Speaker 1: Pushkin. Welcome back to Risky Business, a show about making
Speaker 1: better decisions. I'm Maria Kanakova and I'm Nate Silver.
Speaker 2: Today on the show, Maria, I gotta be honest, this
Speaker 2: is gonna be a little bit of a media naval
Speaker 2: gazing kind of episode. People love talking about this stuff.
Speaker 2: Some of them do, some of them don't write. But
Speaker 2: we're gonna be talking about the recent acquisition by paramount
Speaker 2: of the subset publication the Free Press, Barry Weis's publication
Speaker 2: for one hundred and fifty million dollars. Barry Wise also
Speaker 2: now the editor in chief of CBS News. I kind
Speaker 2: of can't resist this topic because, as you'll hear, like
Speaker 2: I just know and you know this landscape pretty well.
Speaker 2: I used to work for ABC News, I used to
Speaker 2: work for the New York Times where Barry is. I
Speaker 2: have my own substack that doesn't compete quite with the
Speaker 2: Free Press, but like, I know all this stuff really well.
Speaker 2: You know, it's too close to the bone for me
Speaker 2: not to have opinions about it. And there is some
Speaker 2: strategy work too, as far as as far as what
Speaker 2: CBS wants to get out of this. How do you
Speaker 2: build a differentiated media brand? How do you know when
Speaker 2: you're hiring a good editor in chief and they will
Speaker 2: do a good called bad call, right?
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, to say at the end of the day, is
Speaker 1: this a good decision for CBS, the acquisition of a
Speaker 1: free press making Barry wise editor in chief? Is this
Speaker 1: good for the brand? Is this good for the future
Speaker 1: of media?
Speaker 2: Would you like to have one hundred and two million dollars, Maria,
Speaker 2: I would love to have one hundred and fifty dollars
Speaker 2: a night.
Speaker 1: So let's uh, let's dive in and just talk about
Speaker 1: this decision. It's heavily tax you know what, Nate, I
Speaker 1: will happily pay taxes.
Speaker 2: You just pay what taxes.
Speaker 1: I will happily pay more taxes. If someone were to
Speaker 1: offer me one hundred and fifty million dollars, why night
Speaker 1: are you offering?
Speaker 2: If I had one hundred and fifty billion dollars, I
Speaker 2: might offer you like a really ice birthday gift.
Speaker 1: Ah, that's so sweet. This is where this is where
Speaker 1: friendships come to die right on this podcast, ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about Barry Weiss's appointment. So with that
Speaker 1: acquisition for one hundred and fifty million dollars, Barry Weiss
Speaker 1: has become the editor in chief of CBS News, which
Speaker 1: is now part of Paramount. Right, because there was just
Speaker 1: a big deal where Paramount, which is owned by David Ellison,
Speaker 1: who is I don't know how many billions he has,
Speaker 1: but he has many of them.
Speaker 2: Not enough, not enough, clearly, not enough clearly.
Speaker 1: So yeah, so now she will be running CBS News. Nate,
Speaker 1: you say everyone has opinions. I certainly have opinions, but
Speaker 1: let's start. Let's start with your opinions. What do you
Speaker 1: think about this decision? And then I will I will
Speaker 1: speak to someone who formally worked in news.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and look, I should also say, like, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't understand the whole I have a substack. I'm
Speaker 2: an investor in substack. Just disclosing on my conflict of interest. Right.
Speaker 2: I've met Barry once or twice. I had nice interactions
Speaker 2: with her. I've talked about collaboration with the Free Press
Speaker 2: different times. But I don't think i've any like conflicts
Speaker 2: that make this awkward officially, or maybe awkward, but not
Speaker 2: more than awkward, which is kind of always how it
Speaker 2: is with this naval gazing, insight journalism and stuff. So
Speaker 2: I have a few thoughts. Right, number one, the purchase
Speaker 2: price of one hundred and fifty million dollars is actually
Speaker 2: not ridiculous, right. And the reason I know this is because,
Speaker 2: like I've spent a lot of time looking at multiples
Speaker 2: of based on the number of paid subscribers that you have, Right,
Speaker 2: what does that tend to sell for in the market,
Speaker 2: for example? You know, the reason I'm interested in this
Speaker 2: is that from time to time I get you know,
Speaker 2: people want to have something to do with my substack,
Speaker 2: silver bulletin invest capital in it. And it's weird because,
Speaker 2: like when you accept money, there are a lot of
Speaker 2: strings attached. Right. It's like not like you're just buying
Speaker 2: like an annuity in whatever revenue that you have in
Speaker 2: the future. Right, You're expected to give up some control,
Speaker 2: You're expected to work a certain amount of time, maybe harder.
Speaker 2: You're expected to you know, give up some of the
Speaker 2: profit yourself. But like you know, they are the top
Speaker 2: selling substack on the platform, I believe by some margin.
