Speaker 1: Hi, everyone, I'm Katie Kuric, and this is next Question
Speaker 1: and has promised. I'm here to share some bonus content
Speaker 1: from my cross country book tour. At every city I
Speaker 1: traveled to, I was joined by celebrity guests, people I've
Speaker 1: come to know over the years and can call friends.
Speaker 1: I know that sounds very name drop, he doesn't it.
Speaker 1: The first interview I'm sharing with you is a timely
Speaker 1: one and just a really good conversation from my stop
Speaker 1: in Washington, d C, where I interviewed the one and
Speaker 1: only Kara Swisher, tech journalist, podcaster, beloved nuisance to pretty
Speaker 1: much all of Silicon Valley. Well, I don't know how
Speaker 1: beloved she is, but you get the drift anyway. She's
Speaker 1: so smart and such a riot, So I hope you
Speaker 1: enjoy our conversation. My next guest is the master of
Speaker 1: new media and one badass podcast, among many other things,
Speaker 1: So please welcome my friend Kara Swisher. Hey, woman, Hey,
Speaker 1: how are you good? Good? Have a scene and I
Speaker 1: just tell you what a production this is. I know,
Speaker 1: what do you think? I've been pressed? It's been really
Speaker 1: really sentimental. It's badass. It's a lot of things going
Speaker 1: on than you I like you to have a little
Speaker 1: hokey little but it works, okay, good good, Well, I
Speaker 1: don't know. I think sometimes it's only for like like
Speaker 1: heavy metal concerts this place, but I like it. You
Speaker 1: two look like you look like a crazy crowd. You
Speaker 1: could just get any time anyway, Saturday night. So let's
Speaker 1: talk about I mean, you're sort of everywhere. You're having
Speaker 1: a moment, Kara. I think you've been having a moment
Speaker 1: for a while. Now tell everybody the kind of work
Speaker 1: you're doing, because you're everywhere, right, Yes, everywhere. I am everywhere.
Speaker 1: I am ubiquitous ahead and then later inevitable. Um no,
Speaker 1: I just I have two podcasts, one for New York
Speaker 1: Magazine called piv It, where I argue with a straight
Speaker 1: white man every every twice a week, uh named Scott Galloway.
Speaker 1: Um it's it's a sitcom. In the end we're gonna
Speaker 1: fall in love and unlikely romance. Um and then and
Speaker 1: then I have Sway for The New York Times, which
Speaker 1: I'm wearing this a friend of mine gave it to
Speaker 1: me from that that company that makes at least it
Speaker 1: doesn't think whatever I know. They say, go girl, which
Speaker 1: I would never wear. But this one is cool. And
Speaker 1: you're also you're writing your column column for the New
Speaker 1: York Times and you're doing a new podcast after Yes, Yeah,
Speaker 1: because I'm obsessed with Succession. Why why are you obsessed?
Speaker 1: I've been doing stuff with a trio for years around
Speaker 1: Silicon Valley and before that, Game of Thrones, and I
Speaker 1: love Succession. I think it's a great show, um I
Speaker 1: and I just I am a fan, and so I
Speaker 1: just I sit around and talk about it with different
Speaker 1: people about what's happened on the show. And you know,
Speaker 1: not that it has anything to do with the Murdochs,
Speaker 1: but you know, I work for them for many years,
Speaker 1: and it's enjoyable to see a fictional version of Uncle Satan.
Speaker 1: So so let's let's talk about the media landscape. Because
Speaker 1: you and I are around the same age. I think
Speaker 1: you're six years younger, giver take something like that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And as I was saying, when I got into the business,
Speaker 1: when you got into the business, it was extremely different.
