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Speaker 1: Welcome to Crash Course, a podcast about business, political, and

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Speaker 1: social disruption and what we can learn from it. I'm

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Speaker 1: Tim O'Brien. Today's Crash Course BuzzFeed and the Education of

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Speaker 1: Ben Smith. The media business has been home to experiments

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Speaker 1: ever since the invention of the paper. Making money from

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Speaker 1: those experiments is hard. Fueling experiments with the right blend

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Speaker 1: of high, middle and low brow content that regularly tracks audiences.

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Speaker 1: That's hard too. Turning those experiments into enterprises that survived

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Speaker 1: for years, much less decades also very hard. Six prime

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Speaker 1: experiments from digital media's modern Europe all debuted in close

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Speaker 1: proximity to one another in the early two thousands. Gawker, Facebook, Twitter,

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Speaker 1: huff Post, Politico, and Business Insider all were trailblazers in

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Speaker 1: an innovative and unforgiving technological ecosystem that ultimately flattened local

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Speaker 1: newspapers and spawned other closely watched and lavishly funded media startups,

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Speaker 1: Vice Media and BuzzFeed, among them. Some of the new

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Speaker 1: entrants have faced the same fates as local news. Gawker's

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Speaker 1: gone Wece, once valued at five point seven billion, recently

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Speaker 1: declared bankruptcy. BuzzFeed recently shuddered its news operation, what makes

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Speaker 1: this so hard? What's at stake? And what if digital

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Speaker 1: media disruptions taught us joining crash course to make sense

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Speaker 1: of all of this is Ben Smith. Ben's the editor

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Speaker 1: in chief of Semaphore, a news startup, and he's the

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Speaker 1: former editor in chief of BuzzFeed News. He's also the

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Speaker 1: author of a new bittersweet book, Traffic, Genius, Rivalry and

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Speaker 1: Delusion in the billion dollar Race to Go Viral.

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Speaker 2: Welcome Ben, Thanks for having me. That was an incredibly

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Speaker 2: thoughtful introduction.

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Speaker 1: You know, I finished the book last night, by the way,

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Speaker 1: and we'll get into it some more, but you know,

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Speaker 1: it was sort of like a tour down memory lane

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Speaker 1: and before we get started a little more resume. Ben

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Speaker 1: was also a media columnist with The New York Times

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Speaker 1: and a former reporter for a number of newspapers and websites,

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Speaker 1: including Politico. His experience is vast and I've known Ben

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Speaker 1: for about fifteen years. Okay, Ben, here's a little quiz

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Speaker 1: to get things going. Who said the value of a

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Speaker 1: broadcast network is directly linked to the number of viewers?

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Speaker 3: I do not know.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that wasn't really meant to trap you.

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Speaker 2: See, I thought you were going to ask me which

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Speaker 2: Disney princess I was.

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Speaker 1: Not today it was David Saranoff, the founder of the

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Speaker 1: Radio Corporation of America or RCA, and I looked it up.

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Speaker 1: I mean, I was interested what Saranoff had to say

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Speaker 1: about new media because I think we've gone through these

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Speaker 1: things episodically in US history, where a new technology comes

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Speaker 1: along that is disruptive and all the kids get into it.

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Speaker 1: And I think the radio kids in the nineteen twenties

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Speaker 1: and nineteen thirties were just as ahead of the time

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Speaker 1: and ahead of the curve and excited about new developments

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Speaker 1: as we were now. And I think some of the

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Speaker 1: rules are similar, right. Sarnoff is basically voicing whenever he

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Speaker 1: said that, say in the nineteen thirties, what we ended

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Speaker 1: up saying about the Internet in the early knots make

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Speaker 1: it big, And that's the reason I brought it up.

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Speaker 2: And about the newspapers a hunt, you know, about the

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Speaker 2: New York Sun one hundred years before that. Nothing is

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Speaker 2: new in this business.

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Speaker 1: You know, the founder of BuzzFeed, Jonah Peretti, was constantly

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Speaker 1: chasing scale and virality, and he's a central figure in

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Speaker 1: your book, and at the end of the book Traffic,

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Speaker 1: which I recommend to everyone to read. You note that

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Speaker 1: Jonah's magical thinking led him to try to manage and

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Speaker 1: control the internet's forces. But then, quote unquote, but the

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Speaker 1: best even a genius can do most of the time

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Speaker 1: is usually to see those forces coming and catch their drag.

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Speaker 1: Talk to me a little bit about what you meant

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Speaker 1: by that observation of Jonah and your time together with him.

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Speaker 2: Sure, Jonah had been funny to sort of even use

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Speaker 2: this link, but he probably went to college in the

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Speaker 2: late nineties and was sort of an Internet prankster at first.

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Speaker 2: I think the phrase at the time was culture jammer,

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Speaker 2: and he did, you know, kind of funny anti corporate

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Speaker 2: pranks that would get shared among people who thought they

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Speaker 2: were funny and kind of shared their politics past hand

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Speaker 2: to hand, and had this realization that there was this

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Speaker 2: new form of distribution which was people liking what you

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Speaker 2: had to say and sharing it with all their friends,

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Speaker 2: and that digital media really meaning email at that point,

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Speaker 2: could give that enormous scale, bigger scale than the largest

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Speaker 2: broadcast or you know, or printing press. In fact, I

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Speaker 2: think he was certainly not the first person to experience that,

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Speaker 2: like we were all getting a lot of email forwards

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Speaker 2: in the nineties from our relatives who had political views

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Speaker 2: or or just you know, great senses of humor. But

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Speaker 2: he really saw it very abstractly and understood that this

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Speaker 2: was a new system of distribution and really saw the

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Speaker 2: real wave that was coming, which was social media, which

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Speaker 2: was Facebook first of all, but also to and Pinterest

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Speaker 2: and other platforms where most of us, the whole country

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Speaker 2: would be distributing you know, news and entertainment to one another.

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Speaker 2: I mean with BuzzFeed. He was essentially sort of getting

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Speaker 2: into position to catch that wave.

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Speaker 1: But also as a sort of sorcerer's apprentice, trying to

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Speaker 1: also control it. Not just to catch the wave, but

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Speaker 1: at least in the early stages, believing that he could

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Speaker 1: find mechanisms or insights into trying to control that. And

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Speaker 1: I don't mean that critically, I mean it observationally. You

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Speaker 1: know that that's what he was after. When you go

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Speaker 1: through the entire arch of your book at the end,

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Speaker 1: you sort of conclude that it's almost like a not

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Speaker 1: a fool's errand but it's an impossible task.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I would say, you know, we he

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Speaker 2: all of us, made many mistakes, not just one. So

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Speaker 2: it's a little hard to boil it down, but there

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Speaker 2: certainly was a sense that you could develop a kind

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Speaker 2: of special expertise in navigating that this new world and

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Speaker 2: sell that.

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Speaker 1: So let's just back up a little further, say, pre

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Speaker 1: Jonah or outside of Jonah, what do you see as

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Speaker 1: the ground zero moment when lots of digital media companies

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Speaker 1: and even legacy publishers began chasing traffic.

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Speaker 2: You know, I think, like lots of interesting things in history,

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Speaker 2: it was really this scene in Lower Manhattan among people

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Speaker 2: who knew each other and went to the same bars

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Speaker 2: and you know, had sort of similar politics but by

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Speaker 2: no means identical. And after so crucially after the bubble

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Speaker 2: burst in Silicon Valley, and there was this moment that

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Speaker 2: it's actually like, it's hard to remember that this happened,

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Speaker 2: but there was a moment when there was a thread

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Speaker 2: of conventional wisdom that said the new center of technology

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Speaker 2: and investment in America is Silicon Alley in Manhattan. Silicon

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Speaker 2: Valley is dead, and that these new companies are going

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Speaker 2: to take the sort of New York expertise in media

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Speaker 2: and culture and merge it with these new technologies to

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Speaker 2: build giant companies. You know, four Square and Etsy were

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Speaker 2: two companies that still exist in that world. But these

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Speaker 2: media companies, Huffington Post the first to you know, to

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Speaker 2: sell for a lot of money, Gawker probably the most

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Speaker 2: famous of that moment, were the core of that world.

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Speaker 2: And you know, there were a lot of reasons that

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Speaker 2: they were all chasing the same audience, the same people.

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Speaker 2: But fundamentally there was a I think two main ones.

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Speaker 2: One was there was this huge alienation from the mainstream media,

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Speaker 2: from the New York Times in particular, following its atrocious

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Speaker 2: performance during the Iraq War that had powered Howard Dean's

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Speaker 2: campaign for president, you know, and that was just totally real,

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Speaker 2: and I think people forget how well.

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Speaker 3: Earned that was.

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Speaker 2: And then there was just the reality, you know that

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Speaker 2: we were all at that point the Internet wasn't some

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Speaker 2: weird exotic thing like it had been in the nineties.