Speaker 2: I do have some knowledge that I'm going to try
Speaker 2: not to reveal, But like you know, they have well
Speaker 2: over a million total subscribers right at typical rate that
Speaker 2: translates probably into low six figure paid subscribers. The growth
Speaker 2: has been solid. They have been spending a lot of
Speaker 2: money on staff. It's not like, you know, I have
Speaker 2: two people I hire. They have dozens, right, But like
Speaker 2: you know, depending on whether it's a time for like
Speaker 2: hot or cold kind of valuations in the market, I
Speaker 2: feel like there's gonna be like a more scientific way
Speaker 2: to put that, but like it's not inherently ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was. Actually that was one of the things
Speaker 1: that I was curious to hear your opinion on because
Speaker 1: I don't know anything about the financials, and when I
Speaker 1: saw that amount, I was like, wow, that seems like
Speaker 1: a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, I mean you know when I was talking
Speaker 2: with John Skipper, who was on the president of ESPN
Speaker 2: when when they purchased the five thirty eight brand, right,
Speaker 2: you know, he said, in my philosophy's in North Carolina,
Speaker 2: got my philosophy and negotiations is always that it's worth
Speaker 2: one dollar more the next guy is willing to pay
Speaker 2: for it, right. So, and there's some of that, right.
Speaker 2: But the thing about subscription models, and it's nice to
Speaker 2: have myself, right, is if they are cash flow positive, right,
Speaker 2: you can get a big burst of subscribers upfront, they're
Speaker 2: paying for the whole year or the whole month in advance. Right,
Speaker 2: So it's like not some future we're going to build
Speaker 2: this brand up and then later on converted to advertising
Speaker 2: revenues or make it a brand consultancy or something else.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: You know if free press has north of one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand paid subscribers, right and they're paying on average, after
Speaker 2: after stripe fees and things like that, eighty dollars a
Speaker 2: year or whatever, right, I mean that is like that's
Speaker 2: like actual freaking money. You know, whether it justifies one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty billion, you get into multipless can be billion,
Speaker 2: it can get to multiples. Multiples can be subjective.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: There's maybe some notion that, like all those subscription businesses
Speaker 2: get off to a fast start, you know, in theory
Speaker 2: they have some upside cap, right. Yeah, Typically there's like
Speaker 2: kind of a S curve sign you at first, you
Speaker 2: have trouble finding anybody because I don't know about you. Right,
Speaker 2: the developed brand awareness and you reach everybody in your
Speaker 2: potential audience, the people who are the most excited about
Speaker 2: your product, subscribed first rate and then probably encounter some
Speaker 2: diminishing returns. And the point is that, like where do
Speaker 2: you find yourself on that. You know, when do those
Speaker 2: inflection points hit potentially right, you start to get more churn,
Speaker 2: it gets harder. Right. One criticism that's and levied against
Speaker 2: the Free press is that it focuses on some particular issues,
Speaker 2: some of which, in various ways are becoming less relevant. Right.
Speaker 2: You know, it focused a lot on woke excesses in
Speaker 2: the kind of the liberal sphere. Right, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to put woke in quotation marks. I think it was
Speaker 2: a real thing. Barry Weiss quit The New York Times
Speaker 2: in twenty twenty at a time when there was a
Speaker 2: lot of peer pressure and group think, and so this
Speaker 2: place sucks, right, I'm not going to be here anymore,
Speaker 2: even though she'd been brought in to solicit conservative opinion pieces.
Speaker 2: And part of what happens with these substacks is when
Speaker 2: there is like a market inefficiency when for whatever reason,
Speaker 2: because because there's peer pressure in newsrooms, because corporate big
Speaker 2: wigs are cow towing to a particular opinion to Trump
Speaker 2: maybe for example, you know, substack feels that vuli where
Speaker 2: there was a lot of people who were like, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm liberal but I'm not woke. This shit seems ridiculous.
Speaker 2: And so here's a free press that, like the free press,
Speaker 2: which are called common sense, that like speaks to those
Speaker 2: issues in a way that other publications don't write. I
Speaker 2: think it's been more of a struggle for like, how
Speaker 2: does this audience feel about like covering the Trump administration? Right?
Speaker 2: Trump is president and therefore, you know he makes most
Speaker 2: of the news. If you're kind of covering politics, right,
Speaker 2: I think probably you're gonna see some Well, I'm speaking
Speaker 2: my own book here, right, I think these blogs are
Speaker 2: interesting but partisan. I think they tend to suck when
Speaker 2: it comes to, like actually covering elections. I think they
Speaker 2: tend to be extremely partisan and not good at like
Speaker 2: keeping their arms legs from polls. But no doubt, like
Speaker 2: if you kind of got in early that like there's
Speaker 2: a lot of desire for it, and a lot of
Speaker 2: the best commentary about what's going on right is on
Speaker 2: substeck now and not in the Washington Post, for example. Right,
Speaker 2: so you know, this creates a market were you no
Speaker 2: longer have have gate keepers, and in some sense, like
Speaker 2: I admire anybody who says fuck you, I don't care
Speaker 2: about the gatekeepers. Right, I'm going to do my own thing,
Speaker 2: and I'm going to prove it with the fact that
Speaker 2: I've developed, you know, the largest audience on this very
Speaker 2: competitive platform. I've been talking for a while, Maria, what
Speaker 2: do you I haven't even I have you have Wooden
Speaker 2: edge Wise, what do you? What do you think?
