Speaker 1: She checked a lot of boxes in that regard, and
Speaker 1: she knew it, and she worked it, and she worked
Speaker 1: it all the way to the slammer.
Speaker 2: There Are No Girls on the Internet as a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. I'm Bridge Tad and this
Speaker 2: is There Are No Girls on the Internet. You probably
Speaker 2: know the story of Elizabeth Holmes, the scrappy, deep voice
Speaker 2: Stanford dropout who used her college money to start fair Nose,
Speaker 2: a company that promised to disrupt blood testing with the
Speaker 2: use of a device capable of screening for everything from
Speaker 2: cancer to aids with a single drop of blood. She
Speaker 2: even had a piffy little story about how she was
Speaker 2: inspired to start their Nose because she was afraid of
Speaker 2: needles and couldn't stand to let a little prick to
Speaker 2: draw her blood be stronger than she was. Honestly, it's
Speaker 2: kind of a great story and it worked. In twenty fourteen,
Speaker 2: Forbes named Elizabeth Holmes the world's youngest self made female billionaire,
Speaker 2: and by that time Tharaohnose had raised over four hundred
Speaker 2: million dollars in venture capital and was estimated to be
Speaker 2: worth billions. But it was, of course all a scam.
Speaker 2: Pharaohnos's devices could never test blood. Elizabeth Holmes and her
Speaker 2: former partner COO Sonny Balwany played everyone wealthy investors and
Speaker 2: board members, including Rupert Murdoch, former Secretary of Education Bessi Devas,
Speaker 2: and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. The retailed pharmacies
Speaker 2: meant to house the devices, and most importantly, the patients,
Speaker 2: like the mother with a history of miscarriages whom their
Speaker 2: nose devices wrongly told that she would never be able
Speaker 2: to have a baby, someone given a false HIV diagnosis
Speaker 2: who then had to wait months until they could afford
Speaker 2: a follow up test, and someone given a false cancer diagnosis.
Speaker 2: Elizabeth Holmes hurt real people, but that fact did not
Speaker 2: stop her from doing a fluffy profile in the New
Speaker 2: York Times magazine back in May, right as her sentencing
Speaker 2: for fraud was in the headlines called Liz Holmes wants
Speaker 2: you to forget about Elizabeth. I'm sure she does, where
Speaker 2: she soft launches her new nickname, Liz not Elizabeth, and
Speaker 2: gives us the I'm just like you treatment, complete with
Speaker 2: glossy photographs of her cradling her newborn infant in her arms.
Speaker 2: A lah Madonna and child if Madonna had been facing
Speaker 2: jail time now. The piece was pretty universally reviled, and
Speaker 2: with the recent news from last week that Elizabeth Holmes's
Speaker 2: sentence is being quietly shortened by two years, the profile
Speaker 2: seemed like a perfect bookend because Elizabeth Holmes rose to
Speaker 2: prominence with the help of slick media profiles, and it
Speaker 2: left me wondering about the role that those exact profiles
Speaker 2: had in her rise and ultimate fall from grace and
Speaker 2: the business of how those slick media profiles come to be.
Speaker 2: So I turned to an expert.
Speaker 1: Hi, my name is Leah Goldman. I am the deputy
Speaker 1: editorial director of Geomedia. I also run a newsletter, a
Speaker 1: social first newsletter called Hazmat Hotel, which is media analysis
Speaker 1: and criticism, unfiltered, uncensored.
Speaker 2: Whenever I'm looking for like an insidery media hot take,
Speaker 2: I go straight to your feed. You know you've always
Speaker 2: got something interesting to say. How did you get here?
Speaker 1: I've been in media, yeah, since the dawn of time.
Speaker 1: It feels like. I started out in Forbes magazine. I
Speaker 1: was a business reporter. I knew nothing about business, but
Speaker 1: those were the good old days where you could learn
Speaker 1: on the job. You didn't need advanced degree or even
Speaker 1: a j school degree. And I was there for ten
Speaker 1: years and I learned how to write an edit and
Speaker 1: report from some of the smartest people in the game.
Speaker 1: Those were the days where you could get fired for
Speaker 1: a fact checking error, so we were just a very
Speaker 1: buttoned up group. And after that I went over to
Speaker 1: Marie Claire. I wanted to try more general interest magazine,
Speaker 1: and I was very fortunate because it was the you know,
Speaker 1: media had started to coalesce around women's media. There really
Speaker 1: wasn't a formal women's media outside of Jezebel really at
Speaker 1: that point, so I was there. It was pre lean in,
Speaker 1: so I was there at a very formative time, which
Speaker 1: was kind of exciting and also strange because suddenly women
Speaker 1: were hot and in like a business sense right, and
Speaker 1: it was exciting. There was a lot of interest on
Speaker 1: the advertising side, which was unusual, so that was cool.
Speaker 1: I got to do very cool things there. Then I
Speaker 1: went over to run Refinery twenty nine newsroom before I
Speaker 1: got recruited to work in television at A and E,
Speaker 1: which was really the I would say the seminal moment
Speaker 1: in my career because I got to see how the
Speaker 1: other half lives. If you're in media, you know, you
Speaker 1: sort of look over that fence with envy, with lust,
Speaker 1: with your nose pressed against the wall and your tongue
Speaker 1: hanging out. I want to work in. Everybody, whether they'll
Speaker 1: admit it or not, wants the story that gets optioned
Speaker 1: for a movie that becomes argo. And so I got
Speaker 1: to work where those things get made, and I got
Speaker 1: to see how see what that was really like, which
Speaker 1: blew my mind, taught me a lot. I call it
Speaker 1: my business school. I just actually used that phrasing this morning.
Speaker 1: It was my business school in a lot of ways.
Speaker 1: And then decided after that I'm gonna write I'm a writer,
Speaker 1: and I am a writer. And after I left A
Speaker 1: and E, I was working under Nancy Debuke. Nancy went
Speaker 1: over Device, so I had to write out my contract.
Speaker 1: I was writing. I was writing full time, and then
Speaker 1: COVID came and ended up working at Goo, which has
Speaker 1: been its own crazy trip. That's what That's how.
Speaker 2: I got here as a pioneer of women's media especially.
Speaker 2: How have you seen that field evolve?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm always like a little leery of that, of
Speaker 1: being tagged with that, because in fact, there were like
Speaker 1: real pioneers in women's media, not you know, I just
Speaker 1: got lucky to be at an establishment kind of media
Speaker 1: outlet that happened to be in fashion, so in beauty.
Speaker 2: So it was.
Speaker 1: Flush, right, it had resources, which a lot of the
Speaker 1: other like Jezbel didn't have that. So they they you know,
Speaker 1: they all credit where it's due, and it's not Mary
Speaker 1: Claire where it's due. But I will say this, The
Speaker 1: one thing I do, you know, feel like I can
Speaker 1: crow about, I'm proud of it is that when I
Speaker 1: was at Mary Clare, I created the very first dedicated
Speaker 1: section in a women's magazine devoted to career.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: So historically women's magazines would cover it through the lens
Speaker 1: of money and like the big cliche was that credit
Speaker 1: card stuck in a block of ice. That's how we
Speaker 1: talk to women about their careers. It was through like
Speaker 1: how you spend your money and how to be frugal.
