Speaker 1: This is Bloomberg Business Week with Carol Messer on Bloomberg Radio.
Speaker 1: Is indeed, this is Bloomberg Business Week on this Monday.
Speaker 1: Looking forward to our next guest. Heads Up USA Facts,
Speaker 1: which made its debut about three years ago. Created by
Speaker 1: former Microsoft CEO Steve Balmer, it was all about gathering
Speaker 1: and distributing government facts. The site doesn't make judgments, We've
Speaker 1: said this before, doesn't prescribe policies. It's really just the
Speaker 1: facts based on government data. So great to welcome back
Speaker 1: Poppy McDonald. She's president of the not for profit and
Speaker 1: nonpartisan USA Facts, also a former president and chief operating
Speaker 1: officer of the news site Politico. She joins us on
Speaker 1: this Monday on the phone in Hawaii. Hi, Poppy, how
Speaker 1: are you, Hi, Carol. I'm doing well. It's so nice
Speaker 1: to be back with you. Well, it's great to have
Speaker 1: you back with us. Um I've got to first ask
Speaker 1: you Hawaii virus. Their cases I believe have been going down,
Speaker 1: if I'm correct, is that right? You are right? They
Speaker 1: have had very few cases going down dramatically. They really
Speaker 1: did choose to close their state to visitors and it
Speaker 1: had an outsized impact in terms of the devastation to
Speaker 1: Hawaii's economy. When USA Facts did analysis looking at her case,
Speaker 1: what was the job lost impact? Hawaii was the hardest
Speaker 1: hit and in September and the state had lost about
Speaker 1: ten thousand seven jobs and hit high of fifteen point
Speaker 1: one percent unemployment, as most of the rest of the
Speaker 1: country was coming. Um really reducing unemployment and that impact,
Speaker 1: and that was because of their reliance on leisure and
Speaker 1: the hospitality sector. So they reopened for the first time
Speaker 1: in mid October. And UM, are you know, we'll be
Speaker 1: following the data to see what happens there. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: really fascinating. I love that you went right to the facts.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. Um, I know we talked with you.
Speaker 1: I think in early October. It was about a month
Speaker 1: out from the election. Um, facts do matter. We know that,
Speaker 1: and I want to do a deeper dive into that
Speaker 1: in just a moment. But you know, what's kind of
Speaker 1: changed in your world as you look at you know
Speaker 1: what people are searching on when it comes to USA Facts,
Speaker 1: what they want to know, especially as we've gotten closer
Speaker 1: to the election, and we've seen certainly the races and
Speaker 1: individual states get closer the polling is showing us that
Speaker 1: the race is much closer in a lot of places.
Speaker 1: So I'm curious what what are people what do they
Speaker 1: want to know as we get, you know, closer to
Speaker 1: this election now that it's tomorrow, Thanks Carol. According to
Speaker 1: data just in from my team at USA Facts, as
Speaker 1: the election is looming, no surprising, you know, COVID related
Speaker 1: terms continued to dominate the search for both candidate policy
Speaker 1: information as well as on our site in terms of
Speaker 1: how many people have been diagnosed and how many deaths.
Speaker 1: I think interesting though, um, if we look at what
Speaker 1: else are people searching for? Related for sure is what
Speaker 1: are the top causes of death in the United States?
Speaker 1: And there is certainly some conversation about how devastating has
Speaker 1: COVID and um, is it just like the flu or
Speaker 1: is it having an outside impact? And so we did
Speaker 1: analysis looking at between February and October, what were the
Speaker 1: top causes its death in the United States. COVID comes
Speaker 1: in third. Um it's We're now at about two hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty eight thousand cases. Heart disease is at four
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty thousand, three ninety cancer at four hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty six thousand, one hundred seventy two UM and
Speaker 1: behind COVID then is stroke at a hundred and ten
Speaker 1: thousand and flew. It's down at the seventh pause thirty
Speaker 1: eight thousand, one d seventy one cases. So um, that's
Speaker 1: a place Americans are going. They're also looking, I think,
Speaker 1: at um, what does there look life look like as
Speaker 1: middle class Americans. So our second most traffic content is
Speaker 1: how much does the average American family pay in Texas?