Speaker 1: Well, you know, I, I frankly probably find the choice
Speaker 1: more concerning than you do. For you know, I think
Speaker 1: that the free press has changed a lot since it
Speaker 1: was since its inception, right. I actually I was much
Speaker 1: more sympathetic to a lot of Barry Weiss's pieces earlier on,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it has gone from like actually
Speaker 1: wanting to be free press to being a little bit
Speaker 1: too much on the other side, so to speak, right,
Speaker 1: and now actually being quite biased. Like whenever Trump is
Speaker 1: suddenly singing your praises, you should probably be just a
Speaker 1: little bit worried that maybe you're not the champion of
Speaker 1: free speech that that you once were. So so there,
Speaker 1: there's that, and then this is CBS News, right, and
Speaker 1: that's and so so let's talk about that, right, Let's
Speaker 1: talk about the fact that Barry Wise has zero experience
Speaker 1: running a newsroom running.
Speaker 2: Now you're making Now you're making the bad of the bargainment.
Speaker 1: But that's true.
Speaker 2: But it's true.
Speaker 1: It's not a bad it's hold on, hold on. I've
Speaker 1: so she's never worked in television, right, and let me
Speaker 1: just say one of the first things she did when
Speaker 1: she started was send out a memo telling everyone to
Speaker 1: take time to write a memo to her detailing how
Speaker 1: they spend their entire day so that she could read that.
Speaker 1: And to me, that's like, that's not even a red flag.
Speaker 1: That's like flaming red fires. If someone asked me to
Speaker 1: do that, I would probably be like, I'm very sorry,
Speaker 1: but with all due respect, fuck you. Like, as someone
Speaker 1: who actually worked on a daily news show and who
Speaker 1: has worked in a magazine, you know, corporate world, which she,
Speaker 1: by the way, didn't do on the editorial side. She
Speaker 1: was just an opinion columnist, and then she started her
Speaker 1: own thing. It is very, very different. Running CBS News
Speaker 1: is not running the Free Press on substack and being
Speaker 1: put in charge of that. It's you know, imagine if
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, like let's imagine I'm still at
Speaker 1: The New Yorker and we're told that, hey, David Remnick
Speaker 1: is leaving and instead we're going to get I don't
Speaker 1: even know who. Elon Musk. He's very smart, and he's
Speaker 1: gonna be your editor in chief.
Speaker 2: Oh no, but Ria, this is getting more Libby.
Speaker 1: But it doesn't have to be at Elon Musk. It
Speaker 1: could be Bill Gates. I don't care who it is,
Speaker 1: but someone who has zero experience running a magazine. But now,
Speaker 1: even if David Remnick were to go to CBS News,
Speaker 1: that would be a little bit weird, and he probably
Speaker 1: still isn't particularly qualified for that because even though he's
Speaker 1: run something that's much more similar to that kind of organization,
Speaker 1: it's still incredibly different.
Speaker 2: I mean, first, first of all, if you want to
Speaker 2: talk about qualified, like a lot of the presidents of
Speaker 2: these network news organizations, this.
Speaker 1: Is a president, she's she's not the president though, right,
Speaker 1: This is someone who is in charge of the content.
Speaker 2: Those are very very she's act.
Speaker 1: But it's those are different roles.
Speaker 2: She reports to Ellison, right, right.
Speaker 1: But those are different roles.
Speaker 2: The role of editor can mean a lot of different things.
Speaker 1: Right now, I'm not talking about politics. I'm just talking
Speaker 1: about like, who are you putting in charge of a
Speaker 1: news organization? Do you are you putting someone who actually
Speaker 1: understands how to run a newsroom.
Speaker 2: And yes, she has run she has run a newsroom
Speaker 2: with like several dozen people. That is one of the
Speaker 2: few successful businesses.
Speaker 1: But it's not television. It's a very different medium. Podcasts
Speaker 1: are different from newsletters, are different from daily TV shows
Speaker 1: are different from screenwriting, are differs.
Speaker 2: So you want you want more superficiality.
Speaker 1: No, I want someone who I think is qualified. If
Speaker 1: you look at her resume, just pretend you don't even
Speaker 1: see her name, right, and you see resumes of people,
Speaker 1: this is not someone who would ever get that job, right, Like,
Speaker 1: she just lacks some basic qualifications, some basic stepping stone.
Speaker 2: Go ahead and look at like who is hired to
Speaker 2: these senior level positions at ABC, CBS, NBC. Right. Sometimes
Speaker 2: it's longtime TV executives. Sometimes it's people with the journalism background.
Speaker 2: Sometimes it's somebody who's a big name brought in from
Speaker 2: the outside. Right. Sometimes it's somebody who who was a
Speaker 2: star producing a different type of television, might producing sports
Speaker 2: or something like that. Sometimes it's somebody who kind of
Speaker 2: came up the corporate length since kind of like a bureaucrat.
