
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:33,199
Speaker 3: Yeah, it also feels like just by stating an utterly

556
00:28:33,240 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 3: impossible goal and acting like that's the format. It's like saying,

557
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:40,800
Speaker 3: here at this hospital, no one literally no one dies,

558
00:28:40,920 --> 00:28:43,680
Speaker 3: We hear everyone of all their diseases, and everyone walks

559
00:28:43,680 --> 00:28:47,720
Speaker 3: out alive and with twenty bucks. And it's like, but

560
00:28:47,800 --> 00:28:49,600
Speaker 3: you're not going to do that. You can't do that.

561
00:28:49,760 --> 00:28:52,720
Speaker 2: No one can, yeah, totally, and no one can be

562
00:28:52,760 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 2: truly objective either, Right, Trying for objectivity still feels well,

563
00:28:58,640 --> 00:29:02,240
Speaker 2: trying for objectivity in the action fact finding feels important. Me.

564
00:29:02,320 --> 00:29:05,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, yeah, and so I think there's like

565
00:29:05,800 --> 00:29:08,640
Speaker 3: an element of objectivity where it's like, like, if I'm

566
00:29:08,640 --> 00:29:11,040
Speaker 3: going to try and write a story as objectively as possible,

567
00:29:11,120 --> 00:29:15,120
Speaker 3: part of that is me acknowledging my position as a

568
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:18,480
Speaker 3: person making these observations and acknowledging what my limits are.

569
00:29:18,920 --> 00:29:21,600
Speaker 2: Absolutely, you know, It's like I think about the shit

570
00:29:21,640 --> 00:29:24,800
Speaker 2: a lot, right, I run a history podcast, and I also, yeah,

571
00:29:24,800 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 2: there you go. My terrible joke I wrote into this episode.

572
00:29:27,880 --> 00:29:29,920
Speaker 2: I wear my politics on my sleeve, but to be

573
00:29:30,000 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 2: more literal, I cut the sleeves off of all of

574
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:36,080
Speaker 2: my shirts, which reveals my prominent anarchist tattoo on my

575
00:29:36,200 --> 00:29:36,920
Speaker 2: upper shoulder.

576
00:29:37,960 --> 00:29:39,440
Speaker 1: So fucking real, Magpie.

577
00:29:39,480 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 2: I mean, that's perfect. But I want to tell the

578
00:29:42,920 --> 00:29:47,240
Speaker 2: truth even when it's inconvenient to my political aims. For example,

579
00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:49,080
Speaker 2: all the times on the show where I've had to

580
00:29:49,080 --> 00:29:51,720
Speaker 2: talk about the popularity of eugenics among political people on

581
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:54,120
Speaker 2: both sides of the spectrum of the early twentieth century,

582
00:29:54,120 --> 00:29:59,720
Speaker 2: including people I would otherwise look up to, And even

583
00:29:59,800 --> 00:30:02,720
Speaker 2: at the time when all this new objectivity is coming in,

584
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:06,760
Speaker 2: there's criticism of it that actually meant something. It wasn't

585
00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:08,360
Speaker 2: just like Bob but we want to sell more papers

586
00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:11,040
Speaker 2: by start wars. That's the closest I've done to an

587
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:14,040
Speaker 2: old timey news voice. Thank you, thank you. I'm a

588
00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:18,760
Speaker 2: workshop that one. In eighteen ninety one, a journalist named W. J.

589
00:30:19,000 --> 00:30:22,080
Speaker 2: Stillman wrote about how journalism went from talking about quote

590
00:30:22,560 --> 00:30:28,360
Speaker 2: the questions and answers of contemporary life to quote collecting, condensing,

591
00:30:28,440 --> 00:30:33,000
Speaker 2: and assimilating the trivialities of the entire human experience to

592
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:36,520
Speaker 2: get insult I know. And that's like I went into

593
00:30:36,560 --> 00:30:39,480
Speaker 2: it being like, I've had my criticisms of ostensibly objective

594
00:30:39,520 --> 00:30:43,400
Speaker 2: media for a long time, but seeing more of them,

595
00:30:43,640 --> 00:30:47,520
Speaker 2: while still also being like, it's still better if we

596
00:30:48,240 --> 00:30:53,520
Speaker 2: don't do yellow journalism, you know. Yeah, and podcasting really

597
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 2: is the rebirth of yellow journalism.

598
00:30:57,920 --> 00:31:01,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's interesting, how like, I don't know, I

599
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:03,960
Speaker 3: like to me, the answer is not format as much

600
00:31:03,960 --> 00:31:06,440
Speaker 3: as just being willing to be boring when the occasion

601
00:31:06,520 --> 00:31:08,480
Speaker 3: calls for it, because there are just some things that

602
00:31:08,520 --> 00:31:12,280
Speaker 3: can't be stated excitingly, and if you can't make it exciting,

603
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:14,479
Speaker 3: you shouldn't have to in order for it to be

604
00:31:14,560 --> 00:31:17,640
Speaker 3: able to be circulated to an audience, you know.

605
00:31:18,040 --> 00:31:21,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, but what if the area of this circle is

606
00:31:22,000 --> 00:31:27,600
Speaker 2: three thousand, nine hundred and twenty four meters radical. Yeah,

607
00:31:27,640 --> 00:31:29,600
Speaker 2: and you know what that means. That means that if

608
00:31:29,600 --> 00:31:31,440
Speaker 2: you divide it, I can't do enough math to do

609
00:31:31,480 --> 00:31:36,240
Speaker 2: this bit any further, Like I know. So, The New

610
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:39,280
Speaker 2: York Times and other papers invented the myth or the

611
00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 2: ideal of objective journalism at the opening of the twentieth century.

612
00:31:43,360 --> 00:31:46,640
Speaker 2: By nineteen ten, some folks adopted a code of ethics

613
00:31:46,640 --> 00:31:50,160
Speaker 2: for journalism, and by nineteen fifties most publications had code

614
00:31:50,200 --> 00:31:52,160
Speaker 2: of ethics that were like, we don't say things that

615
00:31:52,200 --> 00:31:53,120
Speaker 2: we know are lies.