Speaker 1: And I'm just curious, as you look at this extremely
Speaker 1: fragmented media landscape, how do you think it's changed sort
Speaker 1: of the nature of our country and the quality of
Speaker 1: discourse that we're able to have Well, you know you
Speaker 1: you were talking about the idea Katie gave us a
Speaker 1: script which none of us are going to follow, but
Speaker 1: nonetheless I love that she does that, Like Nicole and
Speaker 1: I are such quiet and retiring people, and it's like,
Speaker 1: here's the script. Well, I just wanted to give you
Speaker 1: a little like the whole Katie correct production. I called
Speaker 1: Katie just so you know, my nickname for his Katie
Speaker 1: fucking Kirk, because because I want her to be like
Speaker 1: the baddest that I know. She is underneath, like she's
Speaker 1: yes you are, Yes you are. I'm getting there, You're
Speaker 1: getting there. I like that so COMMUNI one of the
Speaker 1: reasons I got to know kid because she was at
Speaker 1: Yahoo and I thought it was a real risk that
Speaker 1: you took. Not many people from the mainstream media moved
Speaker 1: into the areas that you did, and I thought that
Speaker 1: was striking actually at the time, even though it wasn't
Speaker 1: completely successful, that it was directionally correct. We were doing
Speaker 1: exactly what a lot of people are doing on sub
Speaker 1: steck or creating their own media brands or this and that,
Speaker 1: and nobody was doing that then. So I thought that was,
Speaker 1: you know, striking when you did it, and I was.
Speaker 1: I watched it very carefully. I think it was probably
Speaker 1: too early and in the wrong place. Yes, so the
Speaker 1: idea of of a journalist as an entrepreneur, uh and
Speaker 1: some people call it the report entrepreneur, which I hate
Speaker 1: that word, but there it is, um and I think
Speaker 1: it was. I think there is no such thing as
Speaker 1: mass media anymore. There's media that's in silos. There is
Speaker 1: you know, there are networks and things like that. But
Speaker 1: when you joined CBS, it was already declining asset, right like.
Speaker 1: And so it was interesting that that we still focus
Speaker 1: that way as if there's one place people get news
Speaker 1: there it actually is. It's Facebook, um, but it is
Speaker 1: in the most of the world it is, actually And
Speaker 1: so it sort of has fractured and come together. And
Speaker 1: then a lot of these voices using these tech tools,
Speaker 1: which is what I started covering right here in Washington,
Speaker 1: d C. For The Washington Post. I covered a O.
Speaker 1: L Um the beginnings. Even though you sort of become
Speaker 1: a joke now, it wasn't. It was a really important
Speaker 1: moment in in media history, really, and so it's fractured
Speaker 1: come together, and then all these voices that maybe aren't
Speaker 1: quite so accurate have come into the fray and so so,
Speaker 1: and it's ruined the media business itself, the advertising business, um,
Speaker 1: how people pay attention, and so it's a really it's
Speaker 1: it's a very difficult time for media right now. How
Speaker 1: do you see it all shaking out? Do you think
Speaker 1: it's I mean that I get overwhelmed with content, and
Speaker 1: you know, there are not enough hours in the day
Speaker 1: to absorb and reflect on all. And I think some
Speaker 1: fantastic journalism is being absolutely it's just very hard to
Speaker 1: separate the week from the chaff. Well, it's a little
Speaker 1: like TV, right that's sort of disintermediated rather substantively. There's
Speaker 1: all these things. It's a lot of competition. That's why
Speaker 1: you're getting some really getting a lot of stuff, and
Speaker 1: then you're getting a lot of really good stuff. Same
Speaker 1: thing with media. It's disintermediated. And what part of me
Speaker 1: likes it. Like when you were starting out there were
Speaker 1: three networks ruined mostly by white straight men, right, who
Speaker 1: all lived on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, and
Speaker 1: they got to the side things. Same thing with the
Speaker 1: New York Times, same thing here with the Washington Post.
Speaker 1: And so I like the idea of it being pushed outward,
Speaker 1: so that lots of people can contribute, but what's happened
Speaker 1: is a lot of these tools have taken over that
Speaker 1: allow malevolent players to join the fray and start to
Speaker 1: mess up the whole information ecosystem. And so people live
Speaker 1: on a low, low nutrition information diet. So many and
Speaker 1: they already did, but now they're they're getting They already
Speaker 1: didn't have good information. Now they're getting really bad sort
Speaker 1: of sugary, uh, bad for your self information which they
Speaker 1: are now protecting as if it's the right information, is
Speaker 1: the correct information, and then they defend it. I feel
Speaker 1: like we have to obviously, and you actually made a
Speaker 1: joke about this, we have to talk about Facebook because
Speaker 1: it's been in the crosshairs. I know you're dying to
Speaker 1: cover other things, but you just simply can't. I didn't
Speaker 1: interview at a Vanity Fair summit seventeen with Cheryl Samberg.