Speaker 2: The range of things that you do is like an editor,
Speaker 2: including bureaucratic task, editorial task, and most of the people
Speaker 2: have not been very successful or good. It's a kind
Speaker 2: of high turnover. At least in the curtent environment. Used
Speaker 2: to have like long standing people who would have this
Speaker 2: job for years, right, but the turnover is very high.
Speaker 2: And like, why wouldn't you want to pick somebody who
Speaker 2: has actually built a successful news product before?
Speaker 1: Well, I would want someone who at least understands how
Speaker 1: my medium works, someone who has worked in screen and
Speaker 1: who understands that writing for the screen is very different
Speaker 1: from writing for the page. Who understands that what it
Speaker 1: takes to succeed in television is not what it takes
Speaker 1: to succeed in print journalism. Who understands how all of
Speaker 1: these different media products work together. I want someone with
Speaker 1: a demonstrated capacity to make that sort of a transition,
Speaker 1: and she I would at least have won her in
Speaker 1: a more junior position to demonstrate that she's capable of
Speaker 1: creating sixty minutes, right, of producing a show like that.
Speaker 1: And let me tell you from having actually worked as
Speaker 1: a television producer, it is not anything like what I
Speaker 1: do as a print journalism. The things that you write
Speaker 1: for it are vast, Like it's just a completely different
Speaker 1: skill set, and to think that it's the same skill
Speaker 1: set just is basically ignorant, to be perfectly honest. Like
Speaker 1: it's it's like saying this.
Speaker 2: News is not a tell it doesn't want to be
Speaker 2: a television company. It wouldn't have the valuation.
Speaker 1: And yet and yet so much of it is television.
Speaker 1: And to bring in someone who does not understand television
Speaker 1: and has no background in it, I think is just
Speaker 1: a jaw dropping decision.
Speaker 2: I'm just dealt with enough like corporate suits at these
Speaker 2: companies specifically, where like the bar is pretty low. Somebody
Speaker 2: who's bright and hard working and has built a successful
Speaker 2: editory brand right and understands video, you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: their kindent is pretty tech steady, right, But like it's
Speaker 2: not an easy thing to like build a brand when
Speaker 2: you kind of start out.
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to I'm not trying. I'm not trying
Speaker 1: to say that Barry Weiss does not you know, is
Speaker 1: not good at what she does. I'm not, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm not trying to say that, but I'm saying that
Speaker 1: what she does is not necessarily what I'd be looking
Speaker 1: for in the editor in chief, not the president of
Speaker 1: CBS News, someone who's in charge of the editorial decisions
Speaker 1: of this brand and the editorial decisions across the board.
Speaker 1: So potentially, like what a CBS News saying, are we
Speaker 1: saying we don't want to be a television company at all?
Speaker 1: Are we gonna shut down sixty Minutes? Are we going
Speaker 1: to shut down all of our flagship shows and we're
Speaker 1: not gonna do TV We're gonna do We're just gonna
Speaker 1: become the free press or or whatever it is. If
Speaker 1: that's what they're saying, Okay, well that's one thing. But
Speaker 1: I don't think that's what they're saying. I mean, I
Speaker 1: think they still want to produce some of the best
Speaker 1: quality television. That is some of the best quality news television.
Speaker 1: That's what they're known for. I keep saying sixty Minutes
Speaker 1: because it's one of the most respected brands, not just
Speaker 1: in the United States but in the world. And a
Speaker 1: lot of the people in sixty Minutes quit right over
Speaker 1: the last year because there's been a lot of turmoil
Speaker 1: and CBS has shown that it doesn't have a backbone
Speaker 1: in terms of protecting the quality of it of its
Speaker 1: editorial content. And the independence of its journalists. And so
Speaker 1: this is to me just another reason to be skeptical
Speaker 1: and alarmed. Now she I would be so thrilled, Nate,
Speaker 1: if Barry Wies were to prove me wrong and were
Speaker 1: to come in there and prove that, like you know what,
Speaker 1: she's the best editor in chief CBS has seen. She
Speaker 1: revolutionizes it. She ends up being a free, independent voice
Speaker 1: who speaks truth to the Trump administration just as much
Speaker 1: as she spoke truth to the woke left, and who
Speaker 1: ends up making really good decisions, great hiring decisions, and
Speaker 1: makes CBS News vibrant and relevant. I would love for
Speaker 1: that to be the case CBS News. No, but we
Speaker 1: need someone good, and it has become much less vibrant.
Speaker 1: We need someone You're not even you're not engaging with
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. You're you're picking one little thing, and
Speaker 1: you need someone. As I said, CBS News has been
Speaker 1: falling for the last year, and this is actually more
Speaker 1: of the same. Right, it has lost some of its
Speaker 1: most prominent voices who have left or been forced out,
Speaker 1: and now they've hired Barry Weiss, which kind of doubles
Speaker 1: down on that. And I don't think Ellison has any
Speaker 1: desire to do anything other than make sure he gets
Speaker 1: a lot of money and gets the deals that he
Speaker 1: wants to go through and be approved by the Trump administration. Now,
Speaker 1: once again, as someone who has worked in television, I've
Speaker 1: worked for good producers bad producers. Like there's a huge difference, right,
Speaker 1: the shows don't just make themselves. You need good people
Speaker 1: there otherwise you're going to get absolute shit. And if
Speaker 1: you want a good CBS News, if that's the goal,
Speaker 1: then you know, is this was this the correct hire?