616
00:31:54,360 --> 00:31:56,080
Speaker 3: I would love to know which papers were like the

617
00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:00,000
Speaker 3: last holdouts, you know, before getting on that. We're finally

618
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,800
Speaker 3: they're like, okay, we won't lie on purpose anymore. It's

619
00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:03,920
Speaker 3: nineteen fifty seven.

620
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:07,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta get with the Times. Ah, get with

621
00:32:07,680 --> 00:32:09,800
Speaker 2: the Times, because the New York anyway.

622
00:32:09,800 --> 00:32:13,120
Speaker 3: Right, the best puns happen purely by accident.

623
00:32:13,640 --> 00:32:14,200
Speaker 2: That's true.

624
00:32:14,360 --> 00:32:16,240
Speaker 3: It's like when you drop your toast and it falls

625
00:32:16,320 --> 00:32:18,240
Speaker 3: jam side up and nobody sees.

626
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 2: If no one's around to see, did it happen? I know.

627
00:32:23,080 --> 00:32:25,680
Speaker 3: Yeah, it really does make me feel like a liar.

628
00:32:26,120 --> 00:32:31,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, so that's some context around the mainstream news.

629
00:32:32,400 --> 00:32:35,280
Speaker 2: It presents itself as objective, it often tries to be.

630
00:32:35,320 --> 00:32:39,480
Speaker 2: There are upsides and downsides of that. Meanwhile, all along,

631
00:32:40,000 --> 00:32:44,160
Speaker 2: since before the rise of objective journalism, activists and political

632
00:32:44,240 --> 00:32:47,360
Speaker 2: radicals have been presenting counter narratives through their own newspapers

633
00:32:47,400 --> 00:32:51,280
Speaker 2: and radio shows and news outlets, most of the time,

634
00:32:52,360 --> 00:32:55,680
Speaker 2: often to their discredit. Activist papers don't really try for

635
00:32:55,720 --> 00:33:00,080
Speaker 2: the same level of objectivity. Some don't try for that

636
00:33:00,200 --> 00:33:02,200
Speaker 2: because they think objectivity is a myth, and they try

637
00:33:02,240 --> 00:33:04,520
Speaker 2: to be honest about their biases. I will not pretend

638
00:33:04,520 --> 00:33:06,480
Speaker 2: that this is an objective show. I just try to

639
00:33:06,480 --> 00:33:09,720
Speaker 2: be really clear about my biases. It's actually just kind

640
00:33:09,720 --> 00:33:11,520
Speaker 2: of as a side note, It's one of the reasons

641
00:33:11,520 --> 00:33:14,800
Speaker 2: that I like talk about my politics on this show

642
00:33:14,960 --> 00:33:18,920
Speaker 2: is less to convince people of it and more so

643
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:22,720
Speaker 2: that people can like ignore part of what I say, right.

644
00:33:23,080 --> 00:33:25,360
Speaker 2: They can like be like, well, that BET's just saying

645
00:33:25,360 --> 00:33:28,280
Speaker 2: that because she thinks the following, you know, right, And like,

646
00:33:28,280 --> 00:33:28,560
Speaker 2: I mean.

647
00:33:28,520 --> 00:33:31,160
Speaker 3: Do you ever have a review where you're like, she

648
00:33:31,640 --> 00:33:34,960
Speaker 3: said something that I found stupid or like made a

649
00:33:35,040 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 3: dumb mistake, and that makes me not trust what she

650
00:33:38,080 --> 00:33:41,440
Speaker 3: says about other stuff, And I'm like, yeah, you shouldn't

651
00:33:41,440 --> 00:33:43,000
Speaker 3: trust me. Why do you trust me?

652
00:33:43,120 --> 00:33:45,160
Speaker 2: Yeah? I totally earned that totally.

653
00:33:45,240 --> 00:33:48,520
Speaker 3: You don't have to automatically trust everyone who is talking.

654
00:33:48,760 --> 00:33:51,600
Speaker 2: Yeah, I am not on a pedestal. I'm on a soapbox.

655
00:33:51,640 --> 00:33:54,920
Speaker 2: These are fundamentally different platforms. Yeah, you know, one of

656
00:33:54,960 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 2: them smaller, like yeah, and I have to research a

657
00:33:58,360 --> 00:34:01,000
Speaker 2: new subject every week, like.

658
00:34:01,040 --> 00:34:03,760
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like yeah, like I would love for you

659
00:34:03,840 --> 00:34:07,080
Speaker 3: to listen, but also like assume that I could very

660
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:08,960
Speaker 3: easily be wrong right about it.

661
00:34:09,280 --> 00:34:13,160
Speaker 1: Yeah, wow, Sarah, Thank you, Sophie.

662
00:34:16,360 --> 00:34:20,280
Speaker 2: Like, I try really hard to be right about stuff.

663
00:34:20,360 --> 00:34:22,480
Speaker 2: But one of the things that I do often when

664
00:34:22,480 --> 00:34:24,719
Speaker 2: I not every single time, but often when I do

665
00:34:24,760 --> 00:34:26,880
Speaker 2: a topic is I'll listen to other people who've like

666
00:34:26,960 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 2: done the sort of more pop culture version of the topic,

667
00:34:30,960 --> 00:34:33,959
Speaker 2: and it's always so wrong and it makes me scared

668
00:34:33,960 --> 00:34:36,600
Speaker 2: about my own shit, right, because I'm like, oh, everyone

669
00:34:36,680 --> 00:34:39,480
Speaker 2: just regurgitates the same like ten factoids about a thing,

670
00:34:39,640 --> 00:34:41,080
Speaker 2: and that happens so much.

671
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:45,360
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they get sort of like well worn, like riverstones,

672
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:49,480
Speaker 3: and you can see a misapprehension getting passed around by sources.

673
00:34:49,680 --> 00:34:54,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. Yeah, and it it's hard because then I'm like, well,

674
00:34:54,680 --> 00:34:57,399
Speaker 2: I need to try not to do that. And one

675
00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:00,120
Speaker 2: of the main things that messes with my schedule does

676
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 2: that I'll start researching something, you know, because I'll start

677
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,160
Speaker 2: with the big picture thing, I'll read the big picture stuff,

678
00:35:05,360 --> 00:35:07,239
Speaker 2: and then I'll dive into the details and learn more

679
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:11,320
Speaker 2: about it. And sometimes I'm like we record on Thursdays.