Speaker 1: Wait it was two thousand nineteen, I'm sorry, with Cheryl Samberg. Um,
Speaker 1: and she got quite testy and it became really a
Speaker 1: little bit tense. But you had interviewed I think Mark
Speaker 1: Zuckerberg a year prior to that and made a lot
Speaker 1: of news with that interview. Um, what are your impressions
Speaker 1: of Mark Zuckerberg today. Well, it's been a journey, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the time working actually in a memoir Silicon
Speaker 1: Valley right now. That and I was recalling when I
Speaker 1: first met him, And the first thing you ever said
Speaker 1: to me is I heard you think I'm an asshole? UM?
Speaker 1: And I said, I you maybe, UM, I don't know. Uh,
Speaker 1: He's not an asshole. Let me just say after all
Speaker 1: these years, UM, But what's happened? You know? That was
Speaker 1: a great interview, by the way, Katie, you should watch
Speaker 1: it if it's available, because Cheryl is very smooth, and
Speaker 1: it was brought in to be the adult in the room.
Speaker 1: They always do that as but the man is thirty
Speaker 1: four years old. He doesn't need this sort of the
Speaker 1: juvenilization of these tech people is comical in some ways.
Speaker 1: He's got children, etcetera, etcetera. But she was brought in
Speaker 1: to be the adult. Um. And so you pushed her
Speaker 1: very hard on the issues that I had started talking about.
Speaker 1: Because the relationship I developed Maria Ressa, who has just
Speaker 1: won the Nobel Peace Prize, she started bringing me data,
Speaker 1: tons of data about what was Facebook was doing to
Speaker 1: her and other activists and journalists in the Philippines used
Speaker 1: the government using it for propaganda, and so when you
Speaker 1: were pushing back on her, this was the first time
Speaker 1: you started to see real widespread questioning of what how
Speaker 1: they were running the show over there, which was not
Speaker 1: well um and even though they've gotten fabulously wealthy, even
Speaker 1: though they were very powerful and stuff like that. So
Speaker 1: it was a critical interview that you did with her
Speaker 1: because she was expecting sort of a hey Katie girl,
Speaker 1: you know that kind of thing going on, and you
Speaker 1: did not deliver that. And I was thrilled. I think
Speaker 1: I texted you like thank you. She was not. I
Speaker 1: didn't really talked like I didn't talked to her since
Speaker 1: that interview that I haven't talked to her for many years,
Speaker 1: even though I knew her really well. But same thing
Speaker 1: with Mark. You know that interview I did with her
Speaker 1: the year before was with him the year before. It's
Speaker 1: when he said to me we were talking about Alex Jones,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, you're kicking him off the platform. He's
Speaker 1: breaking every one of your rules. Don't you who's running
Speaker 1: the show here if you're not going to do this,
Speaker 1: And he started to do this sort of first Amendment stuff,
Speaker 1: and someone who I went finished college. He did not.
Speaker 1: I understood what the first Amendment was. He does not,
Speaker 1: and and so but I let him go on. I
Speaker 1: let him go on, and he nothing. By the way,
Speaker 1: if you don't want to go to college, that's great,
Speaker 1: it's whatever choice you make. But don't like make it
Speaker 1: as if it's a good thing good to be uneducated,
Speaker 1: right like, or not to know what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: So he um uh. So he started to about Alice Jones,
Speaker 1: and I was like, you're going to kick him off.
Speaker 1: He's like violating every one of your so called rules
Speaker 1: here on this platform. And uh. He goes, well, let's
Speaker 1: shift to the Holocaust. And I'm like, oh no, no,
Speaker 1: don't do that. But okay, sure, let's see where this goes.
Speaker 1: And he was sort of trying to set himself up,
Speaker 1: saying that he, even as a Jewish person, tolerates Holocaust deniers.
Speaker 1: And he said something that was that got a lot
Speaker 1: of news what you were talking about, which you said,
Speaker 1: you know, Holocaust deniers don't mean to lie. And I
Speaker 1: just sat there like, huh like, and of course it
Speaker 1: was I learned a lot of interviewing from you. I
Speaker 1: just like the Palin interview was so brilliant, um, where
Speaker 1: I just was like, oh, they don't huh, that's kind
Speaker 1: of the definition of a Holocaust denier. But okay, UM,
Speaker 1: tell me more, and which is you you use too
Speaker 1: much effect? And so he started talking about this and
Speaker 1: sort of ran himself right into the wall essentially, and
Speaker 1: since then, um, he's continued to do so, I think.