Speaker 1: And what is the future of a news organization where
Speaker 1: it seems like those values are being put aside for
Speaker 1: something that looks like instead of editorial freedom, editorial oversight.
Speaker 1: We'll be back right after this.
Speaker 2: The one I really got my goat was like John Oliver.
Speaker 2: I'm sure some of the readers like John Oliver. Maybe
Speaker 2: some don't fight them to their taste. I'm in the
Speaker 2: latter camp, even though I probably agree with him on
Speaker 2: some stuff, right, I find them kind of hectoring in luxury.
Speaker 2: So John Oliver was making them the same complaint you
Speaker 2: were that like Shay's dead and walked in excuse an
Speaker 2: editorial journalist, right, And like sometimes the facts are wrong,
Speaker 2: and it's like okay, Like you know, John Oliver takes
Speaker 2: predictable opinions from one side of a spectrum, mixes them
Speaker 2: with facts to a degree where it's sometimes ambiguous, kind
Speaker 2: of like what's an opinion and what's the fact? Right,
Speaker 2: and then states to them very confidently, and like, you know,
Speaker 2: for you to criticize Barry Wise of that, which I
Speaker 2: think might be a good characterization of some of what
Speaker 2: they do, right, it just seems like kind of hypocritical,
Speaker 2: And all these opinion journalists are like all his opinion journalists,
Speaker 2: Like why is in York Times have an opinion page?
Speaker 2: I write sometimes in your Times opinion page, right, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't know, right the opinion is actually a vertical
Speaker 2: It sells pretty well for the most part, and like,
Speaker 2: but it just seems to me like a lot of publications,
Speaker 2: including the big three networks pre Trump. I think a
Speaker 2: lot of things have changed now in the Trump era, right,
Speaker 2: but like there is an implicit is sometimes explicit, but
Speaker 2: an implicit left leaning bias, not far left, not Bernie
Speaker 2: Sanders Zoran bias left, their corporate right, maybe not quite
Speaker 2: my kind of center left either, but like on cultural issues.
Speaker 2: They're very progressive, and like what Barry does is kind
Speaker 2: of like give the progressive left, not the zoran left,
Speaker 2: the progressive kind of center left. I call it the
Speaker 2: indgo blob, this merger between on the one hand, non
Speaker 2: partisan media and then kind of like partisan institutions of
Speaker 2: the Democratic Party and the left. Right, she is taking
Speaker 2: that formula to produce on average center right leaning opinions
Speaker 2: with high production guyues, meaning you know, the stories are
Speaker 2: edited well in a sense of like they have a
Speaker 2: good lead paragraph, they have a good headline, they get
Speaker 2: promoted well on social media, they have attractive art to
Speaker 2: the extent that's possible depending on the type of story,
Speaker 2: and so forth. Right, And like that's kind of what
Speaker 2: like a lot of these brands do on the left.
Speaker 2: And is there some implicit or I would say, in
Speaker 2: some cases fairly explicit bias, yes, But like it's the
Speaker 2: same game that you've been seeing on in the progressive
Speaker 2: left for like for a long time now.
Speaker 1: Right, I wouldn't want John Oliver to head CBS News either, Right,
Speaker 1: I don't think that someone who's an opinion columnist, slush,
Speaker 1: an opinion show host, you know, whatever it is, should
Speaker 1: be heading a news organization. That's just me, right, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't want Stephen Colbert running CBS News like I and
Speaker 1: I love him. I don't think that that's that we should.
Speaker 1: You know, if you're saying that, what you're I'm not
Speaker 1: saying you personally, Nate. If one is saying is that
Speaker 1: one wants to be a bastion of free speech and
Speaker 1: try to kind of protect that and be an organization
Speaker 1: that espouses the values of editorial integrity, then at least
Speaker 1: you should try to hire someone who's not an op
Speaker 1: ed columnist with a left or right leaning viewpoint. Right,
Speaker 1: she was, but she was right. But you're saying that
Speaker 1: the wait, hold on, you were just saying that the
Speaker 1: way that her formula was the same right that you
Speaker 1: That's what you were just talking about. You were saying
Speaker 1: that the formula is to have an opinion with some
Speaker 1: facts presented, leaning some direction.
Speaker 2: It's more compliated than that. Right that she did something
Speaker 2: that was ambiguity. If you listen to John Oliver, right,
Speaker 2: like every eight ten things he does are true, says
Speaker 2: are true, but they're cherry picked and spun, and it's
Speaker 2: kind of the same thing right, where like it's taking right.
Speaker 1: Which is why we don't want either one of them.
Speaker 2: A lot of the work that Free Press does, we.
Speaker 1: Don't want either one of them as head of CBS News.
