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Speaker 1: Welcome to Daily Variety, your daily dose of news and

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Speaker 1: analysis for entertainment industry insiders. It's Wednesday, January seventh, twenty

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Speaker 1: twenty six. I'm your host, Cynthia Littleton. I am co

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Speaker 1: editor in chief of Riety alongside Ramin Setuda. I'm in LA.

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Speaker 1: He's in New York and bridy as reporters around the

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Speaker 1: world covering the business of entertainment. In today's episode, we'll

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Speaker 1: hear from Jacob Soberoff, the NBC News and MS Now correspondent.

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Speaker 1: He's written a book about the firestorm that devastated the

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Speaker 1: Los Angeles area starting one year ago. Today, he'll unpacked

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Speaker 1: his emotional journey of covering the incineration of his hometown

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Speaker 1: of Pacific Palisades. But before we hear from Soberoff, here

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Speaker 1: are a few headlines just in this morning that you

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Speaker 1: need to know. The board of Warner Brothers Discovery delivered

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Speaker 1: a blunt message to Paramounts Guidance early this morning. We're

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Speaker 1: just not that into you, but we are into Netflix.

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Speaker 1: As expected, Paramount's latest offer to buy Warner Brothers Discovery

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Speaker 1: has been rejected. Paramount is still trying to court Warner

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Speaker 1: Brothers shareholders with its existing tender offer to scoop up

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Speaker 1: shares that expires on January twenty first, we'll keep watching

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Speaker 1: this ping pong match between Melrose Avenue and Burbank. Fox

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Speaker 1: is leaning hard into creators. It's launched Fox Creator Studios

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Speaker 1: to nurture next generation content ideas from social media superstars.

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Speaker 1: This is one more effort to marry the power of

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Speaker 1: digital communities with the mainstream reach of TV. They're starting

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Speaker 1: with the focus on food, and they've signed deals with

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Speaker 1: a bunch of top stars in that realm. It's a

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Speaker 1: big push for Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade. Here Comes

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Speaker 1: Beef season two. Netflix has set April sixteenth as the

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Speaker 1: debut date for the next installment of the anthology series

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Speaker 1: about people having really Bad Days. The next edition stars

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Speaker 1: Charles Melton, Kaylee Speeney, Carrie mu and oscar Isaac. All

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Speaker 1: of these stories and so much more can be found

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Speaker 1: on Variety dot com right now and now it's time

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Speaker 1: for conversations with industry leaders about news and trends in

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Speaker 1: show business today, as we mark the somber anniversary of

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Speaker 1: the Los Angeles fires, we'll hear from someone who was

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Speaker 1: deeply affected by this tragedy. Jacob Soberoff, your political and

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Speaker 1: national correspondent for MS NOW, saw his hometown ravaged by

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Speaker 1: one of the worst fire disasters in US history. It

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Speaker 1: was cathartic for him to chronicle what happened in his

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Speaker 1: new book, Firestorm, the Great Los Angeles Fires and America's

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Speaker 1: New Age of Disaster. Jacob Soberoff, thank you so much

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Speaker 1: for joining me, and congratulations on the publication of your book.

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Speaker 2: Cynthia, Thanks so much for having me. It means a lot.

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Speaker 1: I have not had a chance to read it yet,

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Speaker 1: but I'm very much looking forward to it. But your

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Speaker 1: book title is Firestorm, the Great Los Angeles Fires and

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Speaker 1: America's New Age of Disaster, and I want to start

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Speaker 1: by talking about the second half of that. But what

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Speaker 1: in the reporting of this were some of the things

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Speaker 1: that surprised you about what you describe as America's New

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Speaker 1: Age of Disaster.

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Speaker 2: I ended up covering the carbonization destruction, incineration of my

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Speaker 2: childhood home and my childhood hometown and watching it happen

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Speaker 2: in real time with my own eyes, and I couldn't

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Speaker 2: comprehend at the time exactly what I was witnessing. And

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Speaker 2: I think what I have come to learn in writing

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Speaker 2: this book and spending the better part of twenty twenty

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Speaker 2: five diving deep into the experience that I had and

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Speaker 2: reflecting on it and reporting it out, is that in

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Speaker 2: some measure it was the fire of the future. And

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Speaker 2: so when I say America's New Age of disaster to me,

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Speaker 2: it also is synonymous with the fact that I experienced.