Speaker 1: Oh and as you can see from these documents from
Speaker 1: Francis Howgan, we'll talk about those documents right after this.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about those documents more than what ten thousand
Speaker 1: pages more to come, yeah, and more to come. What
Speaker 1: do you think we're some of the most damning things
Speaker 1: that those documents show, because there are a lot of
Speaker 1: damning things, but what we're sort of the top three
Speaker 1: things I'll tell you with the media focus on was
Speaker 1: Team Girls, although I didn't I know, I didn't think
Speaker 1: that was the most important things, even though it is important.
Speaker 1: I have teenagers, um, and I understand their teenage boys,
Speaker 1: but uh, and I have a daughter now who's two, UM,
Speaker 1: and I think about it a lot. But I think
Speaker 1: one of the things that was most important was the
Speaker 1: thing that Maria was talking about is how Facebook impacts
Speaker 1: the rest of the world, and how sloppy they are
Speaker 1: in terms of monitoring their platform from elevolent players. And
Speaker 1: it's one of these things I didn't interview with Mark
Speaker 1: Bennie off set of Salesforce. He compared them to cigarette companies.
Speaker 1: I don't think they're quite down that evil highway. There's
Speaker 1: not a memo that goes, hey, we know it's a mess,
Speaker 1: but let's let's throw them anyway, let's kill them anyway.
Speaker 1: So I think what they're doing is they're showing a
Speaker 1: company that has no grasp of what they're they've created,
Speaker 1: except that they have enormous impact everywhere around the world,
Speaker 1: whether it's you know, election misinformation or anti vaccine anti
Speaker 1: vaccination information if you want to call it that um
Speaker 1: or whatever whatever it happens to be, wherever it is
Speaker 1: around the world. This is a platform that's proliferated like
Speaker 1: I don't know, mold, I don't know what to call it,
Speaker 1: but it's everywhere, It's everywhere, all around you, and they're
Speaker 1: not monitoring it correctly, nor do they have an idea
Speaker 1: of what to do. And so what do they do
Speaker 1: They rebrand? Why not? Yes, I will save about the
Speaker 1: rebranding mess book. Meta is now the name of Facebook,
Speaker 1: I call it, but go ahead, seta has it's a
Speaker 1: better tasting. So so this is I'm cute. This is
Speaker 1: a really a fascinating thing because this was just announced
Speaker 1: by Mark Zuckerberg and um, First of all, what do
Speaker 1: you think was the goal of rebranding? But also what
Speaker 1: is the meta verse that Facebook is trying to create
Speaker 1: and why are they trying to do it? The metaverse
Speaker 1: is an old idea. This is you know, you've seen
Speaker 1: it in all these movies. You've seen the Matrix anything,
Speaker 1: You've seen Lots and lot Tron. There's all kinds of ideas.
Speaker 1: Which is ready player one? It started with snow Crash
Speaker 1: Neil Stevenson. Um, it's the idea that you live in
Speaker 1: the physical and digital worlds combined singularity. Right now, that's
Speaker 1: becoming a machine. Okaytie, try to keep up. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: That's how you put a chip in your brain, like
Speaker 1: Ellen is working on Elon Might and then your what's
Speaker 1: his name? What the ray guy who's hurt? Yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: seeing you. Like, so that's the machines in us coming together.
Speaker 1: This is living and a living you live like he
Speaker 1: showed off a really creepy video. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you saw it, because Marcus specialized and creepy videos. Um.
Speaker 1: And he you know, he's playing cards with his friends
Speaker 1: and fencing. He's fencing, he's doing It's this idea that
Speaker 1: you'll escape into this world and then move back and
Speaker 1: forth between your physical It's an old idea. It's it's
Speaker 1: an old and interesting idea. Now the matter will be
Speaker 1: created by lots of companies. Facebook is making a massive
Speaker 1: land grab to take over. They bought Oculus. They've got
Speaker 1: a lot of very smart purchase back then. But one
Speaker 1: of the problems he has is that he's losing young people. Uh,
Speaker 1: you know, teens. If you talk to any teen, they
Speaker 1: will not go near Facebook essentially, and so and even
Speaker 1: Instagram is losing young it is, yes, it is. And
Speaker 1: so one of the problems that he has he's got
Speaker 1: to stay relevant. He also can't buy things because the
Speaker 1: government finally is perking up its ears and going, maybe
Speaker 1: we should possibly do our job and regulate this industry.