Speaker 2: You think you're not getting out CBS News now. I remember,
Speaker 2: I remember watching in the Pandemic, we had a prinned
Speaker 2: up to her house and they had a story about
Speaker 2: like how Ron DeSantis, the evil governor of Florida, was
Speaker 2: distributing a vaccine at Public which is a giant supermarket
Speaker 2: chain throughout Florida and the South, which to me, she
Speaker 2: was like a fucking fantastic idea, you know, and where
Speaker 2: you turn in Florida there is is an alligator and
Speaker 2: a Public's basically and like you know, like to me, like,
Speaker 2: I mean, that was an example of like, you know,
Speaker 2: we're things narrowly fact sexually, fact chextually, that's not a
Speaker 2: word wrong. Probably some things that sant As people were
Speaker 2: mad about the story. And believe me, I'm not a
Speaker 2: fan of run the Santa Say at all, but like
Speaker 2: that was a story that was a it was a biased,
Speaker 2: fucking story.
Speaker 1: Right now, of course you're misunderstanding me. I'm saying that
Speaker 1: that's not a good that's not a good thing. Right,
Speaker 1: We're we're not We're not saying that those that cherry
Speaker 1: picking to the left or to the right is a
Speaker 1: good thing. And so why would you pick someone whose
Speaker 1: entire mo O was to create a publication like that
Speaker 1: that has become much more right leaning. Don't you want
Speaker 1: to at least start off with you know, Okay, fine,
Speaker 1: maybe there there will end up being some bias, because
Speaker 1: there always is. There's no such thing as an unbiased
Speaker 1: piece of storytelling ever, because even the most factually correct
Speaker 1: story is going to have a point of view on
Speaker 1: which order to present the facts. You know, we can
Speaker 1: get all philosophical about this, but there's no such thing
Speaker 1: as an objective piece of writing. Like it just does
Speaker 1: not exist. And we can, you can, I will, I
Speaker 1: will die on that hill. True objectivity is impossible.
Speaker 3: Okay.
Speaker 1: Now, if we are saying that we still we want
Speaker 1: to be a place that is open to all viewpoints,
Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, don't you at least want to
Speaker 1: start with someone in charge of that organization whose whole
Speaker 1: mo wasn't something different.
Speaker 2: And we'll be right back after this break.
Speaker 1: By the way, if CBS was like, hey, Maria, you
Speaker 1: should be our editor in chief, I'd be like, absolutely not.
Speaker 1: I have no idea what I'm doing when it comes
Speaker 1: to saidthing like that. You know, I know some specific
Speaker 1: parts of the business from having worked on them, but like,
Speaker 1: I'm not that person, right, that's not my world.
Speaker 2: This is the weird part. Right. If if CBS paramount
Speaker 2: came to me and said, we'll offer to buy Silver
Speaker 2: bulletin for one hundred and fifty million dollars, and how
Speaker 2: much of that is my what are the terms, et cetera,
Speaker 2: But I'd be very pleased to have that. Please have
Speaker 2: that offer, Marie. You're after to playing some high rollers
Speaker 2: in the World Series next summer. If they then said
Speaker 2: you have to be editor in chief of CBS News,
Speaker 2: I'd be like, no fucking way, right, it's a really
Speaker 2: bad job you have. These are big bureaucratic news organizations
Speaker 2: that like have a lot of people. They were once
Speaker 2: highly secured jobs and now they're becoming less so, right,
Speaker 2: and so you have kind of like the old guard
Speaker 2: journalist too, are terrified for their livelihood. You have the
Speaker 2: kind of younger, progressive, woke staff. You have ownership who's
Speaker 2: trying to please Trump. You have a perpetually declining, although
Speaker 2: these networks still give more audience. You might think their
Speaker 2: for their Sunday shows, right and their evening shows right
Speaker 2: in perpetual decline. Right. And you kind of come into
Speaker 2: a job where a lot of people, probably not all
Speaker 2: the staff, maybe not most of the staff, but a
Speaker 2: lot of people kind of publicly hate your guts. I mean,
Speaker 2: that sounds like a fucking terrible job. For one hundred
Speaker 2: and fifty million dollars, I do it, But like I
Speaker 2: wouldn't do that job for two million dollars a year.
Speaker 2: I'm not fucking kidding, right, Like, I mean, that job
Speaker 2: is like it's a terrible fucking job. Which makes me wonder,
Speaker 2: is that this Barry want that to reshape the newsroom?
Speaker 2: Where does Ellison want that for her?
Speaker 1: Or?