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Speaker 2: It was something we were using at work. We were

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Speaker 2: on the web, we were sending emails, and you know,

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Speaker 2: the big great American newspapers and television networks sort of

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Speaker 2: had not figured it out. They were putting newspaper articles

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Speaker 2: onto the web many many hours after they were published,

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Speaker 2: and it was you couldn't watch a video. I mean,

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Speaker 2: it was just sort of there was this disconnect between

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Speaker 2: and how regular people you and me were looking for

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Speaker 2: information and living our lives, and the way in which

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Speaker 2: news organizations and media companies were trying to talk to us,

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Speaker 2: and so both in the sort of substance and in

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Speaker 2: the texture and in the way it was communicated. I

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Speaker 2: think there was this huge appetite and interest in new

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Speaker 2: voices from consumers, first of all, and as that developed,

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Speaker 2: this new generation of media entoms in particular, you know,

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Speaker 2: developed tools to measure in detail, you know, what people

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Speaker 2: were interested.

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Speaker 1: In, what engaged people, and how to engage them. I

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Speaker 1: think the other thing that newspapers crucially overlooked, you know,

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Speaker 1: with the dawn of the consumer commercial, easily accessible web,

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Speaker 1: was what it was going to do to how they

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Speaker 1: monetized their content, how they made money off of their businesses. Famously,

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Speaker 1: Craig's List just wiped out classified advertising for small, local

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Speaker 1: and mid sized newspapers that essentially relied on that to

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Speaker 1: pay the bills. It is arguably the central, if not

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Speaker 1: certainly one of the central reasons local newspapers got devastated

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Speaker 1: in that period. Because not only were consumers taste changing

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Speaker 1: and consumers interest in how they approached news, but the

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Speaker 1: foundation of how you made money around news and around

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Speaker 1: storytelling got completely disrupted by the web.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, just cut the legs out of these, particularly metropolitan

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Speaker 2: newspapers that had been almost monopoly providers of advertising to

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Speaker 2: people who sold mattresses and refrigerators for fifty years and

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Speaker 2: had made enormous amounts of money, built huge towers next

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Speaker 2: to city hall in every city in America. You know,

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Speaker 2: it had had multiple revenue lines, but suddenly found that

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Speaker 2: advertising had been stolen by these nimble basically better versions

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Speaker 2: of classified advertising on the Internet. And the other revenue

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Speaker 2: source with subscription, you know, was in rest of premature.

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Speaker 2: But people just hadn't been trained by Spotify and Netflix

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Speaker 2: to pay money on the Internet and didn't know how

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Speaker 2: and weren't really willing or interested.

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Speaker 1: And even you know, the newspapers discounted their subscription prices

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Speaker 1: because of the ad monopoly they enjoyed was so lush

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Speaker 1: they didn't have to really exist on a subscription stream.

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Speaker 1: And during that time too, I think on the web,

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Speaker 1: the play to make money was display ads build up

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Speaker 1: a lot of traffic and sell a huge number two

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Speaker 1: advertisers who would then put their ads on your website.

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Speaker 1: That was the argument that as long as you had

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Speaker 1: a mammoth audience, you could make a lot of money

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Speaker 1: selling display ads against that. And that held sway for

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Speaker 1: quite a while, didn't it.

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Speaker 2: I mean, it wasn't so much as an argument as

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Speaker 2: a not entirely thought out impulse. But you know, Gawker

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Speaker 2: is a good example. In two thousand and three, they

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Speaker 2: launched and they find that it's this hot new thing

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Speaker 2: that's talking to an influential crowd of New Yorkers and

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Speaker 2: they can sell ads for nine dollars CPMs, I mean

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Speaker 2: the cost for a thousand views, you know, and they

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Speaker 2: have every reason if you're not thinking too hard about it.

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Speaker 2: It's like, well, we have this very rudimentary product that

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Speaker 2: we're selling for nine bucks, and we're getting twenty percent

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Speaker 2: more of these clicks every month, and like, this is

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Speaker 2: a great business.

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Speaker 3: This is going to grow like crazy.

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Speaker 2: We're going to improve the product into sort of a

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Speaker 2: you know, better ads with better data, and then we're

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Speaker 2: going to have three times or one hundred times as

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Speaker 2: much inventory. And the problem is that that's the way

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Speaker 2: you think about commodities where there's a limited amount of

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Speaker 2: them available. There's a limited quantity, and the core thing

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Speaker 2: that makes a commodity valuable is scarcity. And ultimately a

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Speaker 2: nine dollars CPM today twenty years later, it's like pretty

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Speaker 2: good prices gone down, I have stayed flat or gone

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Speaker 2: down certainly relative to inflation, and the inventory is effectively infinite.

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Speaker 1: And I'd say probably the first third to the first

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Speaker 1: half of your book is sort of charting those early days,

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Speaker 1: with a close emphasis on Cawker and the Huffington Post

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Speaker 1: as models for what that world was like again getting

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Speaker 1: out what I asked you about earlier on about Jonah.

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Speaker 1: You know, entrepreneurial, smart people who didn't seem to sleep much,

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Speaker 1: wanting you essentially try to control this brave new world

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Speaker 1: of digital media and digital advertising. And you know, the

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Speaker 1: thing that kept coming up for me that I read

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Speaker 1: that part of your book was they're chasing it, but

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Speaker 1: they're not owning it. They think at different moments they

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Speaker 1: own it. They think they've found the secret sauce. But

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Speaker 1: as soon as someone discovers one trick for ensineering readers,

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Speaker 1: others can adopt it pretty quickly. So your competitive advantage

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Speaker 1: evaporates in real time, at least if all of what

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Speaker 1: you're about is garnering traffic for traffic's sake, and the

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Speaker 1: books loaded with I think lots of examples of entrepreneurs

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Speaker 1: and journalists who thought they could do that and then

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Speaker 1: over time reality kind of intruded.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think you know, the sort of

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Speaker 2: the science of figuring out exactly what people want or

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Speaker 2: what they want to share and giving it back to them.

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Speaker 2: I mean, inherently there's a tension in that and having

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Speaker 2: any identity yourself. And I think that's what you're talking about,

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Speaker 2: which is the all of these things at they're worst,

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Speaker 2: where I figured out exactly what you want and I

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Speaker 2: will give it to you, but it sort of erases

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Speaker 2: the identity of the publisher, and pretty soon you wind

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Speaker 2: up on an internet like the Internet of maybe five

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Speaker 2: years ago, where every publisher is doing exactly the same

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Speaker 2: thing and everything looks exactly the same.

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Speaker 1: When you were sort of venturing around the digital world

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Speaker 1: back then, I think you probably were at Politico at

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Speaker 1: that point, maybe late newspaper life, just venturing into Politico

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Speaker 1: when all this stuff started out in.

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Speaker 2: Some blogs in New York and then went to Politico.

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Speaker 1: What did you make of it then? What were you

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Speaker 1: seeing and what sort of had your mind on fire?

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Speaker 2: I mean, I think the reason that it was interesting

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Speaker 2: both to go back in to work with people like Jonas.

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Speaker 2: I never thought about this particularly abstractly, like I was

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Speaker 2: a reporter who liked to break news and like to

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Speaker 2: talk to my sources all day and saw these digital

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Speaker 2: tools as a way to kind of like, wow, I

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Speaker 2: can talk to all fifteen hundred people who care about

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Speaker 2: local politics, like I know them. All These are people

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Speaker 2: like a name. Probably still it wasn't a huge universe.

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Speaker 2: But instead of calling the one by one and telling

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Speaker 2: them this interesting thing I'd heard and ask him them

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Speaker 2: if they'd heard anything interesting, which is basically what reporting is,

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Speaker 2: I could publish it on my blog and then they'd

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Speaker 2: email me. And it felt very very connected to like

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Speaker 2: the core active journalism, which is about communicating with people.

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Speaker 2: And it was also very contained, and this is true

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Speaker 2: of a lot of these early sites before social media

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Speaker 2: kind of collapsed. Context that you knew who you were

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Speaker 2: talking to.

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Speaker 3: They knew you. It was direct, it was direct, You.

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Speaker 2: Had a voice and a personality, and one of the

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Speaker 2: things that meant was that your readers would be forgiving.

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Speaker 2: You know, you'd make a mistake occasionally and apologize, and

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Speaker 2: they'd say like, all right, I've been talking to this

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Speaker 2: guy for a long time that this isn't the norm.

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Speaker 2: And there was this context around the communication with your

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Speaker 2: audience that I think, as I think about what went away,

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Speaker 2: I think was very, very crucial to what was happening there.

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Speaker 2: And it is something that kind of gradually evaporated.

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Speaker 1: Since we just talked about gradual evaporation, I want to

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Speaker 1: evaporate for a minute and take a break and hear

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Speaker 1: from one of our sponsors, and we'll come right back.