Speaker 1: You know. So here was the first time we weren't
Speaker 1: talking about getting to the top. We were talking about
Speaker 1: what it was like at the top, and I think
Speaker 1: that was very new. And so the idea was to
Speaker 1: focus less on the burdens though there were certainly burdens
Speaker 1: and less on the challenges, though there were absolutely challenges
Speaker 1: of getting to the top, but more like, this is
Speaker 1: the view from the top, and this is how you
Speaker 1: can change things once you get there, and this is
Speaker 1: why it's important that you get there. And so when
Speaker 1: it feels like you're ready to quit, or you feel
Speaker 1: like you don't have a shot, or you feel you know, discouraged,
Speaker 1: just remember this is the view from the top.
Speaker 2: To really understand Elizabeth Holmes, you need to understand the
Speaker 2: era where she rose to prominence. The twenty tens were
Speaker 2: just a different time. You kind of had to be there.
Speaker 2: It was a different time for media, a different time
Speaker 2: for women. In twenty thirteen, Facebook's then COO Cheryl Sandberg
Speaker 2: released her book lean In, which was kind of pushed
Speaker 2: as a manifesto for a certain kind of working white lady.
Speaker 2: A year later, in twenty fourteen, Sofia Amoroso, founder of
Speaker 2: the retailer Nasty Gal, releases girl Boss, which is kind
Speaker 2: of the same thing as lean In, but with an alty,
Speaker 2: punk rock diy ethos. That same year, Elizabeth Holmes's media
Speaker 2: attention explodes, Fortune Forbes, t The New York Times Style
Speaker 2: magazine inc. She's not just in these magazines, she's on
Speaker 2: the cover writing about women and work and money and success.
Speaker 2: Just felt hot. It's an era that Leah remembers very well.
Speaker 1: It was an exciting time to be alive. It felt
Speaker 1: like we were on the cusp of something and then
Speaker 1: lo and behold, we were on the cusp of something.
Speaker 2: What was it like to be doing this work through
Speaker 2: so many different eras like the lean In era, the
Speaker 2: girl Boss era, whatever era we're in now. I don't
Speaker 2: even know what the era is that we're telling women
Speaker 2: through media, Like, what is it bed like to see
Speaker 2: all of these different changes?
Speaker 1: You know, it's hard, it's hard to relive the Rah
Speaker 1: Rah era. It definitely felt It definitely felt like we
Speaker 1: were in the hot place, like we were in a
Speaker 1: hot zone that were exciting. There were conferences. Oh my god,
Speaker 1: it was all about the conferences. It was always about
Speaker 1: the fucking conferences. And it was always the same people
Speaker 1: you'd see both on the panels and in the audiences.
Speaker 1: That's what I remember. It was like, Oh she's here again,
Speaker 1: Oh she's here. Like there were just you know, people
Speaker 1: who denizens of these things. So it was like a
Speaker 1: club right, and coming out of Forbes, I never felt
Speaker 1: like I belonged to a club because Forbes really did
Speaker 1: not subscribe to this idea that there was like a
Speaker 1: media community. It always was standoffish about being part of
Speaker 1: a club. And so when I got to Hurst, which
Speaker 1: owned Mary Clare, I wasn't terribly well connected because I didn't,
Speaker 1: you know, it wasn't part of my upbringing, so to speak.
Speaker 1: And so now I was part of a club, and
Speaker 1: people started knocking on my door, and suddenly I'm editing
Speaker 1: Sophia Marusso and suddenly I'm in a off the record
Speaker 1: conversation with Cheryl Samdberg, and it was like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: Like it was cool, you know, and it was fun,
Speaker 1: and it came with all sorts of crazy perks. The downside, obviously,
Speaker 1: is like now in retrospect, we can see how, you know,
Speaker 1: how much of a herd mentality it was. In fact,
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, looking through I always I
Speaker 1: have all my stuff from that period, all my spreadsheets,
Speaker 1: all my contacts, my ROLLO ad act hey, like you
Speaker 1: know Elizabeth Holmes from there, nos, and like it was.
Speaker 2: We were we were or not?
Speaker 1: I could I let me talk for myself, I could
Speaker 1: have done a better job of being more circumspect and
Speaker 1: asking more questions and holding people accountable instead of buying
Speaker 1: into this very heady era for women. And it was
Speaker 1: heady like it was. It was like things, you know,
Speaker 1: it was like the era where Hillary Clinton was going
Speaker 1: to be president and like things were changing, things were afoot.
Speaker 1: So obviously we all are living with the fallout from that,
Speaker 1: you know, that tunnel vision, and I was part of that,
Speaker 1: Like I have to own that I was part of
Speaker 1: that tunnel vision.
Speaker 2: Part of Elizabeth Holmes's success is how she worked media.
Speaker 2: A young blonde Stanford dropout in a black Steve Jobs
Speaker 2: turtleneck who was going to revolutionize blood testing. It was
Speaker 2: just too perfect to pass up, not just for women's media,
Speaker 2: but for media in general.
Speaker 1: I think Elizabeth Holmes checked a lot of boxes for starters,
Speaker 1: like she got it right. She got that for media,
Speaker 1: not just's media, but especially women's media, which could help
Speaker 1: drive a train.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 1: The dirty secret about media even now, right even after
Speaker 1: all the reckonings and the closures, is that we all
Speaker 1: look at each other and we're all like, oh, how
Speaker 1: they get they got the exclusive, or who's on their list.
Speaker 1: And it's not that we're lazy, but we're just like
Speaker 1: always looking over at the other person's like who did
Speaker 1: they get and why did they get that person? I
Speaker 1: need to invite that person to my event. So, you know,
Speaker 1: when you made like if you could get into a
Speaker 1: women's book, if you could get into a women's magazine,
Speaker 1: other we started to notice that other people would put
Speaker 1: these women who we had discovered or we had you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm not talking about there no specific Elizabeth specifically,
Speaker 1: but just generally, you know, they would start to appear
Speaker 1: on other lists. So we felt like we were part
Speaker 1: of the game. And I think she understood that innately
Speaker 1: that she could be a very She was a very
Speaker 1: good shorthand for a certain type of woman that fit
Speaker 1: a very accessible profile. I mean, the most obvious, the
Speaker 1: most obvious billboard for that is her wardrobe, right, Like,
Speaker 1: I'm the female Steve Jobs, Like, you can't get you
Speaker 1: can't get a shorter shorthand than that, right, Like how
Speaker 1: easy to digest is that? So she instantly got how
Speaker 1: to navigate media, which I find fascinating because generally speaking,
Speaker 1: I think tech people in tech and other industries outside
Speaker 1: media still don't get media. But she got it. So
Speaker 1: she got the look, she got the speak, she got
Speaker 1: the way to distill your story and your what your
Speaker 1: company does in a way that made sense for like
Speaker 1: an article that was only three you know, a little
Speaker 1: caption that was only three sentences, or a full on profile.