680
00:35:11,400 --> 00:35:14,680
Speaker 2: Sometimes on like Wednesday night at midnight, I'm like, well,

681
00:35:14,719 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 2: everything I read was a lie, you know.

682
00:35:18,560 --> 00:35:22,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, And then you're like, well, now, like our attempt

683
00:35:22,200 --> 00:35:27,160
Speaker 3: to like fit research and acquiring information onto a calendar

684
00:35:27,280 --> 00:35:32,440
Speaker 3: is once again imperfect because like, obviously we'd rather find

685
00:35:32,520 --> 00:35:34,960
Speaker 3: the actual truth than stick to the calendar. But not

686
00:35:35,040 --> 00:35:37,279
Speaker 3: everybody gets to do that, and in fact, it's like

687
00:35:37,400 --> 00:35:40,920
Speaker 3: weird to be able to do that. Yeah, totally, and

688
00:35:40,960 --> 00:35:43,040
Speaker 3: that's you know, so it's I feel like one of

689
00:35:43,080 --> 00:35:46,960
Speaker 3: the things I find interesting is like, by making media

690
00:35:47,000 --> 00:35:48,600
Speaker 3: about how media gets.

691
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 2: It wrong, you like.

692
00:35:51,200 --> 00:35:54,040
Speaker 3: Learn a lot and I think develop greater empathy for

693
00:35:54,080 --> 00:35:56,319
Speaker 3: the people who get it wrong because that also comes

694
00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:57,560
Speaker 3: to include you inevitably.

695
00:35:57,920 --> 00:36:01,880
Speaker 2: Totally. Yeah, then no one is perfect. Oh wait a second,

696
00:36:01,920 --> 00:36:04,279
Speaker 2: I'm a person if all people are flogged. Yeah, what

697
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:05,040
Speaker 2: does that say about me?

698
00:36:05,280 --> 00:36:09,200
Speaker 3: Oh no, Yeah, and especially I think people who want

699
00:36:09,239 --> 00:36:12,960
Speaker 3: to like comment on others, there's like a degree of like, well,

700
00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:16,280
Speaker 3: if I'm talking about people, then I'm escaping the problems

701
00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:18,759
Speaker 3: of the human condition. And it's like, no, you brought

702
00:36:18,800 --> 00:36:20,200
Speaker 3: them with you as a carry on.

703
00:36:20,440 --> 00:36:23,759
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I bet you have a similar problem on

704
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:26,359
Speaker 1: your research, Sarah, that Margaret has in her research, which

705
00:36:26,400 --> 00:36:29,080
Speaker 1: is she'll researched an entire person and find out that

706
00:36:29,280 --> 00:36:32,960
Speaker 1: they were like horrible to their wife. And it happens

707
00:36:33,000 --> 00:36:33,439
Speaker 1: all the time.

708
00:36:33,520 --> 00:36:34,920
Speaker 2: You're like, what a really.

709
00:36:34,600 --> 00:36:38,160
Speaker 1: Cool guy slash, I hate him and would hit him

710
00:36:38,160 --> 00:36:38,760
Speaker 1: with my car.

711
00:36:39,040 --> 00:36:42,640
Speaker 2: Yes, so many happens all the time.

712
00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:47,040
Speaker 3: Also, because I want to do more kind of little

713
00:36:47,080 --> 00:36:51,279
Speaker 3: bonus like audio book content things, and like it is

714
00:36:51,320 --> 00:36:54,240
Speaker 3: so hard to find a book in the public domain

715
00:36:54,680 --> 00:37:00,399
Speaker 3: that's like interesting to read and isn't racist. Oh yeah,

716
00:37:00,640 --> 00:37:02,920
Speaker 3: like The Great Gatsby is in the public domain, but

717
00:37:03,040 --> 00:37:09,200
Speaker 3: that doesn't do me any Nope.

718
00:37:07,160 --> 00:37:12,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, it's yeah, I agree, old literature. You're like, well,

719
00:37:12,160 --> 00:37:13,719
Speaker 2: I wouldn't work with an audiobook, but when I do,

720
00:37:13,719 --> 00:37:15,560
Speaker 2: like Coolsone Media book Club and I read an old thing.

721
00:37:15,640 --> 00:37:18,120
Speaker 2: Sometimes I have to be like, hey, let me contextualize

722
00:37:18,200 --> 00:37:19,960
Speaker 2: the way that this author wrote about this thing.

723
00:37:20,760 --> 00:37:23,520
Speaker 3: Yeah you know, yeah, but if you're reading the whole

724
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 3: thing out loud, you're like, okay, yeah, well, oh didn't

725
00:37:27,239 --> 00:37:29,080
Speaker 3: remember that part. I want to do the wind in

726
00:37:29,120 --> 00:37:30,799
Speaker 3: the Willows at some point, but I have to like

727
00:37:31,560 --> 00:37:35,400
Speaker 3: reread it because like, what if Toad hates Puerto Ricans

728
00:37:35,520 --> 00:37:37,960
Speaker 3: or something. I don't know, maybe he does. People just

729
00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:40,160
Speaker 3: did that in books back then, and it was asleep,

730
00:37:40,440 --> 00:37:42,279
Speaker 3: no one even remembered it well.

731
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:44,920
Speaker 2: And actually, to tie this into when people moved into

732
00:37:44,920 --> 00:37:48,680
Speaker 2: this scientific mode in the late nineteenth century, a lot

733
00:37:48,680 --> 00:37:51,640
Speaker 2: of really awful stuff comes specifically out of that, Like

734
00:37:51,680 --> 00:37:54,759
Speaker 2: the history of anthropology has an awful lot of real

735
00:37:54,880 --> 00:37:59,839
Speaker 2: dark racism that is like specifically around like we're being

736
00:38:00,160 --> 00:38:03,560
Speaker 2: so scientific, yeah you know, and so it's like.

737
00:38:03,800 --> 00:38:06,560
Speaker 3: And we are taxonomizing people of color just like we

738
00:38:06,600 --> 00:38:09,240
Speaker 3: would with sharks or something exactly.

739
00:38:09,800 --> 00:38:12,120
Speaker 2: And it's that same the facts don't care about your

740
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:14,120
Speaker 2: feelings thing where it's like, actually, if you took some

741
00:38:14,200 --> 00:38:17,440
Speaker 2: humanities classes, you'd realize that these are related concepts, you.