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Speaker 1: We're back with Ben Smith, the editor of Some and

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Speaker 1: the author of a new book, Traffic, Genius, Rivalry, and

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Speaker 1: Delusion in the billion dollar Race to go Viral. We've

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Speaker 1: been talking about the foundational ramparts of digital media over

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Speaker 1: the last couple decades, and there have been startups that

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Speaker 1: made it look as if they had bottled lightning. Huff

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Speaker 1: Post bet on search and homepages, BuzzFeed bet on Facebook,

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Speaker 1: axios bet on newsletters. You guys at Semaphore are betting

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Speaker 1: on newsletters. How much of this is innovation and how

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Speaker 1: much of it is just trendsurfing, you know. I think

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Speaker 1: there's a distinction between those two things because you see

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Speaker 1: huff posts leapfrogging over Gawker and then BuzzFeed leapfrogs over

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Speaker 1: huff Post. And it gets back to this thing we've

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Speaker 1: been talking about trying to corral traffic and whether or

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Speaker 1: not you can have a permanent place in the world

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Speaker 1: when you're doing that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I don't think this is a simple question, right, like,

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Speaker 2: because there are other outlets like Politico where I used

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Speaker 2: to work, that has carved out a place in the world,

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Speaker 2: and permanent is a very strong word tim and this business.

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Speaker 2: But I think media and news are always both, right,

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Speaker 2: You're always both trying to do something that's quite timeless

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Speaker 2: and tell people what's going on in the world and

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Speaker 2: address them where and how they consume media. Now we're

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Speaker 2: doing a podcast at the moment. In fact, I guess

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Speaker 2: I tend not to think that these are sort of

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Speaker 2: timeless ideological questions, but much more specific ones. And I

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Speaker 2: think in some ways, this generation of companies that is

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Speaker 2: struggling and failing made a very very specific bet about

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Speaker 2: what was going to happen, and the metaphor was cable.

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Speaker 2: In fact, the chairman of Huffing and Post, Ken Lear

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Speaker 2: and then of BuzzFeed, had been around for the birth

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Speaker 2: of MTV and the theory which was not universally shared.

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Speaker 2: And some people thought we were total idiots, thought the

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Speaker 2: investors who put millions of dollars in were idiots. And

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Speaker 2: I think there's a fair argument now about whether we

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Speaker 2: were delusional, morons or just wrong. But was that just

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Speaker 2: as you know, they let some entrepreneurs lay cable wires

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Speaker 2: in the ground, and then they want people to sign

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Speaker 2: up for their cable television service, so they basically hire MTV, ESPN,

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Speaker 2: CNN to produce content for them and to fill the

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Speaker 2: pipes they've laid, and those become huge I don't know,

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Speaker 2: permanent again is a strong word, but very successful media

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Speaker 2: of operations, very successful businesses. And the metaphor that we

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Speaker 2: were relying on was that, in some sense, the Internet

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Speaker 2: in general, really more specifically for some of these companies

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Speaker 2: more recently, platforms like Facebook and Snap and Twitter were

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Speaker 2: new cables, and that people who could make content that

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Speaker 2: was purpose built for them the way MTV and ESPN

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Speaker 2: had thirty years earlier, would thrive in this new ecosystem

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Speaker 2: because these platforms would ultimately see that they had to

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Speaker 2: share the money with these content companies. Now that obviously

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Speaker 2: did not turn out to be true.

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Speaker 1: Wow, this is a good one. But what I would

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Speaker 1: argue actually is that Facebook and Twitter neverwre cables. They

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Speaker 1: were programming. The cable was always the Web.

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Speaker 2: I think that's a really good way to see it.

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Speaker 2: In fact, programming that's being canceled now, that was one

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Speaker 2: of the many things that was wrong about.

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Speaker 1: That correct, and they decided, you know, Facebook said, our

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Speaker 1: programming will include a little bit of other people's programming,

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Speaker 1: other programmers like newspapers or magazines, plus individual's own programming,

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Speaker 1: your aunt, your neighbor, whoever, and we'll package all of that.

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Speaker 1: Our programming will be that we will be your everything

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Speaker 1: store for conversations and information. And Twitter said our programming

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Speaker 1: will be celebrities, journalists, and influential people conversing with one another,

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Speaker 1: posting things they think are interesting. But the everlasting cable

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Speaker 1: beneath all that was the Internet. And I think even

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Speaker 1: with cable, yeah, nothing to say.

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Speaker 2: I think it's so easy to say in retrospect, Tim,

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Speaker 2: what about email? Is email a pipe or is it

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Speaker 2: built on top of the pipes. These are sort of metaphors.

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Speaker 1: It's built on top of the pipe only because I

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Speaker 1: think this gets at how you take advantage of a pipe,

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Speaker 1: not whether or not the pipe doesn't exist, or whether

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Speaker 1: or not emails a pipe or a thing right in

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Speaker 1: the pipe. Because what's interesting to me is, even with cable,

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Speaker 1: you can have a whole array of different programs that

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Speaker 1: get built and pumped through cable, but some last longer

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Speaker 1: than others, Some engage in a more permanent way, And

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Speaker 1: that's actually the silver chalice that everyone is after is

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Speaker 1: long lasting, maybe not permanent, but long lasting engagement versus

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Speaker 1: short term, streaky fun but effervescent engagement. You know, it's

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Speaker 1: interesting when you bring up that Politico is still around,

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Speaker 1: and of course it is. Business insiders still around. The

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Speaker 1: New York Times, of course is very much around, even

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Speaker 1: though it was a stagy old horse in the argument

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Speaker 1: of the early two thousands. And I think some of

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Speaker 1: this is not to be Monday morning quarterbacking other people's decisions.

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Speaker 1: It's actually to get around that and just say, well,

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Speaker 1: how do you skin the cat? How do you actually

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Speaker 1: find a way of engaging on a consistent basis in

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Speaker 1: the digital era.

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Speaker 2: So I mean, I guess I'm going to quival with

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Speaker 2: you a little more. But I think you're fundamentally right.

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Speaker 2: The thing we are trying to do, and that we're

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Speaker 2: all trying to do, is with human beings to whom

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Speaker 2: we were providing a real service, who want to come

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Speaker 2: back whichever platform we're on. But I also think just

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Speaker 2: things are more contingent than we like to imagine when

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Speaker 2: we look back. I mean, Cable didn't have to be cable.

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Speaker 2: They could have made the mistake of having it be

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Speaker 2: all filled with commercials and public access and nobody would

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Speaker 2: have ever adapted it. And Facebook and Twitter, by contrast,

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Speaker 2: maybe would have found a way to create a permanent

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Speaker 2: relationship with an audience the way say Netflix has with

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Speaker 2: high quality professional content. I think these things are very

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Speaker 2: unpredictable and quirky and based on the often ideologies and

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Speaker 2: decisions of the air executives.

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Speaker 1: And happenstance and luck. Mark Zuckerberg got lucky. You know,

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Speaker 1: he was in a dorm at Harvard at just the

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Speaker 1: right moment, and there was a technology available that made

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Speaker 1: Facebook possible, and he was surrounded by people who were

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Speaker 1: experimenting with that, and he was smart, but there were

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Speaker 1: a lot of other people who weren't lucky, who were

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Speaker 1: just as smart. And in that context, this is a

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Speaker 1: quote from William Randolphurst. It is the journal's policy doing

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Speaker 1: gauge brains as well as to get at the news

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Speaker 1: for the public is even more fond of entertainment than

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Speaker 1: it is of information. That's a newspaper guy, you know,

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Speaker 1: the model for Citizen Kain. Again, this has gone on

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Speaker 1: episodically forever, but you know, he could have easily has

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Speaker 1: been talking about putting listicles next to hardcore reporting that

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Speaker 1: wins Pulitzers, which was essentially the BuzzFeed model. Here's another quote,

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Speaker 1: and then I'll stop giving you quotes for the rest

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Speaker 1: of the episodes. But this intrigued me as I thought

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Speaker 1: about our conversation. I always have to say, we have

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Speaker 1: to give most of the people what they want most

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Speaker 1: of the time. That's what they expect from us. That's

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Speaker 1: Bill Paley talking about TV and CBS and again another

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Speaker 1: form of media, another media, and other disguise that was

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Speaker 1: trying to figure out this mix of highbrow and lowbrow

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Speaker 1: and audience engagement in order to survive and I bring

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Speaker 1: up both of those quotes from Hurst and Palleey to

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Speaker 1: sort of tie it into what you did at BuzzFeed,

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Speaker 1: because I'd like to drill down specifically into your thinking

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Speaker 1: about the strategy of BuzzFeed and what you experienced there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: So, I mean, I think the core insights at BuzzFeed

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Speaker 2: were about distribution, and Jonah was in a way that

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Speaker 2: was sometimes a little eerie and part of his strength

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Speaker 2: kind of content neutral, Like he was open to the

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Speaker 2: possibility that people were interested in anything and wanted to

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Speaker 2: see what it was. You mean, he was amoral about it,

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Speaker 2: but that was sort of where he was coming from.