Speaker 1: So she understood how to you know, she understood how
Speaker 1: to make it sing for a media person. Like when
Speaker 1: we go into I think, you know, it's helpful for
Speaker 1: people to understand how it worked in the magazine business,
Speaker 1: and though it's changed considerably since then, it'll give you
Speaker 1: a sense of why people ended up occupying the spaces
Speaker 1: in you know, in the culture that they did. When
Speaker 1: we would go in to pitch someone for a magazine page,
Speaker 1: it wasn't a done deal. I wouldn't just go in
Speaker 1: and be like, I'm gonna put so and so on
Speaker 1: a page. I had to get approval. I had to
Speaker 1: get my editor's approvally editor and she's approval. So you
Speaker 1: would always walk in with you know, your pitch, you
Speaker 1: want it, and of course you want your pitch to
Speaker 1: get approval. You want your pitch to win. And a
Speaker 1: picture pitch in a picture and you know, and so
Speaker 1: they're looking at it like, oh, I won't do I.
Speaker 1: Is it diverse enough, is it glossy enough? Is it
Speaker 1: you know? Is it gonna work? Like I'm not going
Speaker 1: to bullshit you and pretend that it was very well meaning,
Speaker 1: because there were pieces of it that weren't well meaning.
Speaker 1: There were pieces of it that were like, is this
Speaker 1: gonna look good on a page? And I hate that that's.
Speaker 2: What it was. But it was.
Speaker 1: So she checked a lot of boxes in that regard,
Speaker 1: and she knew it, and she worked it, and she
Speaker 1: worked it all the way to the slammer.
Speaker 3: Let's take a quick break eder back.
Speaker 2: Everyone's heard of fake it till you make it, and
Speaker 2: it's especially a thing in tech and media. Uber famously
Speaker 2: has never turned a profit. But when does fake it
Speaker 2: till you make it cross over from an ethos to
Speaker 2: an actual crime? Just ask the folks at Ozzi Media,
Speaker 2: whose CEO Carlos Watson was arrested earlier this year for
Speaker 2: fraud for allegedly overvaluing his media company's audience in an
Speaker 2: attempt to defraud investors. According to journalist Ben Smith at
Speaker 2: the New York Times, the company COO and co founder
Speaker 2: Samir Rau even went so far As disguising his voice
Speaker 2: to impersonate a YouTube executive on a conference call with
Speaker 2: Goldman Sachs in an attempt to secure a forty million
Speaker 2: dollar investment. Stories like this one and Faranos makes clear
Speaker 2: how much of the shiny, flashy success can just be
Speaker 2: a grift, one that is buttressed by tech press failing
Speaker 2: to peek behind the curtain and ask the right questions,
Speaker 2: questions like what's going on here? How are you making money?
Speaker 2: Is this whole thing legit? Do you think that there
Speaker 2: are ways that there are tech people who are kind
Speaker 2: of playing that game today where you kind of I
Speaker 2: don't want to use the word trick, but you know
Speaker 2: how to play the game. And you know that journalists
Speaker 2: and media folks might also have deadlines, might also want
Speaker 2: their their piece to look a certain way. So they're
Speaker 2: just like, we're not going to ask too many critical questions.
Speaker 2: We're just going to run with this and if it
Speaker 2: turns out to be a scam, well phobe.
Speaker 1: It one hundred percent. This is like when we talk
Speaker 1: about my SO, I like, I I have a nose
Speaker 1: for this. I get to my DNA as much as I,
Speaker 1: you know, often entertain the idea of going into another
Speaker 1: industry like I can't. It just keeps pulling me back in.
Speaker 1: But these this is why, because I often have these
Speaker 1: conversations like I don't understand this, Like I don't understand
Speaker 1: they're there. I get the optics of it, I get
Speaker 1: why it works and why they're getting the press, but
Speaker 1: I don't get there there. And I'm going to tell
Speaker 1: you that Ozzie Media. I was talking about Ozzie Media
Speaker 1: in my for what It's Worth. I mean, I have
Speaker 1: no evidence of this and credit where's due to bed Smith?
Speaker 1: But like I was talking about Azzimedia forever because I
Speaker 1: remember those three years when Ozzi Fest was trying and
Speaker 1: they could never do an actual Azzi Fest. But I
Speaker 1: remember seeing ads on the subway and the tickets were expensive,
Speaker 1: and I was like, who's going to these things? And
Speaker 1: also like, more pressingly, how did they get that talent?
Speaker 1: Because having tried to book events at Hurst and Forbes,
Speaker 1: I know that it's hard to get even one person
Speaker 1: to agree, let alone all those people to agree without
Speaker 1: paying them, So like are they getting paid and if so,
Speaker 1: where's the money coming from? Like I had very like
Speaker 1: basic questions about how this all worked. And so it
Speaker 1: wasn't surprising to me when it was all smoke and mirrors.
Speaker 1: But I have those conversations all the time. There are
Speaker 1: some women and men, but some women in the space
Speaker 1: that I often like, I have this parlor game I
Speaker 1: play with some friends. It's like how does what's It's like,
Speaker 1: how does this person get by? That's the game I play,
Speaker 1: How does this person get by? Because I see I
Speaker 1: see this like world of success and a business, but
Speaker 1: I don't see that business in the wild, right, Like
Speaker 1: I don't see people using the company, the product. I
Speaker 1: don't see the copy, the content. I don't understand how
Speaker 1: it works. And maybe I'm just not that smart or
Speaker 1: maybe I don't understand the business. But like I sometimes
Speaker 1: ask myself, how is that a thing? And then I'm like, oh,
Speaker 1: they're playing a media game. That has to be the
Speaker 1: only answer.
Speaker 2: Well, that really goes back to Elizabeth Elizabeth Holmes, where
Speaker 2: like there is so much fake it till you make it.
Speaker 2: I have that same thing where I look at people.
Speaker 2: It's a lot of men, but not all men, who
Speaker 2: are building media products, right, And it's like part of
Speaker 2: me is like I don't understand how they have this
Speaker 2: much funding, how they have this many people on their masthead,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't seem like people are reading this, like
Speaker 2: are people subscribed? But I just don't know, like how
Speaker 2: is the mathmathing on this? And I do think there's
Speaker 2: this there is this dynamic of people faking it till
Speaker 2: they make it, and you're not supposed to really peek
Speaker 2: behind the curtain because if you did, you might see
Speaker 2: that it's a house of cards or it's a little
Speaker 2: bit of a grift.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely, And now that I'm a little older, a
Speaker 1: little wiser, a little more bruised from you know, certain
Speaker 1: people or things that I myself pushed in those you know,
Speaker 1: raw ra days, I this is partly what I do
Speaker 1: with Hazmat Hotel, is I ask those questions like is
Speaker 1: this really someone we should be covering with this much
Speaker 1: breathless you know, like eye eyes, wide saucer eyes, kind
Speaker 1: of bullishness, or is this something we should be a
Speaker 1: little more skeptical about? And so like the Elizabeth Holmes thing,
Speaker 1: that story that ran recently, the one you know, after
Speaker 1: she'd been convicted, and it was like the Madonna and
Speaker 1: Child picture now like a notorious picture that they ran
Speaker 1: in the business section. If I recall, like, to me,
Speaker 1: that was scandalous, Like I actually, I think it's a
Speaker 1: testament to how fractured media is that it wasn't a
Speaker 1: bigger scandal because that it managed to pass all those
Speaker 1: checkpoints and get not just the coverage but the length.
Speaker 1: Do you know how expensive it is to commission a
Speaker 1: photographer for a shoot like that? There were wardrobe changes
Speaker 1: in that shoot. There was probably a stylist on that shoot.