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Speaker 2: What one senior career emergency management official who has spanned

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Speaker 2: Democratic and Republican administration said to me was something not

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Speaker 2: only that was a look obviously into my past, at

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Speaker 2: my childhood, but also into my own children's future. And

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Speaker 2: so what the new Age of disaster is and what

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Speaker 2: the fire of the future is is a conflagration excuse

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Speaker 2: the term of several things. There is not one proximate

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Speaker 2: cause to natural disasters like the one we experienced in

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Speaker 2: La the costiest wildfire event in American history, and in

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Speaker 2: this case with the Great Los Angeles Fires, it was

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Speaker 2: obviously the global climate emergency, as when you read the

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Speaker 2: book you'll see Captain Jonathan White explained to me. But

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Speaker 2: it's also the degradation of our infrastructure. It's also changes

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Speaker 2: in the way we live. You know, I went back

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Speaker 2: and listened to a lot of audio and watch video

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Speaker 2: of my reporting and heard electric car batteries exploding all

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Speaker 2: around us. And I think maybe most importantly, it is

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Speaker 2: the misinformation and disinformation the charge political moment that we're

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Speaker 2: living in that makes the recovery of and from events

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Speaker 2: like this all the more difficult and actually all the

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Speaker 2: more painful. Instead of the opposite, which is what I

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Speaker 2: think we all expect.

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Speaker 1: Is there such dispute over the basic facts of what

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Speaker 1: happened exactly. We even saw that writ large on of

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Speaker 1: all things, the Rose Parade this here. That was a

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Speaker 1: neon sign as to how raw and how difficult this is.

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Speaker 1: In doing all of this investigative reporting, with incredible sourcing

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Speaker 1: that you have, did you find things that helped you

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Speaker 1: understand where that infrastructure and that shared set of understanding

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Speaker 1: is just breaking down.

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Speaker 2: What you'll see in the book, in particular, is the

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Speaker 2: relationship completely falling apart between Gavin Newsom, who was the

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Speaker 2: governor of California, and actually Donald Trump, the president elect

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Speaker 2: at the time. Joe Biden, a lot of people might forget,

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Speaker 2: was actually here in la in southern California when the

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Speaker 2: fires broke out. He was going down to the Coachella

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Speaker 2: Valley and the Chuckwalla National Monument to dedicate the final

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Speaker 2: national monument of his presidency in Gavin Newsom, as you

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Speaker 2: will see, was literally on his way driving there, getting

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Speaker 2: ready to meet Joe Biden, and their relationship actually, interestingly

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Speaker 2: was critical to the major disaster declaration being declared almost

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Speaker 2: immediately because the two of them were in person together

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Speaker 2: and the President of the United States was here, but

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Speaker 2: Donald Trump almost inexplicably by But I guess may sound

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Speaker 2: foolish saying that now anybody that watches this President injected

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Speaker 2: himself from the moment that the fires started and started

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Speaker 2: sowing the seeds of misinformation and disinformation about who was

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Speaker 2: to blame, about whether one person could be to blame

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Speaker 2: for something like this, And of course he blamed a

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Speaker 2: newscum and Mayor Karen Bass, but also pointed a finger

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Speaker 2: at the water supply, saying that there was some magical,

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Speaker 2: mystical source of water from the Pacific Northwest to could

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Speaker 2: quote unquote flow down with a tap that would open

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Speaker 2: and it would have stopped the fires or prevented them

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Speaker 2: from happening in the first place. I'm not absolving local

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Speaker 2: political leaders at all. Gavin Newsom promised me when I

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Speaker 2: interviewed him for Meet the Press, a Marshall Plan two

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Speaker 2: point zero for Los Angeles. I haven't seen that materialize.