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Speaker 2: And the distribution channel that we were thinking a lot

435
00:22:27,240 --> 00:22:30,080
Speaker 2: about was facebooks. It was increasingly the largest this is

436
00:22:30,119 --> 00:22:33,000
Speaker 2: twenty twelve to twenty fifteen, say, And what you could

437
00:22:33,080 --> 00:22:34,879
Speaker 2: see if you paid a lot of attention to it

438
00:22:34,920 --> 00:22:36,480
Speaker 2: was that it had been a place where people showed

439
00:22:36,520 --> 00:22:40,000
Speaker 2: pictures of like their kids and family gatherings, and then

440
00:22:40,200 --> 00:22:41,640
Speaker 2: you know, then sometimes it would be like a cute

441
00:22:41,640 --> 00:22:43,520
Speaker 2: baby that wasn't your baby, it was just very cute,

442
00:22:43,600 --> 00:22:45,200
Speaker 2: or like a cute dog that was not your dog,

443
00:22:45,640 --> 00:22:48,080
Speaker 2: or a silly meme. And BuzzFeed kind of was born

444
00:22:48,160 --> 00:22:49,760
Speaker 2: out of that moment when it was like there was

445
00:22:49,800 --> 00:22:51,760
Speaker 2: this kind of public content on the Internet that was

446
00:22:51,800 --> 00:22:55,520
Speaker 2: really silly and low brow, and then it started to

447
00:22:55,520 --> 00:22:59,960
Speaker 2: be news links to publications, you know, things about the world.

448
00:23:00,080 --> 00:23:02,159
Speaker 2: And that's part of why I think Jonah hired me

449
00:23:02,359 --> 00:23:03,919
Speaker 2: to say, oh, well, this is the new kind of

450
00:23:03,920 --> 00:23:06,840
Speaker 2: content that is being shared. And you know, we had

451
00:23:06,840 --> 00:23:08,320
Speaker 2: all sorts of theories about exactly.

452
00:23:08,119 --> 00:23:09,760
Speaker 3: What kind of news would be shared on there.

453
00:23:09,800 --> 00:23:12,320
Speaker 2: The abdominant theory was that it would be positive news

454
00:23:12,320 --> 00:23:14,760
Speaker 2: that reflected well on the person sharing it, you know,

455
00:23:14,800 --> 00:23:18,160
Speaker 2: appeals for earthquake relief and thoughtful Atlantic articles and things

456
00:23:18,440 --> 00:23:20,960
Speaker 2: and new information that would make you look like, oh look,

457
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:23,879
Speaker 2: I'm a smart person sharing new information, but certainly not

458
00:23:23,960 --> 00:23:26,240
Speaker 2: things that made you look like you were a screaming lunatic.

459
00:23:26,560 --> 00:23:28,639
Speaker 2: So obviously we were wrong about that, but there was

460
00:23:28,680 --> 00:23:31,119
Speaker 2: also you know, it was a moment which is this

461
00:23:31,200 --> 00:23:33,600
Speaker 2: is very hard to remember, but when for a lot

462
00:23:33,640 --> 00:23:36,160
Speaker 2: of people, the idea that you had this feed on

463
00:23:36,200 --> 00:23:39,800
Speaker 2: Facebook in which there was news and pictures of babies

464
00:23:39,920 --> 00:23:43,159
Speaker 2: and funny memes all mixed together was kind of cool,

465
00:23:43,680 --> 00:23:47,240
Speaker 2: and BuzzFeed really launched as a all purpose content provider

466
00:23:47,680 --> 00:23:48,520
Speaker 2: to that channel.

467
00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:51,920
Speaker 1: Within that mix, you assembled a group of very talented

468
00:23:51,960 --> 00:23:56,359
Speaker 1: reporters that did some really interesting important work. I mentioned

469
00:23:56,359 --> 00:23:58,960
Speaker 1: earlier a Pulitzer. I think that was for China's treatment

470
00:23:58,960 --> 00:23:59,800
Speaker 1: of Wigers.

471
00:24:00,440 --> 00:24:02,400
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean we both wre ate new media companies

472
00:24:02,400 --> 00:24:04,800
Speaker 2: that won Pulitzers. You at the Huffington Posts both really

473
00:24:04,840 --> 00:24:10,000
Speaker 2: for spectacular journalism that absolutely deserved it. And also now

474
00:24:10,040 --> 00:24:11,919
Speaker 2: when I see that a new media company is one

475
00:24:11,920 --> 00:24:14,240
Speaker 2: of Pulitzer, it's like set your clock for the laughs.

476
00:24:15,160 --> 00:24:17,880
Speaker 2: I mean prizes. Don't get me started on these prizes anyway.

477
00:24:18,119 --> 00:24:20,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, Yeah, the Pulitzer we got a Huffing to Post

478
00:24:20,200 --> 00:24:23,600
Speaker 1: was a series I edited on wounded war veterans Treated

479
00:24:23,600 --> 00:24:26,240
Speaker 1: when it came Home, And you know that was probably

480
00:24:26,400 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 1: almost p cuff post around that point in time. You know,

481
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:33,520
Speaker 1: you had some controversy around publishing the Steele dossier. We

482
00:24:33,560 --> 00:24:35,879
Speaker 1: could probably have a whole episode on that. There was

483
00:24:36,280 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: inventive clickbait, there were claims at time of copyright infringement.

484
00:24:40,840 --> 00:24:46,200
Speaker 1: It was a kinetic, complicated stew that you were presiding over.

485
00:24:46,520 --> 00:24:49,320
Speaker 1: And when you look at that now, is there anything

486
00:24:49,320 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 1: you would have done differently? Looking back at how you

487
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:53,679
Speaker 1: launched yourself into that.

488
00:24:53,920 --> 00:24:56,720
Speaker 2: I mean all sorts of things, almost too many to name,

489
00:24:56,800 --> 00:25:00,120
Speaker 2: but to me, the core that this sort of social

490
00:25:00,160 --> 00:25:05,680
Speaker 2: distribution would keep growing and would inevitably become a solid business,

491
00:25:05,760 --> 00:25:09,640
Speaker 2: because the business really got shaky long before the audience did.

492
00:25:09,720 --> 00:25:10,240
Speaker 3: In a way.

493
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:13,119
Speaker 2: There was one year, maybe it was twenty seventeen, when

494
00:25:13,119 --> 00:25:16,520
Speaker 2: suddenly BuzzFeed News was getting checks from Facebook, from Twitter,

495
00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 2: from Snapchat, and I was like, oh, this is sort

496
00:25:18,880 --> 00:25:20,639
Speaker 2: of what Jonah saw coming. We're going to become a

497
00:25:20,840 --> 00:25:26,199
Speaker 2: content provider to these new, stable, permanent tubes. And then

498
00:25:26,240 --> 00:25:28,680
Speaker 2: that really evaporated, and so I think the business thesis,

499
00:25:29,600 --> 00:25:31,840
Speaker 2: you just could not have supported news at the sort

500
00:25:31,840 --> 00:25:33,399
Speaker 2: of quality and level we were producing it, and I

501
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:35,360
Speaker 2: think we would have stayed much much smaller. I mean,

502
00:25:35,359 --> 00:25:36,679
Speaker 2: that's sort of what they were trying to do at

503
00:25:36,720 --> 00:25:39,719
Speaker 2: the end. I think the advertising business around news or

504
00:25:39,800 --> 00:25:42,360
Speaker 2: the business of news very different from the business of entertainment,

505
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:45,919
Speaker 2: and we didn't serve ourselves well by trying to bundle

506
00:25:45,920 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 2: them together. But I think these are sort of slightly

507
00:25:48,800 --> 00:25:51,919
Speaker 2: I don't know, technical points, but yeah. Then the bigger

508
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:54,680
Speaker 2: point was just the culture shifted a lot, and come

509
00:25:54,760 --> 00:25:57,359
Speaker 2: twenty fifteen, in the rise of this global wave of

510
00:25:57,440 --> 00:26:00,480
Speaker 2: right wing populism represented in the US by Trump, that

511
00:26:00,640 --> 00:26:03,840
Speaker 2: this notion that your Facebook feed is this fund melange,

512
00:26:04,000 --> 00:26:08,080
Speaker 2: the stew that I am happily stirring of memes and

513
00:26:08,119 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 2: news and stuff from your friends turns into this absolute nightmare.

514
00:26:12,840 --> 00:26:15,720
Speaker 2: A lot of people who had enjoyed it stop enjoying it.

515
00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:19,040
Speaker 2: That was a turn that I just absolutely didn't see coming.