Speaker 1: And so we have analysis looking at in twenty eight
Speaker 1: teen the African American family in the middle of income
Speaker 1: earners and we define that as literally the middle in
Speaker 1: this country, which looks like on average people who make
Speaker 1: about fifty dollars a year and they have paid about
Speaker 1: fifteen thousand, seven dty dollars in taxes, and that's combining federal, state,
Speaker 1: and local taxes UM. And then in general just in
Speaker 1: federal taxes about two thousands, three nine two. So um,
Speaker 1: those are really the talk to. And then of course
Speaker 1: people are looking at voting rates, what's turnout then how
Speaker 1: many people vote by mail? So really related to the
Speaker 1: topic of the moment, right, which is the selection. I
Speaker 1: think that's really interesting about kind of wanting to understand
Speaker 1: like how much people are paying in taxes, and I wonder.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting, right, you've seen this before, you
Speaker 1: you know, Ran Politico. You know we've talked about in
Speaker 1: elections before that it was all about the economy, right,
Speaker 1: it's the economy stupid. Go back to the Clinton, uh
Speaker 1: you know campaign, although I've heard other people say I
Speaker 1: think it was our Michael mckeeth it's saying it's it's
Speaker 1: all about COVID stupid, like you know. So it's interesting
Speaker 1: to see what people are searching on to give you
Speaker 1: an idea of what really matters as we go into
Speaker 1: the election. And maybe some of it has to do with,
Speaker 1: you know, everybody's individual and personal experiences, but it it
Speaker 1: kind of tells us a little bit what's going on
Speaker 1: in the psyche right of voters. Absolutely, and you would
Speaker 1: think that jobs and economy are always the dominant theme.
Speaker 1: I think immigration was something that was a hot topic, right,
Speaker 1: but has really been replaced by healthcare and people dominantly
Speaker 1: thinking about m M. My space is my family's safe
Speaker 1: and you know who's looking out for me right now? Poppy?
Speaker 1: Whatever happened? Um? And I bring this up because I
Speaker 1: was watching and listening to a piece over the weekend
Speaker 1: and just said, you know that we've become a society
Speaker 1: that it feels like facts don't matter anymore, and and
Speaker 1: it feels like I think, uh. One person who's interviewed
Speaker 1: was said something like, well, facts are boring. It's not
Speaker 1: what gets the algorithms moving on social media, um, which
Speaker 1: of course plays into how you make money on a
Speaker 1: lot of social media platforms. I mean, you ran political,
Speaker 1: you know the importance of understanding sources and facts. What's
Speaker 1: happened over the past decade when it comes to the
Speaker 1: respect that facts used to Garner Carol, that's a great question,
Speaker 1: and I wish I had all the answers. I do
Speaker 1: think it is entertainment when you're throwing around adjectives and um,
Speaker 1: big headlines right um, and you're going to get um.
Speaker 1: It's become an engaging format that is entertaining to Americans
Speaker 1: that said um, USA facts did some pulling to say, like,
Speaker 1: do Americans even care about the facts? Um? Is it
Speaker 1: important to them? And we did find that, you know,
Speaker 1: eight antient Americans said that the spread of information has
Speaker 1: become a major problem and report often or always getting
Speaker 1: conflicting and formations from different sources, and sixty seven percent
Speaker 1: of Americans say that they often are always come across
Speaker 1: sources that only include one side of a debate. And
Speaker 1: so you know, part of why USA facts exist, as
Speaker 1: we do think Americans are hungry to understand what where
Speaker 1: do things actually stand by the numbers. Sure adjectives are entertaining,
Speaker 1: but at the end of the day, it is confusing
Speaker 1: when you're getting conflicting reports from two different sources. And
Speaker 1: let's ground it back in data so it us say
Speaker 1: facts or we try to make it really easy for
Speaker 1: Americans or the media or politicians to go and at
Speaker 1: least start debate with the facts and then hopefully have
Speaker 1: a healthy disagreement about how we move forward. You know,
Speaker 1: I've remember going to start as a journalist, Like I
Speaker 1: thought it was very interesting that you could often yes
Speaker 1: facts or facts, but you could often find a set
Speaker 1: of statistics to tell your story. And I think it
Speaker 1: was a little mind blowing to me initially, Like, okay,
Speaker 1: and this is where you have to be really smart