Speaker 1: So so this is really a business play, isn't it. Yes, No,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a lot of things he's got, He's
Speaker 1: got to move in another direction. He's like, he's got
Speaker 1: a pivot. Well, yeah, so what he's got a dumpster
Speaker 1: fire and he's like paying attention to that. I'm going
Speaker 1: to go over here to the metaverse where we're going
Speaker 1: to change my costume ten times. It's fine, we're gonna
Speaker 1: do it. You're gonna wear glasses and someday but you'll
Speaker 1: all be dead, so it won't matter so for you,
Speaker 1: but the kids, the kids will love it. But do
Speaker 1: you think I'm sure the kids will love it? By
Speaker 1: the way, really, now, well, what about this document dump?
Speaker 1: Do you think this is? You know, I know earlier
Speaker 1: this month you said it's not going to change anything. Um,
Speaker 1: and now I feel like you've moved into the direction of, hey,
Speaker 1: maybe this is the last straw. Maybe the government, as
Speaker 1: you here said, we'll do it straw. Here's why I
Speaker 1: just interted Ken Buck, who's from Colorado. He worked with
Speaker 1: David Cicillini. This is a conservative from Colorado who who
Speaker 1: is very conservative working with a gay Democrat from Rhode
Speaker 1: Island to bring legislation together. That doesn't happen often. I mean,
Speaker 1: they can't decide on lunch. Congress can't do that, and
Speaker 1: so they are working together in a bipartisan way that
Speaker 1: is mostly helpful, and they're they're putting up bill. Senator
Speaker 1: Clobuchar's one them. Um, there's a whole bunch of them.
Speaker 1: But it's actually quite bipartisan. And that's what's great about it. Um,
Speaker 1: we'll see if it gets anywhere, because they don't look,
Speaker 1: they can't seem to do anything anymore. And the level
Speaker 1: of partisanship is so high, and in this case it
Speaker 1: isn't people do recognize powers the problem power of all tech,
Speaker 1: not just Facebook but others companies, and that part of
Speaker 1: it is to have more competition, right, I mean, I think,
Speaker 1: isn't that what any Klovi petition will serve a lot?
Speaker 1: Same thing with ken Buck And I think you know,
Speaker 1: every now and then Ted Cruz lobs in an idiotic comment,
Speaker 1: but otherwise it's just his job. I think, Um, you know,
Speaker 1: tweet some it's a big tweeter. It's such a bad
Speaker 1: he's such a bad tweeter. More from Kara Swisher and
Speaker 1: my book tour right after this, How do you think
Speaker 1: the media can earn trust again from people who are
Speaker 1: consuming it? Or do think that just doesn't apply because
Speaker 1: it's so well fractured. Did they trust the media before?
Speaker 1: That's the that's a bigger question. I think levels of
Speaker 1: trust among the press historically have been very low. I
Speaker 1: just think they had that Watergate moment. I mean, look
Speaker 1: at the pushback you've gotten for the Ruth Bader Ginsburg.
Speaker 1: We talked about it on Sway, UM. You know that people.
Speaker 1: It played into a narrative that you're the fixes in
Speaker 1: among the Libs to protect this and that I think
Speaker 1: in that case you can talk about it. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean that was something that I wanted to write
Speaker 1: about because I personally admired Justice Ginsburg a great deal
Speaker 1: and everything that she had done for equality. Um. And
Speaker 1: and when I asked her about Colin Kaepernick, she had
Speaker 1: some very harsh words. She said, people who kneel during
Speaker 1: the national anthem are dumb and arrogant and dumb and
Speaker 1: disrespectful and and she used were stupid and arrogant. And
Speaker 1: it was sort of surprising to me. I went back
Speaker 1: and her office called and said she misunderstood the question,
Speaker 1: she wasn't really following the story that carefully, and then
Speaker 1: she made some other off handed comment about it being
Speaker 1: contempt for a government, and that these people are much
Speaker 1: better off here than the countries they came from. I
Speaker 1: ended up using two minutes of her answer. She had
Speaker 1: to issue a statement saying she misspoke, her words were
Speaker 1: unnecessarily harsh and dismissive, but that one piece I thought
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure what she was saying. I bristled, and
Speaker 1: I think I raised that in the book because I
Speaker 1: think it was a mistake that I should have included it,
Speaker 1: and that I let some of my personal um, you know,
Speaker 1: my my admiration for her getting the way of my judgment.