742
00:38:17,400 --> 00:38:20,880
Speaker 3: Know, yes, and using like your commitment to objectivity as

743
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:24,719
Speaker 3: a way of defending your own lack of objectivity by

744
00:38:24,719 --> 00:38:27,399
Speaker 3: being like, it's science. I'm just saying facts. And it's

745
00:38:27,440 --> 00:38:30,800
Speaker 3: like you're refusing to analyze your emotional response to something

746
00:38:30,920 --> 00:38:33,040
Speaker 3: and calling it facts. But yeah, whatever.

747
00:38:33,560 --> 00:38:36,799
Speaker 2: Yeah, So all these activists since me any time will

748
00:38:36,800 --> 00:38:41,920
Speaker 2: write their own papers to try and counter traditional narratives,

749
00:38:42,640 --> 00:38:44,320
Speaker 2: and they will do it in all kinds of ways.

750
00:38:44,320 --> 00:38:47,200
Speaker 2: They will sometimes like like sometimes they're like, I don't

751
00:38:47,239 --> 00:38:50,320
Speaker 2: care about the truth because my goal is more important

752
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:53,800
Speaker 2: than the truth, right, They're like convincing everyone to follow

753
00:38:53,840 --> 00:38:56,920
Speaker 2: this or that ideology is more important. Yeah, and that's

754
00:38:57,320 --> 00:39:00,480
Speaker 2: clearly the most dangerous and you should run far away

755
00:39:00,640 --> 00:39:03,360
Speaker 2: from any instinct you have towards that and anything that

756
00:39:03,400 --> 00:39:07,040
Speaker 2: you're reading that you realize this was happening. And other

757
00:39:07,040 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 2: people are just like trying to be kind of objective

758
00:39:10,440 --> 00:39:14,240
Speaker 2: but fail and whatever. And some people actually, sometimes activist

759
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 2: papers are reasonably objective and written the same journalistic standards.

760
00:39:18,080 --> 00:39:21,759
Speaker 2: It's just activist whatever has a bad rap because of

761
00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:25,000
Speaker 2: the number of people who are pushing an agenda. First

762
00:39:25,000 --> 00:39:28,640
Speaker 2: and foremost, half of the radicals of the nineteenth century

763
00:39:28,640 --> 00:39:30,839
Speaker 2: that I've talked about on the show run their own newspapers.

764
00:39:30,920 --> 00:39:34,120
Speaker 2: There's also this long history of soapboxing a forgotten art.

765
00:39:34,719 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 2: I remember reading about this public square in Chicago and

766
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:39,920
Speaker 2: the nineteen tens that was, like, what you do for

767
00:39:40,120 --> 00:39:43,560
Speaker 2: entertainment on your like night off is head to the

768
00:39:43,640 --> 00:39:45,280
Speaker 2: square and listen to speakers.

769
00:39:46,120 --> 00:39:48,600
Speaker 3: Isn't that proof that TikTok is like not as new

770
00:39:48,600 --> 00:39:49,840
Speaker 3: as we think it is exactly?

771
00:39:49,960 --> 00:39:53,120
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is the first TikTok, the first tumbler Twitter like,

772
00:39:53,280 --> 00:39:55,399
Speaker 2: and what they show in movies gets it wrong because

773
00:39:55,440 --> 00:39:56,880
Speaker 2: usually in a movie it's like kind of like a

774
00:39:57,480 --> 00:40:01,319
Speaker 2: wild rant or even just an impassion and speech. Right.

775
00:40:02,200 --> 00:40:08,600
Speaker 2: Soapboxers were basically stand up comics with an agenda because

776
00:40:08,680 --> 00:40:13,080
Speaker 2: they are they know how to work crowds. They do

777
00:40:13,160 --> 00:40:17,200
Speaker 2: crowd work real well, and they like because they're competing

778
00:40:17,239 --> 00:40:19,080
Speaker 2: in this real direct way. You go to a public

779
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:22,080
Speaker 2: square and it's not just like one person on a soapbox.

780
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,279
Speaker 2: There's like thirty of them. I'm making that number up.

781
00:40:24,280 --> 00:40:26,439
Speaker 2: I have literally no idea how many in any given place,

782
00:40:26,640 --> 00:40:29,360
Speaker 2: but like more than one, which is exciting. Yeah. So

783
00:40:29,480 --> 00:40:32,680
Speaker 2: activist media various kinds, both the like written down in

784
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:37,280
Speaker 2: a newspaper and the you know soapbox kind always existed,

785
00:40:38,320 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 2: and there's one more piece to put into place to

786
00:40:41,680 --> 00:40:46,319
Speaker 2: get a st indie media. There's something called an info shop.

787
00:40:46,600 --> 00:40:48,240
Speaker 2: This is a word that I have taken for granted

788
00:40:48,239 --> 00:40:50,399
Speaker 2: that I think most people don't know. This is Yeah.

789
00:40:50,440 --> 00:40:52,359
Speaker 3: I love it, and I've never heard that before. I

790
00:40:52,360 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 3: don't think.

791
00:40:53,320 --> 00:40:55,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a kind of storefront. It is part of

792
00:40:55,920 --> 00:40:59,800
Speaker 2: the activist, especially anarchist media landscape. The name is a

793
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:02,799
Speaker 2: direct translation from German. We talked about a little bit

794
00:41:02,800 --> 00:41:05,919
Speaker 2: in the Black Block episode about the autonomists and their

795
00:41:06,040 --> 00:41:08,280
Speaker 2: stuff that they were creating in the seventies and eighties

796
00:41:08,320 --> 00:41:10,160
Speaker 2: and how that started to spread around the world a

797
00:41:10,160 --> 00:41:13,000
Speaker 2: little bit where they were like, we want lives outside

798
00:41:13,000 --> 00:41:15,400
Speaker 2: of the mainstream culture, and they would build an entire

799
00:41:16,080 --> 00:41:21,360
Speaker 2: subcultural community, and that those communities had infoshops. It's somewhere

800
00:41:21,360 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 2: on the continuum between a radical bookstore and a social center.

801
00:41:24,560 --> 00:41:26,160
Speaker 2: You can go in and there's going to be like

802
00:41:26,239 --> 00:41:29,960
Speaker 2: zines and books, maybe a lending library, events and speakers.