516
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:21,720
Speaker 1: Let's pause there for a second while we take another

517
00:26:22,160 --> 00:26:24,320
Speaker 1: break and hear from our sponsors, and then we'll come

518
00:26:24,400 --> 00:26:33,080
Speaker 1: right back. We're back with Ben Smith, author of Traffic Genius,

519
00:26:33,160 --> 00:26:37,040
Speaker 1: Rivalry and Delusion, and the billion dollar Raise to Go Viral. Ben,

520
00:26:37,080 --> 00:26:39,399
Speaker 1: we're just talking about what worked and what didn't work

521
00:26:39,960 --> 00:26:42,879
Speaker 1: for you during your time at BuzzFeed. Why do you

522
00:26:42,920 --> 00:26:48,879
Speaker 1: think other enterprises have outlasted BuzzFeed, whether that's Politico Insider

523
00:26:49,200 --> 00:26:51,840
Speaker 1: or even the New York Times. What gave them greater

524
00:26:51,920 --> 00:26:52,639
Speaker 1: staying power?

525
00:26:52,920 --> 00:26:54,760
Speaker 2: I mean, I think these are business stories, and each

526
00:26:54,800 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 2: just specific. Politico developed a very specific business to business

527
00:26:58,400 --> 00:27:03,040
Speaker 2: product in Washington that served lobbyists and other sort of

528
00:27:03,080 --> 00:27:07,600
Speaker 2: interested parties really high quality information about what was happening.

529
00:27:07,640 --> 00:27:09,959
Speaker 2: And I mean they build a really great business and

530
00:27:10,280 --> 00:27:14,119
Speaker 2: Insider got acquired. One of our investors at BuzzFeed who

531
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:16,760
Speaker 2: read the book called me up afterward and said, you know,

532
00:27:16,800 --> 00:27:19,160
Speaker 2: this could have been a lot shorter book because the

533
00:27:19,160 --> 00:27:21,399
Speaker 2: theme of this book is you should say yes to

534
00:27:21,440 --> 00:27:22,240
Speaker 2: your first offer.

535
00:27:23,680 --> 00:27:24,640
Speaker 3: Just just publish that.

536
00:27:25,240 --> 00:27:27,200
Speaker 1: When Bob Eiger called, I just say yeah, yeah.

537
00:27:27,200 --> 00:27:28,479
Speaker 2: And then I think, you know, if you look at

538
00:27:28,480 --> 00:27:31,800
Speaker 2: the companies you mentioned, many of them not the time.

539
00:27:31,880 --> 00:27:35,400
Speaker 2: So Business Insider sold at its peak, and so it's

540
00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:37,680
Speaker 2: operating in a different environment. I mean, I think vox

541
00:27:37,760 --> 00:27:40,679
Speaker 2: Media is the one story of a company that you know,

542
00:27:40,760 --> 00:27:43,280
Speaker 2: evaluation is probably a quarter what it was, but you know,

543
00:27:43,280 --> 00:27:46,479
Speaker 2: it's been less ideological in some ways about representing the

544
00:27:46,520 --> 00:27:50,480
Speaker 2: future and more careful and frugal and tactical about kind

545
00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 2: of steering through these shoals, and has survived and done

546
00:27:53,680 --> 00:27:54,480
Speaker 2: better than the others.

547
00:27:54,640 --> 00:27:58,280
Speaker 1: I also think specificity matters in terms of subject matter.

548
00:27:58,680 --> 00:28:03,280
Speaker 1: I think in a very noise z kinetic world where

549
00:28:03,280 --> 00:28:08,920
Speaker 1: people are looking for specific funnels of valuable information or insights,

550
00:28:09,640 --> 00:28:13,920
Speaker 1: they're now picking and choosing around things that they care

551
00:28:13,960 --> 00:28:16,000
Speaker 1: about deeply if they're going to pay for them.

552
00:28:16,359 --> 00:28:18,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that maybe I guess you should talk

553
00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 2: to the folks at the Daily Mail about that. I

554
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,320
Speaker 2: think there are great general interest media businesses and very

555
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,080
Speaker 2: specific ones like Gawker that crashed and burned.

556
00:28:25,400 --> 00:28:26,440
Speaker 3: I think it's complicated.

557
00:28:26,520 --> 00:28:27,720
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, I would say that I think the

558
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:31,359
Speaker 1: Daily Mail specific business is gossip, as was Gawker's. I

559
00:28:31,440 --> 00:28:33,720
Speaker 1: just think the Daily Mail built it in a different

560
00:28:33,760 --> 00:28:36,560
Speaker 1: way than Gawker did. And I'm not saying shame on Goker.

561
00:28:36,600 --> 00:28:39,880
Speaker 1: Oh Gocker was stupid. I'm just saying they evolved in

562
00:28:39,920 --> 00:28:43,000
Speaker 1: different ways and the Daily Mail had a footing in

563
00:28:43,080 --> 00:28:45,840
Speaker 1: its specialty, which is gossip. But they both were in gossip.

564
00:28:46,200 --> 00:28:49,360
Speaker 1: One lasted what and didn't you know Insider did get

565
00:28:49,400 --> 00:28:51,320
Speaker 1: bought out. But they also said we are going to

566
00:28:51,360 --> 00:28:55,840
Speaker 1: basically be a cheeky, contemporary take on the business world

567
00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,600
Speaker 1: and nothing else for a time. For a time. Yeah,

568
00:29:00,040 --> 00:29:01,959
Speaker 1: you know, The Times is an argument against all of that,

569
00:29:02,040 --> 00:29:05,160
Speaker 1: because it's the last great general interest platform. Were one

570
00:29:05,160 --> 00:29:08,000
Speaker 1: of the last great general interest platforms. But I do

571
00:29:08,080 --> 00:29:10,840
Speaker 1: think again, longevity is an interesting thing for me as

572
00:29:10,880 --> 00:29:14,440
Speaker 1: a leavening force for thinking about strategy and thinking about

573
00:29:14,480 --> 00:29:17,080
Speaker 1: content and media and what goes. I'm not saying that

574
00:29:17,080 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: that is the only lens, but it's a useful one.

575
00:29:19,680 --> 00:29:23,400
Speaker 1: I think that sometimes cuts past technological change or the

576
00:29:23,440 --> 00:29:26,240
Speaker 1: whims of audiences. But you can also call me out

577
00:29:26,280 --> 00:29:27,800
Speaker 1: for being entirely well well.

578
00:29:27,600 --> 00:29:29,160
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, tell it to the guys who

579
00:29:29,200 --> 00:29:32,160
Speaker 2: got into radio. There was somebody saying to them, this

580
00:29:32,280 --> 00:29:35,080
Speaker 2: is just some new technological fad. Don't get all bent

581
00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,240
Speaker 2: out of shape about that. And there are these sort

582
00:29:37,240 --> 00:29:39,320
Speaker 2: of eternal truths about what we're doing and what we're

583
00:29:39,320 --> 00:29:41,640
Speaker 2: trying to do. But the distribution matters a lot too.

584
00:29:41,920 --> 00:29:44,960
Speaker 2: I think the people who think that they learned crystal

585
00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:48,760
Speaker 2: clear lessons fighting the last war often get themselves into

586
00:29:48,760 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 2: trouble in the next ones. Other people who are out

587
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:53,680
Speaker 2: there building their Magino lines right now.

588
00:29:54,160 --> 00:29:57,400
Speaker 1: But don't you think people aspire at least for screens

589
00:29:57,480 --> 00:30:00,880
Speaker 1: for value amid the noise or lot of information.

590
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:02,200
Speaker 3: So yeah, I think the probst.

591
00:30:02,560 --> 00:30:04,200
Speaker 2: I think one of the things that's so interesting, and

592
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,200
Speaker 2: the reason that sort of the reason that there aren't

593
00:30:06,200 --> 00:30:10,040
Speaker 2: eternal truths is because what consumers need changes so much.

594
00:30:10,040 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 2: In two thousand and five, people were looking for voices

595
00:30:12,760 --> 00:30:15,840
Speaker 2: outside a discredited establishment who spoke to them, who gave

596
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:21,120
Speaker 2: them an alternative access to less hypocritical information, and we're

597
00:30:21,240 --> 00:30:24,560
Speaker 2: thrilled at the notion of having access to thousands of

598
00:30:24,560 --> 00:30:27,760
Speaker 2: new voices and international media that you couldn't previously see.

599
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:31,600
Speaker 2: I think twenty years later, people are totally overwhelmed by

600
00:30:31,600 --> 00:30:34,520
Speaker 2: a deluge of stuff that's impossible to know what to trust,

601
00:30:34,560 --> 00:30:38,920
Speaker 2: who to trust, and are looking for something totally different.

602
00:30:38,960 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 3: Actually, they're looking for.

603
00:30:40,960 --> 00:30:43,800
Speaker 2: Voices, if not of authority, of a kind of trustworthiness.

604
00:30:43,840 --> 00:30:46,400
Speaker 2: They're looking for individuals more than they're looking for institutions,

605
00:30:46,440 --> 00:30:49,520
Speaker 2: which is something different. And I think the opportunity, which

606
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:52,280
Speaker 2: you know exists, a lot of the fundamentals are the

607
00:30:52,320 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 2: same and exists inside a place like The New York Times.

608
00:30:55,200 --> 00:30:57,920
Speaker 2: But I think what people who care about news are

609
00:30:57,960 --> 00:30:59,960
Speaker 2: looking for in a given moment is so related to

610
00:31:00,160 --> 00:31:00,520
Speaker 2: the moment.