Speaker 1: And I thought that it would be actually helpful to
Speaker 1: be transparent because journalists make these editorial decisions every day.
Speaker 1: I've talked to many journalists through the years who have
Speaker 1: made sort of decisions that they're not at all the
Speaker 1: coverage of John Kennedy, that they're not totally comfortable with
Speaker 1: UM and and that's why I chose to include it.
Speaker 1: And I still think that transparency is really helpful when
Speaker 1: it comes to trusting the media. And I was on
Speaker 1: Stephen Colbert the other night and I said, you know,
Speaker 1: if if some of these organizations admitted that journalists are
Speaker 1: human beings and they sometimes don't make the right decisions,
Speaker 1: like if NBC said it was a mistake for us
Speaker 1: to sit on these Access Hollywood tapes so that the
Speaker 1: Washington Post had to break it, or that CNN said
Speaker 1: we shouldn't have allowed Chris Cuomo to yuck it up
Speaker 1: with his governor brother with a giant Q tip at
Speaker 1: the height of the pandemic and then not say a
Speaker 1: word about sexual harassment allegations and you know, or that
Speaker 1: CBS shouldn't have handed nd A s out like Halloween
Speaker 1: candy that pushed out talented women and kept sexual harassm
Speaker 1: is employed. So I think that admitting sometimes when you
Speaker 1: make bad decisions is being transparent would actually increase trust.
Speaker 1: But maybe I'm wrong. No, I don't think so at all.
Speaker 1: I mean, I have a very different career than years
Speaker 1: in that way. And then I'm always like, that's an idiot,
Speaker 1: you know, and they're like you you have to be
Speaker 1: you can't be biased. I'm like, oh, I'm biased, that's right.
Speaker 1: Like I'm a person, Like what do you think I'm
Speaker 1: not affected by the world. I have children, i have
Speaker 1: a life, I've got you know, I'm gay, Like I
Speaker 1: have opinions and I think One of the things we
Speaker 1: did at All Things D and later at RICO was
Speaker 1: we have like multi page disclosures and then we we
Speaker 1: trust the audience. We don't hide from them. We don't
Speaker 1: hide from them, because I think that was the thing,
Speaker 1: is keeping yourself apart from audiences. You can't do that
Speaker 1: anymore as a journalist, can you. You just have to
Speaker 1: be really close and you have to be okay with
Speaker 1: Like you were just talking about it. You didn't like disagreement.
Speaker 1: You want everyone to like you. I luckily started out
Speaker 1: life wanting everyone to dislike me, and therefore everything is
Speaker 1: uphill from here. Um uh. And so it frees you
Speaker 1: if you think like that. And it doesn't mean not
Speaker 1: doing reporting, by the way, No it doesn't. But on
Speaker 1: the other hand, I do think that media has become
Speaker 1: so bifurcated and it's either you know, CNN or Fox, CNN,
Speaker 1: MSNBC or Fox. And I think there is a craving
Speaker 1: for people to hear news and information in an unbiased
Speaker 1: way that's not commentary, that allows them to take it
Speaker 1: in and make their own opinions. Except except you have
Speaker 1: these these new information environments with like the big lie
Speaker 1: thing look at all right. I agree with dretzeling themselves
Speaker 1: not to say what the truth is that the election was. Yes,
Speaker 1: well they just or else they just sit there like
Speaker 1: because if they're you're asking if they're wearing pantyhose. I
Speaker 1: don't know what they're like. Oh, no, I cannot say
Speaker 1: this thing because Donald Trump will somehow tweet again. No,
Speaker 1: I's not got to tweet. He's off Twitter and by
Speaker 1: the way, for the rest of his life. And I
Speaker 1: totally agree with you because I think it it is
Speaker 1: really challenging to be objective. You know, first of all,
Speaker 1: that's that's that's a very um, I think, fraught word.
Speaker 1: But it's very hard to be objective when it's not
Speaker 1: left right but it's right wrong. And when somebody is
Speaker 1: perpetrating a lie and you feel like you have to
Speaker 1: call that out. That makes people automatically think you're on
Speaker 1: one side when you're actually just trying to tell the truth. Yes,
Speaker 1: but that's what that group of malevolent players is trying
Speaker 1: to do. Their gaming the system, and they do it
Speaker 1: either through you know, Facebook memes or or all over
Speaker 1: the internet. They do it all over the place, and
Speaker 1: and they're playing that game in meanwhile, you're like going no, no, no, no.