803
00:41:30,640 --> 00:41:33,879
Speaker 3: Kind of a feminist bookstore. Yes, if there's any kind

804
00:41:33,880 --> 00:41:35,560
Speaker 3: of a moderndy equivalent.

805
00:41:35,160 --> 00:41:39,840
Speaker 2: Yeah, totally. The feminist bookstore is a parallel development that Actually,

806
00:41:40,200 --> 00:41:42,879
Speaker 2: I'm kind of curious how much overlap there would be

807
00:41:42,880 --> 00:41:46,640
Speaker 2: between those developments. Infoshops have been around for a while.

808
00:41:46,760 --> 00:41:49,319
Speaker 2: The things have been existing since the earliest one I've

809
00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:51,239
Speaker 2: read about was in Chicago in nineteen ten, but I

810
00:41:51,280 --> 00:41:53,759
Speaker 2: think that they go back further than that. That's just

811
00:41:53,880 --> 00:41:55,240
Speaker 2: the oldest one I've read about.

812
00:41:55,680 --> 00:41:58,640
Speaker 3: There need to be more leftist costume dramas. People don't

813
00:41:58,640 --> 00:42:02,200
Speaker 3: assume there were leftists in because there aren't costume dramas

814
00:42:02,239 --> 00:42:05,120
Speaker 3: about them where they're falling in love or whatever. We

815
00:42:05,200 --> 00:42:06,799
Speaker 3: just need one of those, just one.

816
00:42:07,840 --> 00:42:09,280
Speaker 2: Wait have you seen reds Honey?

817
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:09,640
Speaker 3: Hi?

818
00:42:10,480 --> 00:42:11,000
Speaker 2: I have not.

819
00:42:11,239 --> 00:42:14,400
Speaker 3: I should because that's like Diane Keaton and Warren Batty.

820
00:42:14,560 --> 00:42:16,680
Speaker 2: Right, Wait, which one did are you talking about? What is?

821
00:42:16,960 --> 00:42:18,560
Speaker 2: What was your pitch, Sophie?

822
00:42:19,120 --> 00:42:21,200
Speaker 1: No, Sarah and I were just going back and forth.

823
00:42:21,360 --> 00:42:26,720
Speaker 3: Oh, okay, what are you doing our Samantha practice? Wait, Sophie,

824
00:42:26,719 --> 00:42:28,960
Speaker 3: should we do? You want to pitch the honey Off?

825
00:42:29,040 --> 00:42:29,239
Speaker 2: Yes?

826
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:32,799
Speaker 1: Yeah, we have this idea to do a honey off,

827
00:42:32,840 --> 00:42:35,840
Speaker 1: which is Tom Womscans from Succession being afraid of his

828
00:42:35,880 --> 00:42:39,359
Speaker 1: wife and going honey and then Samantha Jones from Sex

829
00:42:39,400 --> 00:42:42,640
Speaker 1: and the City being like honey, and then you go

830
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:43,560
Speaker 1: back and forth.

831
00:42:44,280 --> 00:42:46,640
Speaker 3: We're working on a plane called Sex and the Succession.

832
00:42:47,760 --> 00:42:49,239
Speaker 1: Okay, Sarah, ready, I'm talking.

833
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:57,879
Speaker 3: Okay, honey, honey, honey, honey. It's perfect, right, mm hmm.

834
00:42:57,920 --> 00:43:00,200
Speaker 2: It's good. You should do an entire show of it.

835
00:43:00,360 --> 00:43:00,640
Speaker 1: I know.

836
00:43:01,480 --> 00:43:03,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is what we do it every time.

837
00:43:03,520 --> 00:43:06,480
Speaker 3: I think we could do like a two hour like

838
00:43:06,520 --> 00:43:08,719
Speaker 3: a Frankie and Johnny at the Clear to Loon kind

839
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:11,440
Speaker 3: of play. But it's Tom Wamscans and Samantha Jones.

840
00:43:11,480 --> 00:43:15,280
Speaker 2: It's perfect. But can you turn it into a costume

841
00:43:15,360 --> 00:43:19,279
Speaker 2: drama about feminist bookstores and radical bookstorre? Yes, we can

842
00:43:19,320 --> 00:43:21,560
Speaker 2: forget it. Yeah, like what if the none of the

843
00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:24,120
Speaker 2: dialogue is that, But somehow, through like staging and the

844
00:43:24,160 --> 00:43:27,600
Speaker 2: other characters and things happening in the background, you communicate an.

845
00:43:27,640 --> 00:43:31,080
Speaker 3: Entire plot rented a room over a feminist book store.

846
00:43:31,120 --> 00:43:31,520
Speaker 2: Yeah.

847
00:43:32,160 --> 00:43:34,239
Speaker 1: I feel like we just gave the audience the real

848
00:43:34,320 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: insight to our personal lives.

849
00:43:37,840 --> 00:43:40,040
Speaker 3: It's well, you know, you get together and you have

850
00:43:40,120 --> 00:43:44,279
Speaker 3: a Sex and the Succession. Yeah, you watch Sharing just

851
00:43:44,400 --> 00:43:47,560
Speaker 3: like that, and then to recover emotionally, you watch Succession.

852
00:43:47,640 --> 00:43:47,920
Speaker 2: Yeah.

853
00:43:48,719 --> 00:43:50,799
Speaker 3: And my favorite part is when you do your little

854
00:43:50,800 --> 00:43:56,040
Speaker 3: opening theme to succession dance. Yeah, yeah, it's a slow jam.

855
00:43:56,200 --> 00:44:00,880
Speaker 3: Honey honey, honey, honey, honey, honey.

856
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:02,640
Speaker 1: We're tak an ad brak.