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Speaker 2: Karen Bass, of course, was in Ghana on that presidential delegation,

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Speaker 2: and there are lots of questions about what could have

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Speaker 2: been done differently operationally, whether it's deploying firefighters to different

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Speaker 2: places in the Palisades or taking down those big steel

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Speaker 2: lattice towers in Altadena that were inactive but that were

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Speaker 2: the source of the eaton fire. All of that there

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Speaker 2: is right for decades, frankly, of investigative journalism that's happening

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Speaker 2: from our colleagues in the local media and Los Angeles.

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Speaker 2: But what this book will show you is that, in

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Speaker 2: real time, minute to minute, what it was like to

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Speaker 2: be there, and what it was like to feel elon

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Speaker 2: Musk by the way down at Zooma Beach talking to firefighters,

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Speaker 2: pressing them on a live stream, and Gavin Newsom watching

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Speaker 2: and having to respond in real time, what it was

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Speaker 2: like for residents to experience this confusion about information, where

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Speaker 2: it was coming from and what the source of it was,

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Speaker 2: and how to even figure out when and how to evacuate.

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Speaker 2: I think all of it combined sowed the seeds for

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Speaker 2: the travesty that we all experienced together collectively and the

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Speaker 2: trauma they think that we're all trying to still recover from,

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Speaker 2: which is again part of the reason I wanted to

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Speaker 2: do this is I've never had to process a story

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Speaker 2: I have personally covered in the way that I had

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Speaker 2: to cover this one, and so for me it's as

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Speaker 2: cathartic as I hope it might be for people reading

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Speaker 2: it in Los Angeles and around the world to want

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Speaker 2: to learn about this event and what it really meant

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Speaker 2: to the people, in my opinion, the greatest city in

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Speaker 2: the world.

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Speaker 1: I remember talking to emergency people saying, this was a

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Speaker 1: hurricane with fire. We can debate all the things that

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Speaker 1: maybe went wrong, but at some point on the seventh

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Speaker 1: than the eighth, there was no helicopter that was going

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Speaker 1: to be able, Like there was just no There was

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Speaker 1: just no getting around this. Being your hometown, it might

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Speaker 1: have been hard to sort of hear critical things, But

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Speaker 1: I remember in the moment talking about people looking and saying, Wow,

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Speaker 1: maybe there should have been more accessibility. Maybe we should

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Speaker 1: have insisted on more easier ways to get out of

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Speaker 1: that central court of the Palisades that was so devastated. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: it was that hard to hear.

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Speaker 2: About because I think that it's obvious to me that

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Speaker 2: we all live in the wildland urban interfaces in LA

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Speaker 2: and I think what you mentioned just brings two things

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Speaker 2: to mind for me. One is, I can't wait for

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Speaker 2: people to read the scenes in the book about LA

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Speaker 2: Fire Department air support having to figure out that they

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Speaker 2: had to ground themselves. This is not something that anybody

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Speaker 2: that is in that line of work. And by the way,

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Speaker 2: in the LA Fire Department, they were all once firefighters

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Speaker 2: in addition to now being pilots anything that they take lightly,

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Speaker 2: and so the decision to ground those choppers really does

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Speaker 2: show the severity of the conditions at the time, and

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Speaker 2: then as it relates to the building materials and the

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Speaker 2: fact that we all in some way put ourselves in

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Speaker 2: harms way that's not new. In the nineteen sixties, when

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Speaker 2: after the Bell Air Fire, the LA Fire Department produced

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Speaker 2: a documentary called Design for Disaster, and it literally talked

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Speaker 2: about how the ways in which we live in Los

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Speaker 2: Angeles are primed to make us all victims of massive

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Speaker 2: wildfire events like happened in the sixties and happened again

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Speaker 2: in early January of twenty twenty five, and so now

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Speaker 2: I think it's more acute and more sort of obvious

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Speaker 2: than effort to everybody. The question is when we come back.

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Speaker 2: If we come back, and there are big questions about that,

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Speaker 2: how do you build back?