Speaker 1: And so I think one of the things that has
Speaker 1: to happen is there's a whole bunch of people. I think, Um,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of noisy people on either side. Um.
Speaker 1: And they're not equal, by the way, they're not find
Speaker 1: people on both sides, especially in that particular incident. Um.
Speaker 1: And and there's a lot of people in the center going,
Speaker 1: I don't know, I care about my kids. The COVID thing,
Speaker 1: why do these scientists like even just around COVID, it
Speaker 1: is confusing. What shot should I take? Do I need
Speaker 1: a shot? Do I need a mess? And so we
Speaker 1: used to be able to have these discussions easily when
Speaker 1: it's when there's a noise going on around you, a
Speaker 1: persistent digital noise almost all the time. You live in
Speaker 1: a state of constant fear and worry and too much information.
Speaker 1: So this idea of removing the gatekeepers is an excellent idea,
Speaker 1: except sometimes gatekeepers do matter. Trusted gatekeepers. The question is
Speaker 1: now people pick their trusted based on on on my
Speaker 1: like you know, I talked to you about my mom
Speaker 1: with Fox News, Like, oh my god, I had my
Speaker 1: brother was a doctor and I I'm not a doctor. Um,
Speaker 1: convinced her this is the flu. It's the flu. Sean
Speaker 1: Hannay says, it's the flu. I'm like, Sean Hannity is
Speaker 1: a horse's ass. But let us wait. So your your brother,
Speaker 1: My brother is a doctor, but he he hell's your
Speaker 1: mom the truth? Yes, and you believe Sean Hannity over
Speaker 1: your brother. He's like, oh, I can go out. It's
Speaker 1: just the flu. It's like that. At the beginning. I
Speaker 1: wrote a column about this in The Times, and Sean
Speaker 1: Hannity and Comma horses ass um threatened, assume a good luck, Like,
Speaker 1: come on, it's right up there, fine, you know, And
Speaker 1: so he's rutten to a bunch of people at the Times. Um.
Speaker 1: But about these because Fox News continues now they're doing
Speaker 1: the big live stuff now they're doing this. But it's
Speaker 1: not really a Fox News problem as much as it's
Speaker 1: these The ability to have information anywhere at any time
Speaker 1: without any vetting creates a really noisy information environment. Now. Luckily,
Speaker 1: I think younger people do sort of understand. I don't
Speaker 1: think they're quite as shifted as people who lived in
Speaker 1: the old information environment and moving to the new one.
Speaker 1: They're not as discombobulated. I don't think so. I think
Speaker 1: they pick and choose. Really. I mean, my kids are
Speaker 1: like that, um, And I think that they have a
Speaker 1: sense that not everything is true, nor was it before,
Speaker 1: because again it was picked by certain the stories that
Speaker 1: where you've talked about this in the book a lot.
Speaker 1: You should talk about it because the way you covered
Speaker 1: certain things back when it was Matthew Sheppard or or
Speaker 1: riots or things like that, it was a whole different viewpoint, right,
Speaker 1: what was actually happening, right, And I do talk a
Speaker 1: lot about that about, you know, our our perceptions of
Speaker 1: what it meant to be gay in America. The way
Speaker 1: we covered the Rodney King beating, I talked to the
Speaker 1: white victim and we didn't really talk too much about
Speaker 1: how it was reaction to to the riots were reaction
Speaker 1: to the Rodney King, the the acquittal of those police,
Speaker 1: white police officers. So I think we're really appreciating retrospectively, um,
Speaker 1: how we had blind spots in many of these areas.
Speaker 1: Everyone now is a newsperson with their camera, with their phone,
Speaker 1: with their video, and sometimes it works out well and
Speaker 1: sometimes it can be decept especially as you can maipulate it.