857
00:44:02,840 --> 00:44:12,560
Speaker 2: Yeah sure, fuck it. Here listen are these ads and

858
00:44:12,640 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 2: we're back. So you have these info shops and they've

859
00:44:17,160 --> 00:44:19,840
Speaker 2: been around for a long time. In the early nineties,

860
00:44:19,920 --> 00:44:23,280
Speaker 2: you get this other thing, the Internet. The early nineties

861
00:44:23,320 --> 00:44:25,840
Speaker 2: Internet was custom built for people with niche interests to

862
00:44:25,880 --> 00:44:28,840
Speaker 2: set up websites and find one another. God, ain't it

863
00:44:28,880 --> 00:44:34,560
Speaker 2: the truth? Yeah? I sometimes missed that. Yeah. Add in

864
00:44:34,600 --> 00:44:36,720
Speaker 2: the fact that the Internet was proof of the concept

865
00:44:36,719 --> 00:44:40,400
Speaker 2: of decentralization, Like people were really into the idea of

866
00:44:40,440 --> 00:44:43,040
Speaker 2: decentralization as a source of strength in the nineties and

867
00:44:43,080 --> 00:44:47,440
Speaker 2: early odds, right, And so the early Internet was perfect

868
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:51,560
Speaker 2: for anarchists. And I've met anarchists who've worked on some

869
00:44:51,600 --> 00:44:54,640
Speaker 2: of the fundamental components of the Internet, like the protocols

870
00:44:54,640 --> 00:44:57,680
Speaker 2: that underline all this stuff and like build encryption and

871
00:44:57,760 --> 00:44:59,960
Speaker 2: all this things. But that's a different story that I'm

872
00:45:00,040 --> 00:45:03,640
Speaker 2: we're going to do one day. All of these anarchists

873
00:45:03,640 --> 00:45:05,720
Speaker 2: and catch all radicals are doing shit on the Internet.

874
00:45:05,760 --> 00:45:08,440
Speaker 2: Going back a long way, one of the earliest news sites,

875
00:45:08,480 --> 00:45:11,680
Speaker 2: and literally one of the earliest news sites like that

876
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:17,080
Speaker 2: isn't part of a print newspaper, is called infoshop dot org,

877
00:45:17,160 --> 00:45:19,720
Speaker 2: which is sadly no longer with us. It was started

878
00:45:19,719 --> 00:45:23,200
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety five under the name mid Atlantic Infoshop

879
00:45:23,400 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 2: and it was the online component of the Beehive Infoshop

880
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:32,080
Speaker 2: in DC. And yeah, soon enough it becomes one of

881
00:45:32,080 --> 00:45:38,560
Speaker 2: the first online only news websites. It's slogan was unthinking

882
00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:42,440
Speaker 2: respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth. And

883
00:45:42,520 --> 00:45:45,360
Speaker 2: I like that. It's still a like, you know, like

884
00:45:45,440 --> 00:45:49,560
Speaker 2: newspapers love using truth in their taglines. You know, I

885
00:45:49,600 --> 00:45:50,600
Speaker 2: love that they played to that.

886
00:45:51,880 --> 00:45:54,160
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true. I love that too, now that you

887
00:45:54,200 --> 00:45:54,759
Speaker 3: pointed out.

888
00:45:55,880 --> 00:45:59,960
Speaker 2: Then, in nineteen ninety eight, a man named Evan Henshaw Plath,

889
00:46:00,320 --> 00:46:03,919
Speaker 2: better known under the name Rabble, created a website called

890
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:08,160
Speaker 2: protest dot net that was a calendar for various protesters.

891
00:46:09,160 --> 00:46:11,360
Speaker 2: He's going to be important later in the story because

892
00:46:11,400 --> 00:46:14,200
Speaker 2: he is one of the people who started Twitter. And

893
00:46:14,239 --> 00:46:16,480
Speaker 2: there's others of these sorts of websites too, but these

894
00:46:16,480 --> 00:46:18,680
Speaker 2: are some of the ones that are important our context.

895
00:46:19,680 --> 00:46:23,800
Speaker 2: People obviously were able to organize massive movements before the Internet,

896
00:46:24,200 --> 00:46:27,040
Speaker 2: but there are some serious and specific advantages of using

897
00:46:27,080 --> 00:46:30,120
Speaker 2: the Internet for these protests. Earlier, I was talking about

898
00:46:30,120 --> 00:46:33,640
Speaker 2: how the Zapatista is built. It was called People's Global Action.

899
00:46:33,719 --> 00:46:37,000
Speaker 2: They built a grassroots coalition of people coming together as

900
00:46:37,040 --> 00:46:39,600
Speaker 2: like grassroots groups, which is hard to say.

901
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:42,319
Speaker 1: You're able to like contact a bunch of people like

902
00:46:42,360 --> 00:46:43,680
Speaker 1: you're supposed to, like you can have a.

903
00:46:43,680 --> 00:46:48,960
Speaker 2: Chain, yeah, and so you can actually get everyone in

904
00:46:49,000 --> 00:46:51,600
Speaker 2: touch with each other all over the world in a

905
00:46:51,640 --> 00:46:54,360
Speaker 2: way that was much harder to do quickly when you

906
00:46:54,400 --> 00:46:57,520
Speaker 2: had to. I guess. Also, probably most activist groups didn't

907
00:46:57,520 --> 00:46:58,120
Speaker 2: have telegraphs.

908
00:46:58,719 --> 00:47:01,279
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, like email mailing list versus like,

909
00:47:01,640 --> 00:47:03,200
Speaker 1: you know, handwritten mailing list.

910
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:07,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so they use an email list and communicated

911
00:47:07,719 --> 00:47:13,440
Speaker 2: quickly to coordinate protests globally. So Web one point zero

912
00:47:13,680 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 2: was a collection of information written by and four people

913
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 2: with niche interests. Right. It was just various documents and

914
00:47:20,040 --> 00:47:22,640
Speaker 2: a kind of closer to them to Wikipedia than the

915
00:47:22,640 --> 00:47:27,600
Speaker 2: modern Web. The main distinguishing feature of what changed that

916
00:47:27,680 --> 00:47:29,239
Speaker 2: with Web two point zero is the idea of the

917
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:34,200
Speaker 2: status update, the idea that people are posting what's happening,

918
00:47:34,840 --> 00:47:36,839
Speaker 2: and there's a few precursors to what's going to become

919
00:47:36,840 --> 00:47:40,560
Speaker 2: indie media, which kind of propels the status update into

920
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:44,320
Speaker 2: across the world. One is slash dot, which is still around.

921
00:47:44,440 --> 00:47:47,840
Speaker 2: That's like a tech focused news site. There was open

922
00:47:47,920 --> 00:47:50,239
Speaker 2: Diary in nineteen ninety eight that was a precursor to

923
00:47:50,280 --> 00:47:53,759
Speaker 2: live journal, but nothing really took off on an international

924
00:47:53,760 --> 00:47:57,719
Speaker 2: scaleunti indie media. And there was about to be this

925
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:01,640
Speaker 2: big world changing protests in Seattle in November nineteen ninety nine.