Speaker 1: and really understand where the material was coming from so
Speaker 1: that you knew whether it was going to be not tainted,
Speaker 1: but it was going to be subjective because of where
Speaker 1: it was coming from. Yeah, we do, UM ask and journalists,
Speaker 1: but especially Americans to go to a lot of work
Speaker 1: to understand is that source um, that I'm reading? Is
Speaker 1: it objective? Art? Is there? Is it coming from like
Speaker 1: a good place? Um? And so you know understand that
Speaker 1: people are confused right now. We have forty percent of
Speaker 1: Americans say it's difficult to know if a candidates telling
Speaker 1: the truth UM. And that forty percent of Americans say
Speaker 1: they do pay close attention, but they're often unsure where
Speaker 1: to go for information they trust. UM. And I think
Speaker 1: probably not surprising. When we looked at twenty nineteen, what
Speaker 1: was the dominant source of daily news information? UM, A
Speaker 1: majority of Americans said social media. That's dropped about thirty
Speaker 1: two percent UM, with only thirty seven percent of people
Speaker 1: saying that they use socialist social media daily and only
Speaker 1: seven percent of those saying they actually us that is
Speaker 1: a source of information. Wow. Wait, so it's dropping in
Speaker 1: terms of what people are going there or not dropping
Speaker 1: it is. Yeah, it's dropping. So in nineteen and majority
Speaker 1: of Americans said and that was the top source they
Speaker 1: went to social media almost daily. It's now down. When
Speaker 1: we did the pole this share. A year later, seven
Speaker 1: percent of people say they're using it daily and only
Speaker 1: seven percent of people say they trust social media. That's
Speaker 1: really interesting. I do wonder them when you think about
Speaker 1: social media folks, you know, the CEO is being called
Speaker 1: before Congress or before Senate committees, and you know their
Speaker 1: responsibility to kind of police their platforms. I mean, I
Speaker 1: wonder if you have some thoughts on that, especially since
Speaker 1: it's interesting to see less people getting it, but still
Speaker 1: a lot of people go to social media to get
Speaker 1: their news. It is still the third most used source,
Speaker 1: so it is still a place people are going to
Speaker 1: for information, just behind local TV news and national TV
Speaker 1: news networks as well as cable, so it's actually the
Speaker 1: fourth must use source. UM And in terms of you know,
Speaker 1: what's the responsibility of these folks to run social media platforms?
Speaker 1: I mean, I think if you see trust down to
Speaker 1: seven percent, and that's the lowest rating that we found
Speaker 1: in terms of trust um highest being of people who
Speaker 1: say they trust local TV news. When you look at
Speaker 1: that gap, you have to wonder for the viability of
Speaker 1: these platforms, UM. Are there measures that they need to
Speaker 1: take to ensure that they don't continue to decline as
Speaker 1: a way as the source that people go to to
Speaker 1: get information. Hey, Poppy, just got about a minute left here.
Speaker 1: What are you gonna be looking for after the elections?
Speaker 1: And I mean there's a lot of assumption that we
Speaker 1: may or may not have uh an answer come at
Speaker 1: the end of Tuesday night. But in terms of searches
Speaker 1: on the site, what kind of trends are you going
Speaker 1: to be looking for? And just got about forty seconds here. Well,
Speaker 1: for sure, we're going to be following voting rates, so
Speaker 1: we are at fifty was the latest turn out an election?
Speaker 1: Does that increase? And what happens with mail voting intent
Speaker 1: of ballots were cast by mail? We're expecting that's going
Speaker 1: to tack up, and so we'll be looking at, um,
Speaker 1: what did participation look like by the numbers UM, as
Speaker 1: well as tracking with our Voters Center, UM, where did
Speaker 1: people turn out to vote? And how did that compare
Speaker 1: to the candidates that we were seeing really get access
Speaker 1: on our platform? Is volume up on the platform just quickly? Absolutely?
Speaker 1: We're up two thousand percent to here in terms of
Speaker 1: traffic coming to go a see facts dot org. WHOA okay, um,
Speaker 1: great to check in with you Poppy, thank you so much,
Speaker 1: a lot of data there and really informative. And again,
Speaker 1: facts matter, folks, and they are dealing with, you know,
Speaker 1: government facts and just pulling it together on really these
Speaker 1: major issues. Pappa McDonald, President of USA Facts, joining us
Speaker 1: on the phone from Hawaii.