Speaker 1: Now did Elizabeth Holmes pay for it? I don't know,
Speaker 1: but like we're talking, this was like a resource intensive
Speaker 1: shoot for a newspaper, you know. Over I think it
Speaker 1: was like three jumps front page and then two and
Speaker 1: then spread. So like that's that's an investment of a story.
Speaker 1: And so that response afterwards that like oh it's winking,
Speaker 1: you know, like there's a winking aspect to the store.
Speaker 1: You just don't get the joke. No, no, no, no, no, no no
Speaker 1: no no. We don't do that at the Times, like
Speaker 1: you're not GQ. You don't get you know, like no,
Speaker 1: and also like don't talk down to me that you
Speaker 1: and ps. I love the New York Times. I love
Speaker 1: and hate the New York Times. It's like it's my
Speaker 1: Bete noir. I'm like obsessed with the times, but I
Speaker 1: just felt like that response did not wash with me.
Speaker 1: And I was insulted by that response because I felt like, you,
Speaker 1: of all people, should not go around pretending you're smarter
Speaker 1: than your audience. Like that's not cool, that's not the
Speaker 1: deal we have with each other. That, oh you didn't
Speaker 1: get the joke, it was a winking story. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: Well that bothered me.
Speaker 2: What do you make of that response? Because I read
Speaker 2: the Vanity Fair piece about how the profile came to
Speaker 2: be and they were like, oh, it wasn't a pr piece,
Speaker 2: like it was pitched to us and it was all
Speaker 2: above board. It certainly didn't sound that way. I agree
Speaker 2: with you. But I read another take that was like,
Speaker 2: maybe it's a piece about how easy it is for
Speaker 2: you to get conned and the reporter also got scammed
Speaker 2: by Elizabeth, and it sort of meant to be like
Speaker 2: a like a warning piece about how easy it is
Speaker 2: to fall for a grifter. What do you what do
Speaker 2: you take of that? Of that or what do you
Speaker 2: make of that response?
Speaker 1: Well, this is exactly what I mean when I say,
Speaker 1: you know, the winking aspect of it, and why I
Speaker 1: didn't wash with me for starters like, look, we're in
Speaker 1: an era now where you have a nanosecond. Even The
Speaker 1: Times maybe has two nanoseconds with its audience, like it
Speaker 1: gets the benefit of the doubt. But broadly speaking, like
Speaker 1: we're in an era where the competition for your attention
Speaker 1: is ruthless. So as I tell you know my colleagues
Speaker 1: at GEO and beyond, you don't get the benefit of
Speaker 1: sitting on the reader's shoulder and whispering in their ear.
Speaker 1: It's tongue in cheek. The idea that you have that
Speaker 1: is is ludicrous, it's laughable, and it's ridiculous, Like it's
Speaker 1: on its face it's ridiculous. And in the business section,
Speaker 1: no less, not the style, like all of it just
Speaker 1: didn't was like irritated me that that that's what we're
Speaker 1: going to go out with, that's the that's the narrative
Speaker 1: we're going to go out with. This. It was a
Speaker 1: total come on, It was a total pr thing. Listen,
Speaker 1: if I got a call that said you can have
Speaker 1: the pre jail Elizabeth Holmes for a Q and A
Speaker 1: hell yeah, I would take it. But that's not the issue.
Speaker 1: The issue is not that they took an interview with her.
Speaker 1: It's how it was packaged and how it was and
Speaker 1: how it was delivered to us at this moment in time.
Speaker 1: Her crime maybe not as worse as you know, the
Speaker 1: we work guy, but like according to who right like
Speaker 1: her crime she heard people. She defrauded people. So not
Speaker 1: only is the issue this like you know, this a
Speaker 1: notion that we didn't get the nature of the story,
Speaker 1: but also you're giving three pages of real estate to
Speaker 1: a woman who's had plenty of ink by the way,
Speaker 1: and has been convicted of very serious crimes. Like I
Speaker 1: just that bothers me. For every story you do, there's
Speaker 1: a story you're not doing. We're in the age of
Speaker 1: limited restore for media, like notoriously, these resources are scarce,
Speaker 1: even at a company like The Times, So I forever
Speaker 1: story you're doing, there's a story you're not doing. And
Speaker 1: that's what I spent a lot of time thinking about,
Speaker 1: why did this story pass muster? So like, for example,
Speaker 1: what caught my eye just recently was you know, I
Speaker 1: can't remember if it was Twitter or threads, but Washington,
Speaker 1: the Washington Post was pushing a newsletter about Barbie, which
Speaker 1: blew my fucking mind because Washington Post a newsletter which
Speaker 1: is a separate product that requires resources. It requires some
Speaker 1: engineering support, it requires product support, it requires editorial support,
Speaker 1: so lots of different stakeholders, resource intensive. It has to
Speaker 1: be populated with content, has to have a calendar like
Speaker 1: these are all things that go into something like that
Speaker 1: about Barbie. So that tells me Barbie's doing phenomenal numbers
Speaker 1: for the Washington Post. Otherwise why would they do it?
Speaker 1: Which is interesting given their audience and their and their
Speaker 1: birth right, their remit. That's caught my eye, and I
Speaker 1: just thought I need to hear more about that. I
Speaker 1: need to understand how that came to be.
Speaker 2: How do you sniff it out? Cause you're no one
Speaker 2: is sniffing out these like these questions that need to
Speaker 2: be asked in stories like you what gets your alarm
Speaker 2: bells ringing when you see something you're like, I don't
Speaker 2: know about this, Like I saw your your story about
Speaker 2: Amazon Prime Day and the way that that was getting coverage,
Speaker 2: which I never thought about it before. How all of
Speaker 2: these different publications are like here are the best deals
Speaker 2: for Amazon Prime Day? Even publications that every other day
Speaker 2: are critical of Amazon and their business practices. How do
Speaker 2: you sniff it out when something just doesn't seem right
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: I just I'm obsessed with media, Like I'm a media junkie.
Speaker 1: I sound so stupid when you hear yourself say it,
Speaker 1: But I just love media. I love it and I
Speaker 1: hate it. I'm both tortured by it and obsessed with it.
Speaker 1: And I you know, it's like it's just how I'm
Speaker 1: wired at this point. So how do I sniff it out?
Speaker 1: I don't know. Like I read a lot and I
Speaker 1: ask a lot of questions. It's why I got into
Speaker 1: the business. I'm a curious cat. And I also love
Speaker 1: to talk to people. Love to talk to people and
Speaker 1: find out like what's hurting their business, what they're thinking about,
Speaker 1: who's up and coming in their business, who they're afraid of,
Speaker 1: and if they'll talk to me, I will absolutely talk
Speaker 1: to them. So there's just a lot, you know, I
Speaker 1: guess I'm just interested.