926
00:48:01,680 --> 00:48:03,960
Speaker 2: People are organizing to get ready for it. They're bringing

927
00:48:04,000 --> 00:48:07,640
Speaker 2: all of their skills, techies and journalists get together and

928
00:48:07,719 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 2: talk things through. And to quote an article by Harry

929
00:48:12,560 --> 00:48:15,320
Speaker 2: Halpin and that guy Rabble that I was talking about

930
00:48:16,040 --> 00:48:19,320
Speaker 2: who set uprotests dot net quote. One of the fundamental

931
00:48:19,320 --> 00:48:22,799
Speaker 2: problems facing the anti globalization protests was the lack of

932
00:48:22,840 --> 00:48:26,640
Speaker 2: mainstream media coverage. At the time. In nineteen ninety nine,

933
00:48:27,000 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 2: large protests in many countries like the United States were

934
00:48:29,760 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 2: relatively unknown, and small scale protests were mostly ignored by

935
00:48:33,520 --> 00:48:37,600
Speaker 2: the radio and television based media of the time. So

936
00:48:37,680 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 2: folks tried to do something about that. They're like, how

937
00:48:40,040 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 2: do we set up media infrastructure? You had things like

938
00:48:43,719 --> 00:48:46,360
Speaker 2: free Speech TV, which did video journalism. But in the

939
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:48,920
Speaker 2: nineties and early odds it was pretty hard to distribute

940
00:48:49,080 --> 00:48:53,800
Speaker 2: video journalism. You had the well named group Damn Direct

941
00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 2: Action Media Network. In nineteen ninety six, activists in Chicago

942
00:48:58,640 --> 00:49:02,080
Speaker 2: were getting ready to protest the Democratic National Convention. They

943
00:49:02,080 --> 00:49:05,480
Speaker 2: set up a lot of proto versions of later protest infrastructure.

944
00:49:05,520 --> 00:49:08,439
Speaker 2: They rented a building they called the Convergence Center, which

945
00:49:08,480 --> 00:49:11,640
Speaker 2: was where people could meet and organize, and it's a

946
00:49:11,719 --> 00:49:15,279
Speaker 2: term that got later used. In the basement of this

947
00:49:15,320 --> 00:49:18,880
Speaker 2: convergence Center, they set up a media newsroom, and I

948
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:21,080
Speaker 2: believe there was a community radio station which was almost

949
00:49:21,080 --> 00:49:24,040
Speaker 2: certainly pirate radio, but it just presented as a community

950
00:49:24,120 --> 00:49:26,759
Speaker 2: radio station. But that wasn't legal at the time, so

951
00:49:27,480 --> 00:49:31,840
Speaker 2: good on them. And I believe this is the first

952
00:49:31,880 --> 00:49:36,880
Speaker 2: independent media center, but not under that name yet. In

953
00:49:36,920 --> 00:49:39,920
Speaker 2: the build up to the Seattle Protest of nineteen ninety nine,

954
00:49:39,960 --> 00:49:43,239
Speaker 2: all these media folks started working together to create a

955
00:49:43,280 --> 00:49:46,000
Speaker 2: single website that would allow the activists to become the

956
00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:51,000
Speaker 2: media themselves, indiemedia dot org. The tagline doesn't have the

957
00:49:51,000 --> 00:49:53,920
Speaker 2: word truth in it, which is a terrible shame. The

958
00:49:53,960 --> 00:49:57,880
Speaker 2: tagline was don't hate the media be the media. I

959
00:49:57,960 --> 00:50:01,080
Speaker 2: love that. Wow. Yeah, I actually too, and because there's

960
00:50:01,080 --> 00:50:02,600
Speaker 2: a lot of people being like, well I hate the media,

961
00:50:02,600 --> 00:50:06,799
Speaker 2: and you're like, all right, we'll just do it better. Literally. Yeah.

962
00:50:06,960 --> 00:50:09,520
Speaker 2: They use some open publishing software that had been used

963
00:50:09,520 --> 00:50:12,400
Speaker 2: by earlier protesters in England and Australia. I really like

964
00:50:12,440 --> 00:50:14,799
Speaker 2: how it's techies and journalists coming together to create this

965
00:50:15,520 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 2: weird thing. And the idea is that you have a

966
00:50:18,719 --> 00:50:22,120
Speaker 2: news wire where anyone can upload photos and text and

967
00:50:22,160 --> 00:50:24,520
Speaker 2: media like MP three's and videos and all this stuff,

968
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:27,840
Speaker 2: which is seems like a very normal idea, and we

969
00:50:27,920 --> 00:50:30,240
Speaker 2: can actually sort of immediately imagine all of the problems

970
00:50:30,239 --> 00:50:31,840
Speaker 2: with this, like all of the hate speech that's going

971
00:50:31,920 --> 00:50:34,480
Speaker 2: to get posted and all of these things. Right, yes,

972
00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:40,560
Speaker 2: but no one had really done this, and indie media

973
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:44,400
Speaker 2: solved two problems at once. One was DIY journalism, but

974
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:47,360
Speaker 2: second it could be used for on the ground updates

975
00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:49,360
Speaker 2: that were of use to people. So it's not just

976
00:50:49,400 --> 00:50:51,640
Speaker 2: a way to hear about a protest after it's happened,

977
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:56,240
Speaker 2: but you could hear about what's happening during the day. Yeah,

978
00:50:56,920 --> 00:50:59,120
Speaker 2: although fewer people had phones and stuff, so it was

979
00:50:59,200 --> 00:51:01,520
Speaker 2: like a little bit harder to do, but.

980
00:51:02,320 --> 00:51:04,279
Speaker 3: Yeah, it feels like the basic approach is like, well,

981
00:51:04,280 --> 00:51:06,600
Speaker 3: what if you had a newspaper that updated itself in

982
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:07,200
Speaker 3: real time?