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Speaker 1: Is it a.

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Speaker 2: Decision that everyone will make To want to live in

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Speaker 2: such vulnerable circumstances is part of the paradox of living

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Speaker 2: in a place that's as unbelievable and as deadly as

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Speaker 2: Mike Davis has told us all about Los Angeles.

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Speaker 1: City of Courts.

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Speaker 2: That's right.

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Speaker 1: Do you think there is the political will to say

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Speaker 1: not everybody can rebuild that maybe in these foot hill

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Speaker 1: areas that in hindsight, what we know now about our

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Speaker 1: modern life that you know, maybe not everybody should rebuild.

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Speaker 1: That's going to be a tough thing to say.

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Speaker 2: I don't think so. When you read the personal stories

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Speaker 2: of the people in the book, whether it's the firefighters

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Speaker 2: Tim Larson from These in the palis As or Eric

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Speaker 2: Mendoza from sixty nine, it's guys who just literally laid

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Speaker 2: on the concrete in the middle of the street because

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Speaker 2: it was a thousand plus degree heat and tried to

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Speaker 2: save any house that they could and get as close

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Speaker 2: as they could to open their hoses as wide as

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Speaker 2: they could. Or the people in Altadena I met Kate Hennigan,

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Speaker 2: the JPL engineer, or Herbin Lloyd and Wilson who worked

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Speaker 2: at UPS and lost their home on McNally Avenue. You

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Speaker 2: can't tell FOE firefighters that you're not going to be

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Speaker 2: fighting fires in these areas, or residents that you're not

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Speaker 2: going to be coming back. These are very personal, deep

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Speaker 2: decisions that people are going to make, and I think

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Speaker 2: that the idea that politicians would get in the way

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Speaker 2: of that at this point, they think that ship has sailed.

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Speaker 2: The question is do we now have a different understanding

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Speaker 2: of what the Big One might be? In la The

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Speaker 2: pages in these book I think will certainly make that

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Speaker 2: clear that I think we all expected it to be

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Speaker 2: the earthquake that I trained for when I was in

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Speaker 2: elementary school and had to get under the table. But

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Speaker 2: really I think that we've experienced a form of the

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Speaker 2: Big One together already, and so now what do we

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Speaker 2: do individually, not just collectively, in terms of being prepared

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Speaker 2: for the next one? Because there will be a next one.

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Speaker 1: Of course, Hollywood is a big hometown business. I would

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Speaker 1: say the hometown business ripple effects. Do you get into

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Speaker 1: any of how these fires ampered the entertainment industry amfered.

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Speaker 1: One thing we saw, of course, was right afterwards, a

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Speaker 1: lot of calls for hate. We need more tax incentive,

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Speaker 1: we need more government support to keep industry here, and

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Speaker 1: for a moment it seemed like, is there going to

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Speaker 1: be some good that comes out of this for the industry.

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Speaker 2: Well, a good point I think often I've said this

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Speaker 2: before that big catastrophic events like this, whether they're humanitarian

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Speaker 2: or natural disasters, can kind of expose the fissures or

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Speaker 2: what's really going on below the surface in our society,

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Speaker 2: And the ones I often think of are that, you know,

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Speaker 2: we have more undocumented people who are suffering greatly at

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Speaker 2: the hands of the immigritation policies of this administration while

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Speaker 2: trying to rebuild the city, and also the unhoused almost

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Speaker 2: population in La This is a place now that affordability

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Speaker 2: will be further exacerbated by the shorter supply of housing

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Speaker 2: and you're already seeing I think something forty percent was

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Speaker 2: the recent study I saw of lots being sold or

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Speaker 2: being sold to corporations, not to locals. But you raise

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Speaker 2: a great one too, what it meant for the entertainment

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Speaker 2: industry and what it meant for our neighbors who work

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Speaker 2: in Hollywood and who have been really suffering. I think,

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Speaker 2: and perhaps for a moment, it did open the eyes

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Speaker 2: to the policymakers that this is a time where we

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Speaker 2: need to incentivize people to continue to come to work

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Speaker 2: in southern California and in Los Angeles because of how

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Speaker 2: clear it was after the fires, how bad the industry

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Speaker 2: was hurting. And I think that that same story can

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Speaker 2: sort of be extrapolated as well to the defensive immigrants

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Speaker 2: that we're seeing in the city while they're rebuilding, or

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Speaker 2: the realization that la is one of the most unaffordable cities,

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Speaker 2: not only in the United States but on planet Earth.