Speaker 2: More After a quick break, let's get right back into
Speaker 2: it today. Part of Leea's work is sniffing it out
Speaker 2: when media stories just don't seem right and more times
Speaker 2: that I'm proud of. Leah's work has challenged me to
Speaker 2: think outside of my own preconceived frameworks. For instance, back
Speaker 2: in May, I came across a viral TikTok purporting to
Speaker 2: show boxes and boxes of books being removed from a
Speaker 2: school library in Florida. Naturally I instantly contextualize this story
Speaker 2: within the larger cond text of book bands happening in
Speaker 2: Florida and across the country. Now, this is obviously a
Speaker 2: real thing that is happening in Florida, but that particular
Speaker 2: thirty second TikTok might not have actually been showing the
Speaker 2: full story. I mean this as a compliment. It might
Speaker 2: not sound like it you often are saying. It's often
Speaker 2: like not what you might think, right, So, like, your
Speaker 2: coverage really challenges me to look beyond my own biases
Speaker 2: or my own understanding of how I think stories come
Speaker 2: together in media, and it doesn't always align with my
Speaker 2: conventional wisdoms or you know, biases or whatever I might
Speaker 2: be thinking. Like, and you do such a good job
Speaker 2: of pulling back the layers to what's actually going on.
Speaker 2: I'm thinking, in particular of that viral TikTok where it
Speaker 2: was like a school library and they had all these
Speaker 2: boxes and boxes of books, and presumably these are books
Speaker 2: that are being removed from the school library because they're
Speaker 2: inappropriate really feeds into the conversation we're all having about
Speaker 2: things like book bands and you know, books being challenged
Speaker 2: in libraries. You called the school or call the library
Speaker 2: to actually ask what's going on. And there was actually
Speaker 2: more to that story than like that thirty second TikTok.
Speaker 2: What have you believe?
Speaker 1: No, yes, I remember that. It feels like a century ago,
Speaker 1: but I think it might have been a month or
Speaker 1: two ago. Yeah, so there was that viral TikTok of
Speaker 1: like two bins filled with books. So there was the
Speaker 1: knee I guess the knee jerk reaction is what usually
Speaker 1: catches my attention, and then I'm like, huh, you know
Speaker 1: in that case, I also like to test myself, right,
Speaker 1: I like to see if I can find a source
Speaker 1: who's going to give me this scoop quickly. So I'm
Speaker 1: always like, if I see that in the morning, I'll
Speaker 1: buy all my goals to get it done by the
Speaker 1: end of the day because I want to be able
Speaker 1: to tell a reporter despite whatever deadlines you have, you
Speaker 1: can usually get a response by the end of the day.
Speaker 1: So part of it is just me staying on my
Speaker 1: toes in that way. It was pretty easy because I
Speaker 1: think it was Broward County and there's like a Department
Speaker 1: of D there, and they put me in touch with
Speaker 1: their comps person, So I did get an answer by
Speaker 1: the end of the day. Now then sevitable follow up
Speaker 1: I should have done to that was do we believe
Speaker 1: the Department of ED right like they said? If I
Speaker 1: recall correctly, They said that they are.
Speaker 3: Oh.
Speaker 1: Yes, there was a settlement. So that was the interesting
Speaker 1: piece of this. I learned from calling the comms person
Speaker 1: at the Department of ED, at the Board of ED
Speaker 1: whatever it is, that there was a lawsuit several years
Speaker 1: ago from black and brown students the parents of them
Speaker 1: because their schools did not have books that were as
Speaker 1: recent as new, as in good quality and like the
Speaker 1: breath of books in their school libraries that the more
Speaker 1: affluent white schools had. So I'm pretty sure it was
Speaker 1: Barra County Pass there was a lawsuit. In the settlement,
Speaker 1: they agreed that every ten years or so that they
Speaker 1: were going to upgrade the libraries. They had to by law,
Speaker 1: and so this was part of that settlement. We are
Speaker 1: required to upgrade these books, and these are the books
Speaker 1: that no longer meet our standards because they're old and
Speaker 1: they're dated and whatever. And so that's kind of fascinating
Speaker 1: because that turns the whole narrative on its head. Right, Actually,
Speaker 1: they're complying with a lawsuit that's supposed to provide equity
Speaker 1: for students who might otherwise not get it. And that's like,
Speaker 1: that's an important thing we should be talking about.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: That's not to say the book bannings are not important,
Speaker 1: that one hundred percent are. But we have a big
Speaker 1: problem in this country of misinformation and people believing that
Speaker 1: there's bias in media. And I do see it sometimes,
Speaker 1: and I think that's an example of it where and
Speaker 1: it's not coming from a venal place, it's not coming
Speaker 1: from a malicious place. It's coming from a place like
Speaker 1: it's easy to believe that it makes sense that that.
Speaker 1: Of course, we're looking at them throwing away books that
Speaker 1: might be, you know, about subjects that we want them
Speaker 1: to learn about. But we have to do our job.
Speaker 2: Leah critiques journalism because she has so much respect for
Speaker 2: the field. Journalists like Evan Gerskovich, the first American journalist
Speaker 2: to be imprisoned in Russia since the Cold war base,
Speaker 2: imprisonment and worse, just for doing their jobs and reporting.
Speaker 2: So journalism is something to be respect affected and protected.
Speaker 1: You've opened the door to my big spiel. My big
Speaker 1: spiel is that journalists want to be seen as a
Speaker 1: noble profession, and there is a nobility to it. But
Speaker 1: to be afforded the rights and privileges that reporters get
Speaker 1: in the courts, in people's minds and culture, you have
Speaker 1: to live up to standards that are a tradition, an
Speaker 1: honor bound tradition of the profession, and that is reporting
Speaker 1: and doing your due diligence. That's like fundamentally the basics
Speaker 1: of it. You need to do your homework and you
Speaker 1: need to make the calls and so. And it has
Speaker 1: real life repercussions because we're seeing courts claw back writes
Speaker 1: and privileges for reporters all the time. We're seeing, you know,
Speaker 1: reporters not be able to maintain confidentiality with sources. In
Speaker 1: certain cases they have to turn over their notes. They're
Speaker 1: being imprisoned for maintaining confidentiality court case after court case.
Speaker 1: This is very worrisome. I know this because I work
Speaker 1: with a for amendment lawyer who's like the top of
Speaker 1: the game. I'm one of the privileges of my job
Speaker 1: is I get to work with this like well known
Speaker 1: First Amendment lawyer Ky Falkenberg, So I hear about these
Speaker 1: cases all the time, and so they're having real life
Speaker 1: impact on journalists around the country. So we damn well
Speaker 1: better do our part and not buy into narratives because
Speaker 1: they make for cheap stories. Have I written my share
Speaker 1: of them? You bet I have, and I am embarrassed
Speaker 1: by them. I am regretful of them, and I hope
Speaker 1: I never repeat them. But like, these are the lessons
Speaker 1: we have to learn from the last decade, and it
Speaker 1: pains me to no end to see you know, reporters
Speaker 1: like just like I think it's something we need to
Speaker 1: champion as a group. We have this, you know, this
Speaker 1: poor Wall Street journal reporter stuck in a Russian jail
Speaker 1: for doing exactly what he should be doing for reporting,
Speaker 1: you know, for reporting, and he you know, he's missing
Speaker 1: his family, he's he's probably suffering. Lord knows what we
Speaker 1: can't take for granted that there are repercussions to what
Speaker 1: we do. I think it's very serious our jobs, and
Speaker 1: it is a noble profession, but then we have to
Speaker 1: do our part to live up to what makes it noble.
Speaker 1: We have to report, we have to like make the calls.
Speaker 1: It's that simple. That's how I see it.