Speaker 2: I mean she's very ambitious, right, And one, you know,
Speaker 2: I'm a little bit older than her, not that much older,
Speaker 2: I don't think, but like a little bit older. And
Speaker 2: like one thing, it's nice, it's like I got my
Speaker 2: phase where I wanted to like dominate and take over
Speaker 2: the media landscape out of the way with five thirty
Speaker 2: eight at a big corporate news organization called ABC.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: And also you know she is used to being an
Speaker 2: environment where like she is the equity holder, and therefore,
Speaker 2: when you grow, then you capture those proceeds. You can
Speaker 2: choose to reinvest those pro seeds. You can choose to
Speaker 2: take a nice, you know, vacation somewhere, you can choose
Speaker 2: to hire more staff or whatever else. Right, And my
Speaker 2: advice to her would be like, when you go from
Speaker 2: kind of being the owner to being kind of the patron,
Speaker 2: then that changes the incentives quite as absolutely absolutely.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, one of the things, this is
Speaker 1: something that we haven't really talked about, but from her perspective,
Speaker 1: it's actually a really interesting question because she's someone who
Speaker 1: left The New York Times. She wasn't fired. She chose
Speaker 1: to quit because she felt like she at least the
Speaker 1: way that she phrased it. Obviously, I have zero insider information.
Speaker 1: I've never met Barrywise, but the way that she publicly
Speaker 1: framed it is, you know, I want to be even
Speaker 1: though like no one's forcing me out, and I was
Speaker 1: hired for kind of express it to express more conservative
Speaker 1: opinions like I want to be even more free, right,
Speaker 1: Like I want to be in an environment where I
Speaker 1: feel like I can do like my my own thing
Speaker 1: and like really frame the conversation. So, you know, so
Speaker 1: she left the New York Times to be you know, free,
Speaker 1: to be even more herself. She founds the Free Press,
Speaker 1: which is her own publication, right where she makes the
Speaker 1: editorial decisions. She chooses what they cover, she chooses how
Speaker 1: they cover it, you know, when they host presidential debates,
Speaker 1: she chooses, you know, exactly how she wants to do it.
Speaker 1: And you know, being being someone who was always so
Speaker 1: vocal about needing to be fiercely independent, you then get
Speaker 1: on Ellison's payroll, right, and there's no other way of
Speaker 1: putting it right, Like you that that is that is
Speaker 1: actually literally what is what is happening? I hate to say, like, Barry,
Speaker 1: are you out like hell? For one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: million dollars, I'd sell out and go and probably go
Speaker 1: do something like that. It's a lot of money. No
Speaker 1: judgment in terms of people taking life changing money. Maybe
Speaker 1: a little bit of judgment, we'll see, but you know,
Speaker 1: it's in terms of her own goals, in terms of
Speaker 1: like what are you going to be able to do?
Speaker 1: You're being put in a position where maybe what you said,
Speaker 1: you know, five years ago, that was the thing that
Speaker 1: you stood for is not compatible necessarily with the role
Speaker 1: that you chose and the way that you will now
Speaker 1: have to be answering to kind of corporate powers that
Speaker 1: be and political forces that are strong, and that hired
Speaker 1: you for a very specific reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Look, she is the number one publication free press,
Speaker 2: which is a lot of people on sub stack. Right.
Speaker 2: Number two was Heather Cox Richardson, who just sends out
Speaker 2: a newsletter at one am every day, lives in Maine,
Speaker 2: has no real staff, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 2: has no real format a right, occasionally does a media appearances. Right,
Speaker 2: And she's making I know how much she's making, but
Speaker 2: I can't say, right, but like she's just making all
Speaker 2: that money and like apparently keeping it for her and
Speaker 2: her I think she's like a hot like lobster man
Speaker 2: husband in Maine or something, right, not the one running
Speaker 2: for Yeah, and like yeah, no, I mean not a
Speaker 2: bad life, right, But the point is that like no,
Speaker 2: and look, I guess it's like a little bit personal
Speaker 2: because like, you know, and I'm kind of in this
Speaker 2: in between zone right where I I you know, I
Speaker 2: hired uh, you know, Eli my politics analysts became full
Speaker 2: time we hired a sports analyst. I'm probably looking to
Speaker 2: looking ahead to next year and like probably gonna have
Speaker 2: to hire another person, right, But I don't want to
Speaker 2: recreate five thirty eight where I had like thirty people,
Speaker 2: because yeah, look, even if you're nominally the editor in
Speaker 2: chief and I have been an editor in chief, right,
Speaker 2: then between corporate ownership and the staff, right, I mean
Speaker 2: the point if I had thirty people, then it becomes,
Speaker 2: you know, all of a sudden, the work I do
Speaker 2: is representative of them, and like you kind of lose
Speaker 2: control over over the hiring process.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So like my objective not that people should necessarily care,
Speaker 2: is like, you know, I want to keep thinks kind
Speaker 2: of more close knit, right, whereas is Barry is kind
Speaker 2: of like let's take a big shot, right, Let's I mean,
Speaker 2: she's got maybe more of the high risk entrepreneurial spirit.
Speaker 2: I guess it is, right, but you know, the juxposition
Speaker 2: of like that with like these dodgy old media companies
Speaker 2: that I know a lot a lot about in my
Speaker 2: own way too, having worked for ABC, is just like
Speaker 2: I predict that she is going to become extremely frustrated, right,
Speaker 2: And like the other thing that bugs me too, is
Speaker 2: you know, I kind of hate the fact that, like,
Speaker 2: why can't things just be medium sized and good and profitable?