983
00:51:07,400 --> 00:51:10,680
Speaker 2: Yeah? Totally yeah. And the way to do that is

984
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:12,759
Speaker 2: to turn all of the people into people who can

985
00:51:12,800 --> 00:51:15,160
Speaker 2: say like, hey, I saw such and such like oh,

986
00:51:15,200 --> 00:51:17,799
Speaker 2: the police are gathering at such and such street, right,

987
00:51:18,480 --> 00:51:21,280
Speaker 2: or I just witnessed three people get arrested or whatever.

988
00:51:22,040 --> 00:51:26,040
Speaker 2: And this is a breath takingly important moment in Internet history.

989
00:51:26,120 --> 00:51:30,600
Speaker 2: Even though it was about protest. It led to Twitter,

990
00:51:31,000 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 2: and it also led to podcasts. Yeah, concept of fucking podcasts.

991
00:51:36,120 --> 00:51:39,359
Speaker 2: Well there you go. Yeah, it is indie media's fault

992
00:51:39,400 --> 00:51:40,719
Speaker 2: that you are listening to this right now.

993
00:51:40,840 --> 00:51:44,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what, I'll allow it. Yeah, send them

994
00:51:44,640 --> 00:51:46,319
Speaker 1: your complaints about ads.

995
00:51:48,719 --> 00:51:50,759
Speaker 2: Although they'd probably be like, yeah, no, we agree, fuck

996
00:51:50,800 --> 00:51:54,600
Speaker 2: those ads. Although actually we'll get at the way in

997
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:58,000
Speaker 2: which it had internal conflict around what exactly its values

998
00:51:58,040 --> 00:52:03,480
Speaker 2: were later cool, but that's where we're at indiemedia dot org.

999
00:52:03,560 --> 00:52:07,520
Speaker 2: I in proper cool people for my one episode context

1000
00:52:07,560 --> 00:52:08,760
Speaker 2: one episode stuff.

1001
00:52:09,880 --> 00:52:12,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, speaking of stuff, Sarah, you got anything about a plug?

1002
00:52:13,360 --> 00:52:17,400
Speaker 3: Ooh, you can listen to my podcast you're wrong about

1003
00:52:17,640 --> 00:52:21,319
Speaker 3: or you cannot. It's really up to you. I want

1004
00:52:21,320 --> 00:52:24,080
Speaker 3: to plug corn, have some sweet corn, add it to

1005
00:52:24,160 --> 00:52:29,000
Speaker 3: a salad, put it in your ramen. I'm serious, that's all,

1006
00:52:29,520 --> 00:52:31,040
Speaker 3: and go to a corn maze.

1007
00:52:31,440 --> 00:52:32,480
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1008
00:52:32,840 --> 00:52:35,640
Speaker 2: Ever eaten raw sweet corn on the cub? Oh my gosh.

1009
00:52:35,760 --> 00:52:38,080
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, I grew up next to a guy who

1010
00:52:38,120 --> 00:52:41,200
Speaker 3: grew corn in the summer, and so we could like

1011
00:52:41,280 --> 00:52:43,120
Speaker 3: go and just like pick corn.

1012
00:52:43,760 --> 00:52:44,880
Speaker 2: You know, of an evening.

1013
00:52:45,000 --> 00:52:48,600
Speaker 3: And I remember like sitting on my dad's shoulders eating

1014
00:52:48,640 --> 00:52:51,160
Speaker 3: a raw ear of corn, And like, I think raw

1015
00:52:51,200 --> 00:52:52,359
Speaker 3: corn is the way to go.

1016
00:52:53,239 --> 00:52:55,239
Speaker 2: I like it slightly less, but it's so much work

1017
00:52:55,280 --> 00:52:58,400
Speaker 2: to cook it compared to eating it raw. Yeah. I

1018
00:52:58,480 --> 00:52:59,839
Speaker 2: love grilled Yeah, grilled corn.

1019
00:53:00,080 --> 00:53:02,120
Speaker 3: Yeah, well that's I mean, all the corn is good.

1020
00:53:03,040 --> 00:53:05,400
Speaker 2: I went to school in a cornfield. In my first

1021
00:53:06,000 --> 00:53:10,480
Speaker 2: above the table job was selling corn really like on

1022
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:11,480
Speaker 2: a roadside stand.

1023
00:53:11,600 --> 00:53:11,799
Speaker 1: Yeah.

1024
00:53:11,800 --> 00:53:14,319
Speaker 2: It was a farm stand on a under a strip

1025
00:53:14,400 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 2: mall overhang sometimes and in other times it was at

1026
00:53:16,680 --> 00:53:19,319
Speaker 2: the farm itself, like roadside stand by the farm as

1027
00:53:19,360 --> 00:53:20,720
Speaker 2: soon as I could get my work permit.

1028
00:53:21,440 --> 00:53:24,720
Speaker 3: How does that job rank in your life of jobs?

1029
00:53:25,160 --> 00:53:27,880
Speaker 2: Is it better or worse than this one? I have

1030
00:53:28,040 --> 00:53:32,839
Speaker 2: nostalgia for it. I worked alone, unsupervised at fourteen years old,

1031
00:53:33,320 --> 00:53:35,319
Speaker 2: which means I got a lot of free produce, and

1032
00:53:35,360 --> 00:53:38,960
Speaker 2: so did a lot of other people. And I once

1033
00:53:39,200 --> 00:53:41,200
Speaker 2: was being trolled by the people who worked at Starbucks

1034
00:53:41,200 --> 00:53:43,720
Speaker 2: next door, and so I tricked one of them into

1035
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 2: eating a raw HIBERNERO.

1036
00:53:49,160 --> 00:53:50,440
Speaker 1: Your boss is better now, right?

1037
00:53:50,520 --> 00:53:51,480
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, totally?

1038
00:53:51,680 --> 00:53:54,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, Okay, cool, We'll be back for part two.

1039
00:53:55,000 --> 00:54:00,200
Speaker 2: Yeah, Part two zero on Wednesday.

1040
00:54:00,200 --> 00:54:02,680
Speaker 1: Cool People Who Did Cool Stuff is a production of

1041
00:54:02,719 --> 00:54:05,840
Speaker 1: cool Zone Media. For more podcasts on cool Zone Media,

1042
00:54:06,000 --> 00:54:09,200
Speaker 1: visit our website goolzonmedia dot com, or check us out

1043
00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:12,719
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get

1044
00:54:12,760 --> 00:54:13,760
Speaker 1: your podcasts.