611
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: But we've seen as well within that reality. I agree

612
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 1: with you about that. Is this push now towards subscription models,

613
00:31:07,560 --> 00:31:10,600
Speaker 1: which aren't really about scale. Some people can scale a

614
00:31:10,640 --> 00:31:13,560
Speaker 1: subscription model, I mean, you need to to make money,

615
00:31:13,840 --> 00:31:15,920
Speaker 1: but they're not scale in the way that the free

616
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:16,760
Speaker 1: web would scale.

617
00:31:17,240 --> 00:31:19,800
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's not scale for the sake of scale, and

618
00:31:19,800 --> 00:31:23,400
Speaker 2: it pushes you toward a clearer identity, a clearer relationship

619
00:31:23,400 --> 00:31:25,640
Speaker 2: with your audience, something BuzzFeed never have, that's for sure.

620
00:31:25,680 --> 00:31:27,360
Speaker 2: But I do think one of the interesting things you've

621
00:31:27,400 --> 00:31:30,720
Speaker 2: seen in the last eighteen months, I mean, I'm always

622
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:34,240
Speaker 2: skeptical when journalists get ideological about business models like this

623
00:31:34,320 --> 00:31:37,479
Speaker 2: is hard enough work being ideological about, you know, the truth,

624
00:31:37,920 --> 00:31:41,400
Speaker 2: without then getting all ideological about whether subscriptions are advertising

625
00:31:41,440 --> 00:31:42,080
Speaker 2: or better models.

626
00:31:42,120 --> 00:31:44,400
Speaker 3: And you're seeing a lot of companies that.

627
00:31:44,440 --> 00:31:47,280
Speaker 2: Bought fully into the idea that subscriptions are sort of

628
00:31:47,440 --> 00:31:50,360
Speaker 2: you know, the road, the path to heaven, realizing that

629
00:31:50,400 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 2: the incremental next subscription is always more expensive, and that

630
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:55,320
Speaker 2: the ad business is actually kind of a great business,

631
00:31:55,320 --> 00:31:57,720
Speaker 2: and you're seeing a lot of people, including your employer,

632
00:31:57,760 --> 00:31:58,840
Speaker 2: are kind of tacked that way.

633
00:31:59,320 --> 00:32:02,000
Speaker 1: Well, I think the realities are sort of unless you're

634
00:32:02,120 --> 00:32:05,640
Speaker 1: privately funded as a nonprofit, putting that aside, like the

635
00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:09,040
Speaker 1: pro publicans of the world, If you're trying to fund yourself,

636
00:32:09,200 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: it's either going to be through subscriptions or through advertising.

637
00:32:12,680 --> 00:32:14,680
Speaker 1: There are a lot of other options you can do.

638
00:32:14,760 --> 00:32:16,160
Speaker 1: Events you guys are experimenting.

639
00:32:16,640 --> 00:32:19,480
Speaker 2: Actually, I think if you look at really mature successful

640
00:32:19,520 --> 00:32:22,040
Speaker 2: media companies like Disney and you say, hey, what business

641
00:32:22,080 --> 00:32:24,240
Speaker 2: are they in The answer is always, well, they have

642
00:32:24,280 --> 00:32:27,760
Speaker 2: thirteen different revenue lines and they manage each of them

643
00:32:27,800 --> 00:32:29,880
Speaker 2: like really really well. And you should like talk to

644
00:32:29,920 --> 00:32:32,280
Speaker 2: the guy who runs cruises. He's really brilliant. I mean,

645
00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:34,640
Speaker 2: I think it's a pretty tough, complicated business. And I

646
00:32:34,640 --> 00:32:36,880
Speaker 2: think this is actually why it was such a mistake

647
00:32:36,960 --> 00:32:39,360
Speaker 2: for these venture capitalists to dive into the media business.

648
00:32:39,800 --> 00:32:42,280
Speaker 2: Is it's just not a I figured one thing out

649
00:32:42,320 --> 00:32:45,040
Speaker 2: and now I'm going to scale infinitely business. It's a

650
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:49,000
Speaker 2: business where great entrepreneurs who figure out a series of

651
00:32:49,040 --> 00:32:51,080
Speaker 2: revenue lines can build good businesses.

652
00:32:51,680 --> 00:32:52,960
Speaker 3: But not Facebook.

653
00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:55,440
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's interesting, right, because Facebook was going to

654
00:32:55,640 --> 00:32:58,160
Speaker 1: rule the world. It was the sun God of social media,

655
00:32:58,600 --> 00:33:03,840
Speaker 1: and it basically ignored subscription models, as did Twitter, as

656
00:33:03,840 --> 00:33:06,720
Speaker 1: did Google. You know, viral sites that didn't have another

657
00:33:06,840 --> 00:33:10,120
Speaker 1: reliable revenue stream or revenue stream that they could control,

658
00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:13,480
Speaker 1: or as you pointed out, multiple ideally multiple revenue streams

659
00:33:13,480 --> 00:33:15,760
Speaker 1: from different types of businesses, just like banks do.

660
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:18,720
Speaker 2: Yeah, these are very unsexy businesses. We all got into

661
00:33:18,720 --> 00:33:21,480
Speaker 2: the idea that business was all about one weird trick,

662
00:33:21,640 --> 00:33:23,200
Speaker 2: and I just think that's not the news business.

663
00:33:23,440 --> 00:33:26,320
Speaker 1: It's not the news business. But you know, substack has

664
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:29,800
Speaker 1: come in with another model of very sort of curated

665
00:33:29,880 --> 00:33:35,440
Speaker 1: subscriptions to curated expertise. Obviously Bloomberg has the most rarefied

666
00:33:35,480 --> 00:33:39,200
Speaker 1: and expensive subscription model at all. It's curious to me,

667
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:41,560
Speaker 1: I think, at the end of the day, is your

668
00:33:41,680 --> 00:33:45,440
Speaker 1: view of this, Try both advertising and subscription and see

669
00:33:45,480 --> 00:33:49,520
Speaker 1: what works out, or you don't see the business itself

670
00:33:49,560 --> 00:33:55,280
Speaker 1: getting formed in very basic ways around which model you choose,

671
00:33:55,400 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 1: because it shapes how people engage with what you are

672
00:33:58,800 --> 00:34:01,560
Speaker 1: and the type of and information you provide.

673
00:34:01,680 --> 00:34:03,400
Speaker 2: You know, I think if you look at the kinds

674
00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:06,480
Speaker 2: of news businesses and media businesses and not exactly the

675
00:34:06,480 --> 00:34:10,759
Speaker 2: same thing, but related that have endured, you see people

676
00:34:10,800 --> 00:34:14,839
Speaker 2: who aren't getting ideological about their revenue models, who want

677
00:34:14,880 --> 00:34:17,239
Speaker 2: to do in our case, you know, journalism with a

678
00:34:17,239 --> 00:34:22,279
Speaker 2: lot of integrity and have creative, smart business operators who

679
00:34:22,320 --> 00:34:24,360
Speaker 2: are looking for ways to make money doing that. And

680
00:34:24,400 --> 00:34:27,240
Speaker 2: if it's selling tickets to events or sponsorships of events,

681
00:34:27,280 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 2: if it's selling subscriptions, if it's branding news stands and airports,

682
00:34:32,400 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 2: you know, each of these things, by the way, can

683
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:37,200
Speaker 2: be really corrupting every one of these revenue models. Subscriptions

684
00:34:37,239 --> 00:34:40,719
Speaker 2: can kind of turn you into this lunatic Alex Jones. No,

685
00:34:40,800 --> 00:34:43,160
Speaker 2: he was selling supplements. That's another one. But you know,

686
00:34:43,239 --> 00:34:46,560
Speaker 2: pandering to the most extreme members of your audience. Advertising

687
00:34:46,600 --> 00:34:48,799
Speaker 2: can just bribe you. I mean, there's all sorts of

688
00:34:48,800 --> 00:34:51,040
Speaker 2: temptations in all of these. But I think if you

689
00:34:51,040 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 2: look at the enduring business, I mean, the New York

690
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:54,600
Speaker 2: Times is a great example. They're in a lot of

691
00:34:54,640 --> 00:34:58,040
Speaker 2: different businesses. They're being opportunistic and aggressive about making money

692
00:34:58,360 --> 00:35:01,600
Speaker 2: and saving the kind ofology for the work.

693
00:35:01,440 --> 00:35:04,000
Speaker 1: And also having what they define its quality for sure,

694
00:35:04,040 --> 00:35:08,360
Speaker 1: and making quality a leading weapon in its competitive strategy

695
00:35:08,400 --> 00:35:12,320
Speaker 1: and funding and organizing itself around quality as opposed to sensationalism.

696
00:35:12,600 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: Allah Alex Jones.

697
00:35:13,800 --> 00:35:17,480
Speaker 2: But again, there are other media, very successful media enterprises

698
00:35:17,480 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 2: that have always defined themselves by sensation.