Speaker 2: I briefly worked in a newsroom, and I could see
Speaker 2: myself just seeing that TikTok, for instance, and just writing
Speaker 2: it up like this gave me a big emotional reaction
Speaker 2: that aligned with my preconceived biases or my understanding of
Speaker 2: the world, and not picking up the phone and making
Speaker 2: that call, not doing the work of actually getting that
Speaker 2: there's more to the story than what I just saw
Speaker 2: on this TikTok. I'm really grateful that you're modeling how
Speaker 2: to not just fall right into that like easy story,
Speaker 2: easy write up, and tell a fuller story because it
Speaker 2: really matters well.
Speaker 1: I appreciate hearing that I've certainly know endured my shirt
Speaker 1: blowback for having that opinion, because I think it's often
Speaker 1: confused or conflated with conservatism, and I absolutely do not
Speaker 1: identify as a conservative. I think I'm pretty upfront with
Speaker 1: my politics, which is also odd for a journalist. But
Speaker 1: I will tell you this, like one of the most
Speaker 1: memorable conversations I've had was during covid. I started this
Speaker 1: podcast because I was like, you know, home like everybody
Speaker 1: else was, and I wanted to stay sharp. So I
Speaker 1: taught myself had a podcast, and part of it was
Speaker 1: just like figuring out who to talk to. I need
Speaker 1: to talk to smart people who have thoughts on what's happening.
Speaker 1: And one of the first conversations I had was with
Speaker 1: Errol Lewis, and Erra Lewis is New York famous, like
Speaker 1: he's New York One reporter, like like old school, like
Speaker 1: this guy is it right? But he also appears on
Speaker 1: I forget what network, but he appears on cable all
Speaker 1: the time. He's just he just knows his shit. Era
Speaker 1: Lewis is the guy and I had a nice conversation,
Speaker 1: like I really memorable. I remember like listening to it
Speaker 1: again and again after because what he said was so
Speaker 1: so it was profound, like I'd never thought about it
Speaker 1: like that. We talked about objectivity, which is the hot
Speaker 1: button issue for journalists right now, and he was like, look,
Speaker 1: I have opinions. I don't shy away from sharing my opinions,
Speaker 1: but they're informed, like nobody knows this town better than
Speaker 1: I do. When I show up to a meeting and
Speaker 1: I'm covering it. I know exactly what happened at the
Speaker 1: ten meetings before. I know who the players are, and
Speaker 1: I know why they're saying what they're saying. So I
Speaker 1: come to it with this breath and with this experience
Speaker 1: that is not challenged. By the way, you will never
Speaker 1: hear anyone challenge Erra Lewis for bias. Why because he
Speaker 1: did the work. He did the work, and so I
Speaker 1: thought that's so interesting, Like, yes, of course, of course,
Speaker 1: you're a human being, Like you're not one hundred percent objective.
Speaker 1: You have feelings about this issue, you believe in right
Speaker 1: and wrong, you believe some issues fall on certain sides,
Speaker 1: and you're you know, And he doesn't necessarily write it
Speaker 1: like down the line, but it's informed and he brings
Speaker 1: that expertise to the four and I think that's that
Speaker 1: for me, was like, that's become my north star. Whether
Speaker 1: he realizes or not, but he had a real impact
Speaker 1: on me. That conversation.
Speaker 2: That girl Boss lean in era that allowed Elizabeth Holmes
Speaker 2: to rise up in the ranks has kind of come
Speaker 2: and gone. And after all that, all that flash and
Speaker 2: promise around women in the twenty tens, today it's kind
Speaker 2: of hard to not feel like we're in a bit
Speaker 2: of a rougher place. But one truth is that, with
Speaker 2: all its flaws, women's media has always been there telling
Speaker 2: our stories and speaking to us, even when other types
Speaker 2: of media.
Speaker 1: Work it's a super fraud conversation. When I was at
Speaker 1: Murray Clare, there were some things that were inviolable, right,
Speaker 1: women's abortion, women's reproductive rights, gay rights, LGBTQ rights. There
Speaker 1: were certain values that the women's magazine was not negotiable
Speaker 1: on this, certainly this one, and I think that's true
Speaker 1: across women's media written large. There are certain things if
Speaker 1: you're going to be and we don't speak of them.
Speaker 1: We just not We just live them. We say that
Speaker 1: because for decades women's magazines this like afterthought in media,
Speaker 1: This looked down upon category occupied a very i won't
Speaker 1: even say protected, but like a special place. We were
Speaker 1: in nail salons, We were in hair salons, places that
Speaker 1: men weren't, and so we could have conversations with you
Speaker 1: that you couldn't have at home, because your husband would
Speaker 1: beat the shit out of you if you talked to
Speaker 1: him about it. Right, we could talk about how like,
Speaker 1: oh I got a terrible sonogram back and I'm not
Speaker 1: sure I can keep this baby, or oh my husband's
Speaker 1: beating me, or oh I you know, I'm not satisfied sexually.
Speaker 1: Like these were stories that women's media was telling, and
Speaker 1: we can hold our nose up at them and say, oh,
Speaker 1: women in peril, and you know they they codified certain
Speaker 1: stereotypes of women, and there's they're sure, like we can
Speaker 1: have that discussion, but we also need to talk about
Speaker 1: how this sneered at form of me was the one
Speaker 1: place where you could talk to a woman like she
Speaker 1: was in the bathroom at a restaurant and asked for
Speaker 1: a tampon, Like you couldn't do that in US Weekly
Speaker 1: or USA Today or People magazine. And so I just
Speaker 1: want to like acknowledge you couldn't do that because we
Speaker 1: allowed for women that freedom. And that's part of the
Speaker 1: DNA of this repro rights thing, you know, it just
Speaker 1: it just is we take for granted that it is
Speaker 1: because it was early on it was like this secret,
Speaker 1: private forum we could have discussions where we didn't judge women.
Speaker 1: Maybe we judge them about their weight, We definitely did that.
Speaker 1: We judged them about their skin and their age. We
Speaker 1: one hundred percent did that. But we also talked to
Speaker 1: them about the you know, like nothing is as black
Speaker 1: and white as like good bad. It was a very
Speaker 1: nuanced thing and so strange. But it's hard to have
Speaker 1: nuanced conversations about media with media people.
Speaker 2: Do you ever worry that I don't even know how
Speaker 2: to phrase this.
Speaker 1: Now I'm gonna get canceled?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they think get do you word? Is this something
Speaker 2: that because you you say what's on your mind and
Speaker 2: you tell it like it is. I don't always agree,
Speaker 2: like I'm always sometimes all read things and I'm like, ah,
Speaker 2: that hits me, that hits me weird, but it's not
Speaker 2: not true.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: Do you worry about being too outspoken or saying the
Speaker 2: wrong thing?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 1: I mean my husband hates it, you know, he's just like,
Speaker 1: you know, what are you doing it? It's not that
Speaker 1: it's like I don't know. I guess Like I'm a
Speaker 1: middle aged person who's been in media for twenty five years.
Speaker 1: I've seen the best of our business. I've seen the
Speaker 1: worst of our business. But I've also seen like the
Speaker 1: very thing that I love about this business, like the
Speaker 1: wanting to talk about things and talk to people and
Speaker 1: hear what they have to say, whether you like it
Speaker 1: or not, Like I just don't like that we're becoming
Speaker 1: resistant to it. And I get it, Like I get it.