Speaker 1: And by the way, when you get into this metaverse
Speaker 1: and deep faith. The company that brought you the social
Speaker 1: media mess we have is now want you think about
Speaker 1: what could happen in a metaverse situation a very as
Speaker 1: it surround us. And one of the things I can
Speaker 1: finally says, this pandemic has shown how much we rely
Speaker 1: on these digital tools and to get our information, to
Speaker 1: get our deliveries, to get our to get to work,
Speaker 1: to do education which did not work out really well,
Speaker 1: and our reliance on these companies which are completely may
Speaker 1: I just say Washington completely unregulated. There's zero laws regulating
Speaker 1: the Internet and the one that it does exist is
Speaker 1: in an act and it helps it. It removes liability
Speaker 1: from these something can't be sued and they have no regulation.
Speaker 1: It sounds like a great prescription for disaster um And
Speaker 1: so one of the things that we've shown in the
Speaker 1: pandemic is they've never been richer. They've the ten top
Speaker 1: people in the world are all tech people. The tent
Speaker 1: top companies except for Saudi Aramco, are tech companies. They've
Speaker 1: doubled and tripled their wealth during the pandemic. Lights should
Speaker 1: be going off here in Washington. How do you see
Speaker 1: the two minutes we have how do you see things
Speaker 1: shaking out? What do you if you looked in your
Speaker 1: crystal ball and looked five years from now, how do
Speaker 1: you see the media landscape changing? Will there be a
Speaker 1: network newscast, for example, no network news evening news, and
Speaker 1: so what will our media ecosystem look like. I think
Speaker 1: you'll see a lot of brands, like you're doing with
Speaker 1: Katie Kirk Media, you're sort of you're directionally correct again right,
Speaker 1: hopefully not too early, you know, you're just perfect timing um.
Speaker 1: But I think one of the things is that it's
Speaker 1: just there will be new brands built around people and
Speaker 1: trusted people, and you pick and choose among them. There
Speaker 1: will be obviously the big I think news organizations like
Speaker 1: the Washington Post and the New York Times, they're they're
Speaker 1: doing well right now, although everyone's seeing a Trump slump.
Speaker 1: He was correct, And there's also a lot of internal
Speaker 1: debate about how to cover the news at those organizations
Speaker 1: as well, right exactly, so you can see that, and
Speaker 1: I think I think things will settle down. Like the
Speaker 1: beginning of the printing press, the beginning of TV, the
Speaker 1: beginning of radio, all saw a lot of hubbub and
Speaker 1: then it just calmed itself down as people understood. My
Speaker 1: worry is that the people that are running these things
Speaker 1: are particularly ill equipped to also deal with societal issues,
Speaker 1: political issues, governmentally, Like it's amazing that in the case,
Speaker 1: let's go back to Mark one person who cannot be fired.
Speaker 1: People don't realize this. He has stock where he cannot
Speaker 1: be fired. He is unaccountable, runs the biggest comedian communications
Speaker 1: company in the world without and he's a very nice guy.
Speaker 1: But honestly, do we really want that to happen? And
Speaker 1: so that's what you have to start thinking about, is
Speaker 1: where can the new innovation common news? Where can the
Speaker 1: new idea of what we're getting stuff? And that was
Speaker 1: my problem at Yahoo because it was a tech company.
Speaker 1: It wasn't a media company. And I told you that,
Speaker 1: yeah you did, and content and and and content wasn't
Speaker 1: sort of in in in the company's d n A.
Speaker 1: I don't care if it's Cats or Katie Curic, they
Speaker 1: don't care. No, they didn't care. So that ergo was
Speaker 1: the problem. Like Katie Kirk more than Cats, and they
Speaker 1: both have the word in it. So well, I'm so happy,
Speaker 1: thank you, very journalist. But everybody to her now you
Speaker 1: are Thank you to Kara Swisher. Will link out to
Speaker 1: that interview I did with Cheryl Sandberg back in twenty
Speaker 1: nineteen and the description of this podcast. You can also
Speaker 1: find it in the Next Question feed. The episode is
Speaker 1: called is it Time to Unfriend Facebook? I guess we're
Speaker 1: a little ahead of our time. Next Question with Katie
Speaker 1: Kurik is a production of I Heart Media and Katie
Speaker 1: Kurk Media. The executive producer's Army Katie Kuric and Courtney Litz.
Speaker 1: The supervising producer is Lauren Hansen. Associate producers Derek Clements
Speaker 1: and Adrianna Fasio. The show is edited and mixed by
Speaker 1: Derrick Clements. For more information about today's episode, or to
Speaker 1: sign up for my morning newsletter, wake Up Call, go
Speaker 1: to Katie Correct dot com. You can also find me
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