699
00:35:20,320 --> 00:35:22,160
Speaker 1: At the very end of your book, you have what

700
00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:25,759
Speaker 1: reads to me to be remorse from a guy I've

701
00:35:25,800 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: never known to be particularly remorseful, and I just want

702
00:35:28,680 --> 00:35:32,360
Speaker 1: to read this back to you. Gasoline can create useful energy,

703
00:35:32,760 --> 00:35:35,919
Speaker 1: but it can also simply burn. And by twenty twenty three,

704
00:35:36,120 --> 00:35:38,360
Speaker 1: it seemed clear that the power of this new social

705
00:35:38,440 --> 00:35:42,160
Speaker 1: energy had been to destroy any institution, from the media

706
00:35:42,239 --> 00:35:45,560
Speaker 1: to the political establishment that it touched. Those of us

707
00:35:45,560 --> 00:35:49,200
Speaker 1: who work in the media, politics, and technology are largely

708
00:35:49,239 --> 00:35:52,280
Speaker 1: concerned now with figuring out how to hold these failing

709
00:35:52,320 --> 00:35:55,800
Speaker 1: institutions together or to build new ones that are resistant

710
00:35:55,800 --> 00:35:59,640
Speaker 1: to the forces we helped unleash. Talk to me a

711
00:35:59,640 --> 00:36:04,840
Speaker 1: little bit about that provocative, important statement you wrote in

712
00:36:04,880 --> 00:36:05,239
Speaker 1: your book.

713
00:36:05,320 --> 00:36:07,239
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I guess I think remorse is about right,

714
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:09,399
Speaker 2: I guess, except that I wouldn't and I wouldn't give

715
00:36:09,400 --> 00:36:11,560
Speaker 2: myself too much credit as a sort of central actor

716
00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:11,799
Speaker 2: in this.

717
00:36:12,040 --> 00:36:14,000
Speaker 3: But you were there.

718
00:36:13,840 --> 00:36:16,960
Speaker 2: Too at that in these early utopian moments of digital media,

719
00:36:17,480 --> 00:36:20,480
Speaker 2: we really thought we were going to destroy this sclerotic,

720
00:36:21,160 --> 00:36:24,399
Speaker 2: corrupt old media and build something new and better, and.

721
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:26,520
Speaker 3: Well, like we got half of that done.

722
00:36:27,040 --> 00:36:30,680
Speaker 2: And I think power, particularly of social media, I think

723
00:36:30,680 --> 00:36:35,080
Speaker 2: to discredit institutions is something that we're just like really

724
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:38,439
Speaker 2: still just starting to reckon with. How do you have

725
00:36:38,760 --> 00:36:42,720
Speaker 2: a CDC when all of the dumb things the CDC

726
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:45,520
Speaker 2: probably always did, and all the mistakes they always made

727
00:36:45,920 --> 00:36:49,760
Speaker 2: are totally visible, like much less a bunch of idiots

728
00:36:49,800 --> 00:36:52,359
Speaker 2: running around trying to report the news all day. We're

729
00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:54,560
Speaker 2: bad enough at it when nobody was watching and catching

730
00:36:54,600 --> 00:36:57,439
Speaker 2: us in all our errors, And now people can watch

731
00:36:57,440 --> 00:36:59,440
Speaker 2: in real time as journalists sort of fumble in a

732
00:36:59,480 --> 00:37:00,720
Speaker 2: messy way toward the truth.

733
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:03,960
Speaker 1: Well and his institutions make mistakes, and people are so

734
00:37:04,080 --> 00:37:06,560
Speaker 1: much more unforgiving of other people's mistakes than they are

735
00:37:06,560 --> 00:37:09,120
Speaker 1: of their own, and they're so visible, And then it's

736
00:37:09,120 --> 00:37:12,160
Speaker 1: easy to become a faux expert, an instant expert on

737
00:37:12,320 --> 00:37:16,800
Speaker 1: complicated subjects, whether it's public health or politics or anything,

738
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 1: and it becomes easy to throw.

739
00:37:19,040 --> 00:37:23,160
Speaker 2: But it's also easy to pretend kind of expertise. The

740
00:37:23,320 --> 00:37:25,879
Speaker 2: sort of mystique of institutions. I mean, I think about

741
00:37:25,880 --> 00:37:28,080
Speaker 2: this a lot with journalistic institutions, Like when I was

742
00:37:28,120 --> 00:37:31,920
Speaker 2: a cops reporter at the Indianapolis Star and some news

743
00:37:31,960 --> 00:37:34,520
Speaker 2: came in that somebody had been shot, and we'd hear

744
00:37:34,560 --> 00:37:36,560
Speaker 2: something on the scanner that probably wasn't quite right, and

745
00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:38,720
Speaker 2: we'd call the cops. They'd give us like the wrong

746
00:37:38,800 --> 00:37:40,600
Speaker 2: name because they were still figuring it out. They would

747
00:37:40,600 --> 00:37:43,040
Speaker 2: go to the wrong address and knock on the wrong door,

748
00:37:43,719 --> 00:37:45,600
Speaker 2: and by the next morning we'd more or less have

749
00:37:45,600 --> 00:37:47,920
Speaker 2: figured it out. But that process through the day was

750
00:37:47,920 --> 00:37:51,200
Speaker 2: a total mess, and now people see us doing it

751
00:37:51,200 --> 00:37:53,240
Speaker 2: through the day and say, wow, these people are total idiots.

752
00:37:53,239 --> 00:37:55,200
Speaker 2: And of course we were always idiots, it's just that

753
00:37:56,000 --> 00:37:56,799
Speaker 2: now you can see it.

754
00:37:57,160 --> 00:38:00,120
Speaker 1: And although you know, the misspellings of people's names that

755
00:38:00,120 --> 00:38:02,000
Speaker 1: you could make as a young reporter on a smaller

756
00:38:02,040 --> 00:38:05,359
Speaker 1: paper that you learn from and weren't in public view

757
00:38:05,400 --> 00:38:07,319
Speaker 1: or now in public view the very second you make

758
00:38:07,360 --> 00:38:11,080
Speaker 1: those mistakes, which you know, maybe a self regulating mechanism,

759
00:38:11,080 --> 00:38:14,000
Speaker 1: but it also requires an audience to be more tolerant

760
00:38:14,000 --> 00:38:14,440
Speaker 1: than most.

761
00:38:14,280 --> 00:38:15,440
Speaker 3: People are understanding.

762
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:17,000
Speaker 1: The other thing I wanted to get at in that

763
00:38:17,040 --> 00:38:19,880
Speaker 1: paragraph that I read back to you is that, and

764
00:38:19,920 --> 00:38:21,800
Speaker 1: you know you mentioned it earlier that the sort of

765
00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:26,600
Speaker 1: utopian web idea when BuzzFeed was in its infancy, people

766
00:38:26,600 --> 00:38:30,040
Speaker 1: would post happy stories about positive things, and you'd fill

767
00:38:30,080 --> 00:38:34,000
Speaker 1: them with accounts of constructive, positive social change, and in

768
00:38:34,040 --> 00:38:37,200
Speaker 1: the end a significant, if not an overweening, part of

769
00:38:37,239 --> 00:38:42,200
Speaker 1: the web became a cesspool. And that Facebook discovered that

770
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 1: hate speech or divisive language or confrontation was more engaging

771
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:52,080
Speaker 1: for people than positive dialogue, and then not only recognize

772
00:38:52,120 --> 00:38:54,520
Speaker 1: that and saw with this Pandora's box they'd opened up,

773
00:38:54,760 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: but began building algorithms that took advantage of that and

774
00:38:58,120 --> 00:39:02,319
Speaker 1: helped give it momentum. It obviously invaded our politics. It

775
00:39:02,360 --> 00:39:04,840
Speaker 1: became embodied, I think in the Trump candidacy and the

776
00:39:04,840 --> 00:39:07,680
Speaker 1: Trump administration, but it was much broader than either of

777
00:39:07,760 --> 00:39:10,720
Speaker 1: those two things. Can that be bottled back up again?

778
00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:13,319
Speaker 1: Or maybe it's just good that it's out there and

779
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:14,160
Speaker 1: we have to deal with it.

780
00:39:14,400 --> 00:39:14,440
Speaker 2: No.

781
00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:15,719
Speaker 3: I think Facebook has moved on.

782
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:17,600
Speaker 2: I saw I studied today saying, you know, the news

783
00:39:17,640 --> 00:39:20,640
Speaker 2: and information are almost entirely gone from Facebook. When I

784
00:39:20,680 --> 00:39:23,520
Speaker 2: opened my Facebook, it's pictures of my friends kids and

785
00:39:23,680 --> 00:39:26,279
Speaker 2: videos of cats, with the big change being now that

786
00:39:26,320 --> 00:39:29,160
Speaker 2: they're videos. But I think Facebook was kind of slow

787
00:39:29,200 --> 00:39:31,680
Speaker 2: to this realization. But in fact, it realized they'd sort

788
00:39:31,719 --> 00:39:35,759
Speaker 2: of turned themselves into this toxic place and alienated a

789
00:39:35,840 --> 00:39:38,800
Speaker 2: huge share of their audience and are trying to wriggle

790
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:40,640
Speaker 2: away from that. But it's hard, I think with a

791
00:39:40,680 --> 00:39:42,600
Speaker 2: social network once you've lost people to bring.