Speaker 1: I get why I don't have a trans child who's
Speaker 1: rights are up for grabs. I'm not raising a kid
Speaker 1: who you know, I'm not looking for, you know, like
Speaker 1: I don't have as much on the line as a
Speaker 1: lot of other people do. And so I get that.
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't appreciate the stakes, but there's something about
Speaker 1: not being able to talk about it, not like I
Speaker 1: don't like that I'm the only person or like that
Speaker 1: comes with risks, Like I don't like that we're not
Speaker 1: supposed to talk about things, Like what's wrong with talking
Speaker 1: about things? I'm not I'm not like trying to shove
Speaker 1: policy down your throat. I'm just trying to have a conversation.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to understand the world a little better, trying
Speaker 1: to understand like we should be able to talk. You know,
Speaker 1: I've been spending a lot of time with I've been
Speaker 1: spending a lot of time watching Phil Donahue.
Speaker 2: Ooh, oh my god, my mom would If my mom
Speaker 2: were here, she would be so down for a conversation
Speaker 2: about Donna Yu. I saw your tweet about wanting like
Speaker 2: we need a documentary, like a look back.
Speaker 1: Yes, and it makes me feel very old that you
Speaker 1: reference your mother. Maybe as old as your mother.
Speaker 2: No, no, not yet. No if he just happened. Still
Speaker 2: love Donahue.
Speaker 1: I love Donahue. He was on after school when I
Speaker 1: got home, and I remember it was the first time
Speaker 1: I'd seen anyone with AIDS. I can still remember that
Speaker 1: episode with Ryan White and Jeanie White. It was the
Speaker 1: first time i'd seen you know gay in talk about
Speaker 1: you know being gay. But I just remember, like there
Speaker 1: wasn't the chair throwing that came afterwards, right, like it's
Speaker 1: not it's not new to this era. We saw that
Speaker 1: shortly after. But he had a way about him that
Speaker 1: felt like I don't know if it was the error
Speaker 1: or him or maybe a bit of both, but he
Speaker 1: had a way about him that opened the floor to
Speaker 1: people to talk about how they really felt and want
Speaker 1: what they could learn from someone who didn't feel that way,
Speaker 1: And there was something like nonjudgmental about it. And he
Speaker 1: also pushed like if you watch some of those episodes,
Speaker 1: he would push them so, but why do youth, you know,
Speaker 1: like he was pushy, and I just there's like it
Speaker 1: was special. It was like a special thing to watch
Speaker 1: because he did not shy from hot button issues. We
Speaker 1: could never there could never be a sho like that
Speaker 1: right now, never ever, ever, ever, and why not? It
Speaker 1: was like, why can't we just talk to each other anyway?
Speaker 1: I sound corny, but that's how I feel.
Speaker 2: No, it doesn't. It doesn't sound corny at all. I
Speaker 2: can't wait to if younger listeners are like who, I
Speaker 2: can't wait to spark a Donna Hue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, render for Donna Hue renaissance.
Speaker 2: The New York Times magazine's profile of Elizabeth Holmes and
Speaker 2: the collective grown it inspired from readers makes me wonder
Speaker 2: if we've just moved past the shine of the big
Speaker 2: important public figure profile piece in general. Take that now
Speaker 2: infamous Megan Markle profile and the Cut, for instance, what
Speaker 2: probably would have been a standard profile about her thoughts
Speaker 2: on parenthood and her morning routine included one small detail
Speaker 2: that gave readers a quick glance beyond the polished pr
Speaker 2: talking points and preapproved subjects that were used to in
Speaker 2: these kinds of profiles. The profile says that Megan sometimes
Speaker 2: sounds like she has a tiny bachelor producer in her
Speaker 2: brain directing what she says. At one point in our conversation,
Speaker 2: the piece reads, instead of answering a question, she will
Speaker 2: suggest how I might transcribe the noise she's making. She's
Speaker 2: making these gunneral sounds, and I can't quite articulate what
Speaker 2: it is she's feeling in the moment because she has
Speaker 2: no word for it. She's just moaning. Now, that little
Speaker 2: detail about the noise that Megan makes before answering a
Speaker 2: question seemingly confirmed what we all know, that a famous
Speaker 2: person's public persona is actually carefully manufactured, and it proved
Speaker 2: just too good to resist. But in this day and age,
Speaker 2: what exactly is the celebrity profile?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: What is it and who is it for? At best,
Speaker 2: they feed the live that celebrities aren't just like us
Speaker 2: when we all know that of course they're not. And
Speaker 2: at worse, they help scammers like Elizabeth Holmes rise to power.
Speaker 2: I wanted to talk to you about the Elizabeth Holmes'
Speaker 2: profile and sort of how that was a thing. You
Speaker 2: made a really interesting point about this profile of Megan Markle.
Speaker 2: I think in the cut where you know it's a
Speaker 2: song profile about her life blah blah blah. And there's
Speaker 2: one little bit where she gives the author like suggestions
Speaker 2: of how she might be able to describe a specific
Speaker 2: little noise that she made, and that tiny, little throwaway
Speaker 2: thing became the thing, right, so there's a whole profile
Speaker 2: that was the thing that people zeroed in on. Do
Speaker 2: you think that we're I don't know, kind of beyond
Speaker 2: the usefulness of the problem the public profile, like, what
Speaker 2: are your thoughts on how how that is evolving as
Speaker 2: a media product.
Speaker 1: I find them mostly boring. A lot of magazines do
Speaker 1: them because it's part of the trade off with the
Speaker 1: entertainment industry. It's a business. It's a business decision to
Speaker 1: cover to write a certain profile. You know, you'll see
Speaker 1: them in all kinds of media for whether it's a
Speaker 1: CEO or what have you. But it's a trade off, like,
Speaker 1: make no mistake about it. But occasionally you'll get a
Speaker 1: story like that where something is revealed, right and it's
Speaker 1: not off, and that something is revealed about someone who
Speaker 1: we think we know everything about, and that's interesting to me.
Speaker 1: So in the case of Elizabeth Holmes, it revealed something
Speaker 1: about the paper and not Elizabeth, which I thought was interesting,
Speaker 1: but like a process that you didn't know could happen there.
Speaker 1: But in the case of Megan Markle, like what I
Speaker 1: found astonishing about it was that it did. It was
Speaker 1: contrarian because at the time here in the US, there
Speaker 1: was this especially coast on the coasts, there was this
Speaker 1: like we must protect her, this kind of vibe, right,
Speaker 1: like she deserves our protection. She's you know, she's being
Speaker 1: vilified for her race. It's racist and and in fact
Speaker 1: that might be true. But there was like something that
Speaker 1: went against that narrative in that piece, and it was
Speaker 1: brave because doing so opened up the reporter to you know,
Speaker 1: all the kind of kinds of attacks that we see
Speaker 1: on social media now and we don't like what someone says,
Speaker 1: but it revealed something pretty amazing, and it confirmed this
Speaker 1: kind of you know, other narrative about her, that it's
Speaker 1: all contrived, that it's all manufactured. I mean, it literally
Speaker 1: confirmed that, like you couldn't pick a better which is
Speaker 1: partly why it was so juicy and delicious and tasty,
Speaker 1: because she's literally confirming that this whole thing is artifice,
Speaker 1: not that I think it is, but that it actually is.