Speaker 2: Why is everything have to blow up so much?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, I want to say, Okay, the free press, we're
Speaker 2: doing very well. Right, We'll continue to expand the user base,
Speaker 2: and then we're gonna kind of generate a lot of income.
Speaker 2: We can do with income what we want. We can
Speaker 2: invest in the business and other business. Just keep the money.
Speaker 2: It's capitalism. I have no problem with like people having
Speaker 2: money at any point whatsoever, Right, but like, why do
Speaker 2: we have to like fucking always like take over everything
Speaker 2: and take over the world and not just say, like
Speaker 2: we're at one of the you know, we have over
Speaker 2: one hundred thousand subscribers. We're bigger already than paid subcribers, right,
Speaker 2: We're bigger already than like terms of the print circulation
Speaker 2: all but like one or two newspapers right in digital circulation,
Speaker 2: you know, getting pretty far up there. And instead it's like, okay,
Speaker 2: why do you you know, it's just a little bit
Speaker 2: baffling to me that like there's so much emphasis and
Speaker 2: a lot of these entrepreneurs and media I don't run
Speaker 2: a shit about like I would trust Barry Weiss before Ellison.
Speaker 2: You know what I mean? A million times over, that's
Speaker 2: not saying much.
Speaker 3: Yes, so so okay, let's let's wrap up here then,
Speaker 3: So if we're gonna frame this, you know, with what
Speaker 3: we sometimes do on the show, like good call, bad call,
Speaker 3: the hiring of Barry Weiss as editor in chief of
Speaker 3: CBS News, and you can't hedge.
Speaker 1: It has to be good call or bad call? Is
Speaker 1: it a good call or is it a bad call?
Speaker 2: What are his objectives? Too? Well?
Speaker 1: His objective is to make lots of money for himself personally,
Speaker 1: I think. But let's say to have a vibrant news organization.
Speaker 1: Let's let's uh take him out as word that the
Speaker 1: objective is to make CBS a vibrant news organization and
Speaker 1: a bastion of true free speech that protects free speech
Speaker 1: on all sides of the political spectrum and is a
Speaker 1: relevant voice in media and a respected voice in media.
Speaker 1: Good call, bad call?
Speaker 2: Those are like different objectives, right, like I I you know,
Speaker 2: they'll probably get better at avoiding a certain type of
Speaker 2: progressive bias sometimes involve shutting down speech and substing with
Speaker 2: it their own various kind of biases right now, Look,
Speaker 2: I think it's if they are doing this for purely
Speaker 2: journalistic reasons, then it's high risk, probably leaning bad. Right,
Speaker 2: for financial reasons, I think the evaluation is quite reasonable.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: If it's for political reasons, then then who knows, right,
Speaker 2: I mean Trump, I mean it's a weird model because
Speaker 2: like Trump certainly does rather explicitly play favorites.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so so give me, give me a final give
Speaker 1: me a final judgment.
Speaker 2: Night.
Speaker 1: I started off by saying no caveats, and that was
Speaker 1: what one big caveat is the buying.
Speaker 2: The Free Press good call? Having her be editor in
Speaker 2: chief bad call?
Speaker 1: All right, that's a that's a.
Speaker 2: Are you bad call? Back call?
Speaker 1: I'm bad call bad? I think I think for for
Speaker 1: reasons that I've already that I've already made quite clear.
Speaker 1: And like I said, this is not a not a
Speaker 1: dig on barrier what she accomplished at Free Press. I
Speaker 1: just think it's it's a bad sign for the types
Speaker 1: of lofty goals of editorial integrity, free speech, et cetera,
Speaker 1: et cetera that CBS was once known for and hopes
Speaker 1: to be known for years ago. Hopes to be yeah,
Speaker 1: hopes to be known for once again. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: think I think bad call, bad call, But I would love, love,
Speaker 1: love to be wrong, like I really would, because I
Speaker 1: want journalism to thrive, and I want the people at
Speaker 1: CBS to thrive, and I want good people to be hired.
Speaker 1: And so I really, I really hope that Barry Weiss
Speaker 1: will pleasantly surprise me and will end up being a
Speaker 1: much better editor in chief than I think she's going
Speaker 1: to be. And if so, I will happily, you know,
Speaker 1: come on Riskyusiness and say I was wrong. Yay, I'm
Speaker 1: very happy that I was wrong. Let us know what
Speaker 1: you think of the show. Reach out to us at
Speaker 1: Risky Business at pushkin dot FM. Risky Business is hosted
Speaker 1: by me Maria Kanakova.
Speaker 2: And by me Nate Silver. The show was a cool
Speaker 2: production of Pushing Industries and iHeartMedia. This episode was produced
Speaker 2: by Isaac Carter. Our associate producer is Sonya gerwit Lydia
Speaker 2: Jean Kott and Daphne Chen are our editors, and our
Speaker 2: executive producer is Jacob Goldstein. Mixing by Sarah Brubert.
Speaker 1: If you like the show, please rate and review us
Speaker 1: so other people can find us too. But once again,
Speaker 1: only if you like us. We don't want those bad
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