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Speaker 2: And all of these things are issues that needed to

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Speaker 2: be addressed before the fire, but I think in the

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Speaker 2: wake of the fire is sort of crystal clear for

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Speaker 2: all of us how acute those issues are.

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Speaker 1: Jacob let me close by asking you have you and

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Speaker 1: your family found a way to memorialize or just process

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Speaker 1: all that you lost.

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Speaker 2: There's a physical memorial as far as I'm concerned, and

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Speaker 2: you'll read about it in the book. Outside the Recreation Center,

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Speaker 2: the building that was built around World War Two in

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Speaker 2: the Palisades is a giant bronze plaque about the rebuilding

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Speaker 2: of the park, the Palisades Park in nineteen eighty six

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Speaker 2: when I was two going I'm three years old, that

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Speaker 2: my dad, and my mom and my four grandparents all

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Speaker 2: participated in the fundraising for after my dad, when I

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Speaker 2: was a little kid, hit his head and cut it

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Speaker 2: open and decided he wanted to renovate the Palisades playground.

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Speaker 2: That plaque still stands, And when I go back there,

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Speaker 2: I see the names not just of my mom and dad,

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Speaker 2: and my grandpa Irv and Grandma Evelyn and Anita and Myron,

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Speaker 2: shirts are my mom's parents, but I see the names

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Speaker 2: of so many neighbors, some of whom lost their homes

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Speaker 2: in the fire, some of whom hadn't thought about in

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Speaker 2: a long time, some of whom are no longer with us.

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Speaker 2: But the fact to me, on our very personal level,

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Speaker 2: that that plaque still remains, and that that story is

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Speaker 2: so central to my I guess Palisades origin story. It's

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Speaker 2: where I go every time now, I go back to

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Speaker 2: the Palisades because it reminds me of what that place was,

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Speaker 2: not just in the days before the fire, because it

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Speaker 2: had changed, but what that place means to me. And

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Speaker 2: I hope that everybody can find something like that for them,

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Speaker 2: because we try to move forward from this, and I

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Speaker 2: think that the book hopefully can be that for a

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Speaker 2: lot of people.

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Speaker 1: I have no doubt that those deep roots are going

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Speaker 1: to show through in the pages. I'm very much looking

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Speaker 1: forward to reading it. Jacob. Thank you for your work,

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Speaker 1: and thank you for your time.

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Speaker 2: Thank you always, Santa.

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Speaker 1: As we close out today's episode, here's a few things

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Speaker 1: we're watching for. Two big TV shows return on Thursday night.

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Speaker 1: The Pit begins its second shift on HBO Max. The

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Speaker 1: Traders begin Treachery anew on Peacock. Of course, Sunday is

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Speaker 1: the Golden Globe Awards. My colleague Michael Schneider has a

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Speaker 1: good interview with with host Nicki Glazer that you can

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Speaker 1: find on Variety dot com. Right now, before we go,

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Speaker 1: congrats to Adrian O'Hara. She's been named executive vice president

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Speaker 1: and chief Communications Officer for Discovery Global. That's the planned

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Speaker 1: spin off of CNN, TNT, and other Warner Brothers Discovery

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Speaker 1: cable channels. She comes to the company after working in

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Speaker 1: communications for Gap Inc. And Old Navy. Thanks for listening.

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Speaker 1: This episode was written and reported by me Cynthia Littleton.

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Speaker 1: Stick Snack's hick Picks. Please leave us a review at

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Speaker 1: the podcast platform of your choice, and please tune in

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Speaker 1: tomorrow for another episode of Daily Variety.