792
00:39:42,400 --> 00:39:43,000
Speaker 3: Them back ever.

793
00:39:43,719 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 2: But yeah, but I think, you know, it's funny say algorithms.

794
00:39:45,480 --> 00:39:46,640
Speaker 2: I mean, in the book, one of the moments that

795
00:39:46,640 --> 00:39:49,560
Speaker 2: I always think about is it BuzzFeed, partly because Jonah

796
00:39:49,600 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 2: had these relationships with Facebook, partly as we were good

797
00:39:52,120 --> 00:39:54,560
Speaker 2: at thinking the way they thought. We didn't treat Facebook

798
00:39:54,600 --> 00:39:56,960
Speaker 2: as some black box. It's not black box, a bunch

799
00:39:56,960 --> 00:39:59,280
Speaker 2: of people making decisions and trying to serve their audience,

800
00:40:00,160 --> 00:40:03,759
Speaker 2: their audience consuming their product a little longer. These algorithms

801
00:40:03,800 --> 00:40:06,479
Speaker 2: are not always that complicated, Like one of the big

802
00:40:06,520 --> 00:40:10,160
Speaker 2: shifts was to a system that made comments more important

803
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:11,839
Speaker 2: as a factor of whether you got promoted, and at

804
00:40:11,840 --> 00:40:14,400
Speaker 2: some point somebody whispered to us that one comment was

805
00:40:14,400 --> 00:40:17,640
Speaker 2: equivalent to four likes. That's not some kind of complicated

806
00:40:17,640 --> 00:40:20,880
Speaker 2: mathematical formula that you need a PhD to understand, And

807
00:40:20,960 --> 00:40:24,000
Speaker 2: very little of this stuff is. That's just a fairly

808
00:40:24,040 --> 00:40:28,640
Speaker 2: straightforward system working in a way that's quite easy to understand.

809
00:40:28,760 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 2: But in that case, what it meant was the thing

810
00:40:31,600 --> 00:40:34,080
Speaker 2: that gets privileged is like I post a racist meme,

811
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:37,920
Speaker 2: you write you are a racist, and then I say no,

812
00:40:38,000 --> 00:40:40,279
Speaker 2: you're a racist, and then the algorithm says, wow, look

813
00:40:40,280 --> 00:40:42,359
Speaker 2: at this incredible engagement, shows it to every one each

814
00:40:42,400 --> 00:40:43,880
Speaker 2: of us knows immediately.

815
00:40:43,719 --> 00:40:45,440
Speaker 1: And then they all get to jump into the comment

816
00:40:45,480 --> 00:40:47,919
Speaker 1: stream too. Yeah, what a good world we live in now.

817
00:40:47,960 --> 00:40:52,400
Speaker 1: Thank you social media. Ben. Nobody escapes crash course without

818
00:40:52,840 --> 00:40:57,000
Speaker 1: sharing a lesson learned with our listeners. So what do

819
00:40:57,080 --> 00:41:00,080
Speaker 1: you know now about digital media that you didn't know

820
00:41:00,200 --> 00:41:03,200
Speaker 1: when you got the BuzzFeed job back in twenty eleven?

821
00:41:03,480 --> 00:41:05,680
Speaker 1: And I remember, I think having lunch with you back

822
00:41:05,719 --> 00:41:07,960
Speaker 1: then to talk through some of your goals for your

823
00:41:08,000 --> 00:41:11,160
Speaker 1: new adventure. So how is the Ben I'm talking to

824
00:41:11,239 --> 00:41:13,840
Speaker 1: on this podcast now different from the Ben I had

825
00:41:13,920 --> 00:41:15,040
Speaker 1: lunch with in twenty eleven.

826
00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:19,960
Speaker 2: I'm much more aware of how long it takes to

827
00:41:19,960 --> 00:41:22,840
Speaker 2: build these things, and so I think, you know, I

828
00:41:22,840 --> 00:41:25,040
Speaker 2: would never try to build that fast. I mean, there

829
00:41:25,040 --> 00:41:28,239
Speaker 2: was this opportunity to explode onto these platforms, but I think,

830
00:41:28,280 --> 00:41:30,120
Speaker 2: and you know this could be set of political movements

831
00:41:30,120 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 2: that grew up in these platforms too, that they proved

832
00:41:33,000 --> 00:41:36,040
Speaker 2: incredibly fragile, Like if you look at all these color

833
00:41:36,120 --> 00:41:39,040
Speaker 2: revolutions in the Middle East or something like, the speed

834
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:42,600
Speaker 2: of growth meant that you weren't really building strong connections

835
00:41:43,120 --> 00:41:45,600
Speaker 2: that they could evaporate very quickly. And so I mean,

836
00:41:45,640 --> 00:41:47,400
Speaker 2: I think the hardest thing for me is just resisting

837
00:41:47,480 --> 00:41:49,880
Speaker 2: this impulse to, you know, spend all the money you've

838
00:41:49,960 --> 00:41:51,960
Speaker 2: raised instantly to grow as fast as you can, but

839
00:41:52,040 --> 00:41:55,239
Speaker 2: instead try to do really quality work, connect with an

840
00:41:55,280 --> 00:41:58,279
Speaker 2: audience in a very direct way, move much slower. And

841
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:00,439
Speaker 2: I think one of the lessons of that in them again,

842
00:42:00,560 --> 00:42:03,600
Speaker 2: much more straightforward way, is that you venture capital is

843
00:42:03,680 --> 00:42:06,279
Speaker 2: not probably should not be investing in news.

844
00:42:06,760 --> 00:42:09,560
Speaker 1: Ben, faster than you can eat a BuzzFeed listical, We've

845
00:42:09,600 --> 00:42:11,520
Speaker 1: run out of time. I want to thank you for

846
00:42:11,600 --> 00:42:12,360
Speaker 1: joining us today.

847
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:14,040
Speaker 3: Thank you, Tim. This is fun.

848
00:42:14,680 --> 00:42:17,320
Speaker 1: Ben Smith is the author of a new book, Traffic.

849
00:42:17,800 --> 00:42:20,200
Speaker 1: He's the editor in chief of Semaphore, and you can

850
00:42:20,239 --> 00:42:25,920
Speaker 1: find him on Twitter at semaphore Ben. Here at crash Course,

851
00:42:26,080 --> 00:42:30,279
Speaker 1: we believe the collisions can be messy, impressive, challenging, surprising,

852
00:42:30,800 --> 00:42:35,319
Speaker 1: and always instructive. In today's crash Course, I learned that

853
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,640
Speaker 1: while I think I know what kind of business models

854
00:42:38,680 --> 00:42:42,520
Speaker 1: support good, high quality journalism, maybe I don't know. Maybe

855
00:42:42,520 --> 00:42:45,080
Speaker 1: I'm just stuck in that same little bubble that David

856
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:47,600
Speaker 1: Sarnoff and Bill Paley were stuck in, or maybe the

857
00:42:47,600 --> 00:42:49,799
Speaker 1: same bubble that those people at BuzzFeed were stuck in.

858
00:42:50,560 --> 00:42:53,439
Speaker 1: What did you learn? We'd love to hear from you.

859
00:42:53,440 --> 00:42:56,240
Speaker 1: You can tweet at the Bloomberg Opinion, handle at Opinion

860
00:42:56,640 --> 00:43:00,880
Speaker 1: or me at Tim O'Brien using the hashtag bloom Crash Course.

861
00:43:01,360 --> 00:43:04,240
Speaker 1: You can also subscribe to our show wherever you're listening

862
00:43:04,320 --> 00:43:06,960
Speaker 1: right now and leave us a review. It helps more

863
00:43:07,000 --> 00:43:10,360
Speaker 1: people find the show. This episode was produced by the

864
00:43:10,400 --> 00:43:16,160
Speaker 1: indispensable Annamasarakas, Moses On Dam and Me. Our supervising producer

865
00:43:16,200 --> 00:43:19,560
Speaker 1: is Magnus Hendrickson, and we had editing help from Sage Bauman,

866
00:43:19,920 --> 00:43:24,200
Speaker 1: Katie Boyce, Jeff Grocott, Mike Niza and Christine Van den.

867
00:43:24,239 --> 00:43:28,480
Speaker 1: Bilard Lake Maples does our sound engineering, and our original

868
00:43:28,560 --> 00:43:32,280
Speaker 1: theme song was composed by Luis Gara. I'm Tim O'Brien.

869
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:34,960
Speaker 1: We'll be back next week with another Crash Course