Speaker 1: And I thought that was just really an incredible detail
Speaker 1: for the writer to put in, But how could she
Speaker 1: not write, like, Wow, what a thing to have happened
Speaker 1: in an interview with celebrity. I've done a few celebrity profiles.
Speaker 1: They're always negotiated to the nth degree, which is partly
Speaker 1: why I find them so boring, because publicists are so
Speaker 1: wrapped up in them. It's very rare to get a
Speaker 1: piece with someone where a published publicist is not negotiating
Speaker 1: everything from where it's at.
Speaker 2: Oh no, she.
Speaker 1: Doesn't want to go to a restaurant because she doesn't
Speaker 1: want to be seen or you know whatever. You can't
Speaker 1: talk about the marriage. She doesn't want to talk about
Speaker 1: the marriage, and you know, oh she you know, don't
Speaker 1: ask her about anything political because you we're not talking
Speaker 1: about that. Like everything is so you know, it's just
Speaker 1: like so massaged that I already know, having seen the
Speaker 1: Sausage get Mede, that so much of it is bullshit.
Speaker 1: So I rarely find them interesting, And I would love
Speaker 1: to see data that shows if people actually get through
Speaker 1: these pieces, because I don't think they don't. I don't
Speaker 1: think they do. I'm trying to think of the last
Speaker 1: profile I read. I can't remember, but they're just like
Speaker 1: as an art forum, they're like they're just they are
Speaker 1: for an era when we didn't have as much access
Speaker 1: to celebrities as we do now, so they are a
Speaker 1: very dated art form in my mind.
Speaker 2: I remember being part of a team that worked on
Speaker 2: one with a famous woman and I don't want to
Speaker 2: say who it is, but people can probably guess. She
Speaker 2: had just been married to a high profile political the family,
Speaker 2: a high profile political family. But the list of things
Speaker 2: that we were not supposed to talk about, we could
Speaker 2: not even allude to this wedding, this recent wedding, And
Speaker 2: so basically it was like, what the hell are we
Speaker 2: going to talk about? Like this?
Speaker 1: This is what do you think people want to talk about?
Speaker 3: Right?
Speaker 2: It's like, if you're reading this profile, you're gonna want
Speaker 2: to talk about this recent marriage, right, Like what else
Speaker 2: would you want to read about? And it was like,
Speaker 2: oh no, not even you can't even allude to it
Speaker 2: in the most oblique of ways. It was like, well, then,
Speaker 2: how is this going to be an interesting piece that
Speaker 2: anybody wants to read? This is the one thing that
Speaker 2: people have on their mind when it comes to this person.
Speaker 1: Well, so this goes back to I don't want to
Speaker 1: like make it a larger point, but it is part
Speaker 1: of a larger point in that it's partly it contributes
Speaker 1: to this overall awakening that people are having about media,
Speaker 1: that they're wise to the game and they resent it.
Speaker 1: So that game is because we need the celebrity, We
Speaker 1: need the we need the access to the other celebrities
Speaker 1: in that publicist roster. We need the studio not to
Speaker 1: be mad at us, because then they'll invite us to
Speaker 1: important events and also maybe advertise with us, you know,
Speaker 1: or or the beauty brand that that person is an
Speaker 1: ambassador for. We need their advertise and we want to
Speaker 1: piss them off, and like there's a whole like business
Speaker 1: behind those decisions, and people are wise to it. One
Speaker 1: of the one of the most frequent questions I got
Speaker 1: asked when I was at Marie Claire and even after,
Speaker 1: was you know, oh, tell me what mescarity use, or
Speaker 1: tell like a makeup question, or oh I saw that
Speaker 1: in the magazine. And I would always be like, you
Speaker 1: don't really believe that they're they like that, right, because
Speaker 1: it was obvious to me that it was all part
Speaker 1: of this like game about you know, And I learned
Speaker 1: actually I learned, you know, there are certain number of
Speaker 1: credits that credits being appearances in the magazine that a
Speaker 1: brand is either formally or informally allowed, like oh, that
Speaker 1: we owe them credits. I used to hear that all
Speaker 1: the time, like we have to put this on your page.
Speaker 1: You're doing a career Q and A with so and so,
Speaker 1: but I need to put this shoe on the page.
Speaker 1: So we're going to do a sidebar of things you
Speaker 1: should wear to your work when you're going out afterwards.
Speaker 1: So because we owe this brand credits like they're not,
Speaker 1: you know, there's it's a business behind those decisions. It's
Speaker 1: sad but true, and I think people are wise to it.
Speaker 2: So I don't consider myself to be like a media insider,
Speaker 2: but for just your average consumer of magazines media, how
Speaker 2: important do you think it is to be sort of
Speaker 2: aware of how the sausage has made the business decisions
Speaker 2: that go into what we're reading in the media that
Speaker 2: we're consuming.
Speaker 1: I think it's very important. Magazines is already such an
Speaker 1: anachronistic term. So whatever content you're consuming, wherever you're consuming it, right,
Speaker 1: you should one hundred percent be aware of you know,
Speaker 1: of what metabolic processes led to that moment. Now, that
Speaker 1: doesn't mean you have to sit with it. And I
Speaker 1: also don't think it's your responsibility. Like, you know, there
Speaker 1: is something to be said for being an informed reader,
Speaker 1: but there's also something to be said for being a
Speaker 1: responsible journalist. And I just want, I guess, I just
Speaker 1: want people to be aware of why we make the
Speaker 1: choices we do as a business, as you know, as
Speaker 1: a profession. So like the whole uh, you know, when
Speaker 1: a movie comes out, there's a premiere, you're going to
Speaker 1: see that that celebrity do a round robin of interviews.
Speaker 1: All those outlets are going to try to get the
Speaker 1: celebrity to say something off the cuff. It never happens.
Speaker 1: Sometimes it happens like it's all just such canned garbage,
Speaker 1: and it's it's like, we have to be a little
Speaker 1: better now, I think because the audiences are wiser, and
Speaker 1: what's the net result of that. They're going to TikTok
Speaker 1: and they're going elsewhere where they can get a little
Speaker 1: more authenticity from anywhere from people who you know, it's
Speaker 1: like we've seen the diminished value of celebrity culture, which
Speaker 1: it's not. I don't have an opinion on It's just
Speaker 1: fascinating that people are turning to forums where they are
Speaker 1: getting authenticity and less makeup and less bullshit they're getting.
Speaker 1: They want the real, real and I get it. I
Speaker 1: get why, because we're feeding them can shit and telling them,
Speaker 1: look how awesome this is, and they now know what awesome.
Speaker 2: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 2: just want to say hi? You can read us at
Speaker 2: Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 2: for today's episode at tengody dot com. There Are No
Speaker 2: Girls on the Internet was created by me Bridget Todd.
Speaker 2: It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 2: is our executive producer. Tarry Harrison is our producer and
Speaker 2: sound engineer. Michael Almado is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: Bridget Todd. If you want to help us grow, rate
Speaker 2: and review us on Apple Podcasts. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
Speaker 2: check out the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 2: get your podcasts.