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Speaker 1: Hey, guys, ready or not, twenty twenty four is here

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Speaker 1: and we here at breaking points, are already thinking of

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Speaker 1: ways we can up our game for this critical election.

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Speaker 2: We rely on our premium subs to expand coverage, upgrade

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Speaker 2: the studio ad staff give you, guys, the best independent.

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Speaker 3: Coverage that is possible.

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Speaker 2: If you like what we're all about, it just means

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Speaker 2: the absolute world to have your support.

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Speaker 3: But enough with that, let's get to the show.

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Speaker 1: So we've been covering here a lot the current and

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Speaker 1: potential impact of AI and there was one story that

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Speaker 1: we're really interested in but didn't feel we had the

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Speaker 1: expertise to fully tackle, which is there's been a few

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Speaker 1: AI generated songs. The one that popped into my feed

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Speaker 1: first was a Drake the Weekend song that sounded pretty

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Speaker 1: good to my ear and sounded pretty realistic, so potential

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Speaker 1: to upend the music industry. So to talk about all

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Speaker 1: of this, we wanted to bring in music expert Anthony Fantano.

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Speaker 1: He's on YouTube at the Needle Drop.

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Speaker 4: Great to meet you, sir, Hey nice for me YouTube.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, So, first of all, that first Drake in the

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Speaker 1: Weekend song, just on a music level, like my ear,

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Speaker 1: is very un Trained, et cetera. But did you like

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Speaker 1: the song. I'm not a huge Drake fan. I like

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Speaker 1: some of his music, not all of his music. I

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Speaker 1: liked the Weekend actually more, and I kind of liked it,

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Speaker 1: to be honest with you.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, I thought the song was pretty good.

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Speaker 5: I thought the instrumental little piano loop and that was cool.

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Speaker 5: I thought the Weekend vocals were decent, though maybe not

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Speaker 5: as convincing because stylistically they sounded like something.

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Speaker 4: More from like an older era of his career than in.

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Speaker 5: More something kind of the more pop centric stuff that

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Speaker 5: he's doing now. But the Drake vocal was like dead on.

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Speaker 5: It was like, you know, completely nailed in terms of

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Speaker 5: like it's sounding exactly like him.

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Speaker 1: So when you first heard the song, did you know

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Speaker 1: it was AI generated or did you hear it before

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Speaker 1: you realized that?

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Speaker 6: And if you do, you.

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Speaker 1: Think you would have been able to tell, is what

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Speaker 1: I'm trying to get at.

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Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't think I would have been able to tell. However,

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Speaker 5: you know, I feel like the AI conversation is kind

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Speaker 5: of like too pronged right now, and which one we're

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Speaker 5: having can be kind.

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Speaker 4: Of confusing at times.

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Speaker 5: The you know, I think like, you know, the conversation.

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Speaker 5: The conversation could kind of go two ways. You're either

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Speaker 5: discussing about like this idea of like AI generated music

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Speaker 5: replacing artists, because you know, there's kind of this hypothetical

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Speaker 5: of I don't know, you open up a program or

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Speaker 5: some kind of AI learning you know, whatever it is interface,

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Speaker 5: and you sort of put in I want this kind

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Speaker 5: of song that sounds like this, and da da da

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Speaker 5: da da, and then just like hands it to you,

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Speaker 5: and you know, artists are kind of replaced in that way.

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Speaker 4: Because it sort of like creates this ease of creation.

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Speaker 5: The other flip side of it, the flip side of

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Speaker 5: it is like this idea of impersonation, like we're not

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Speaker 5: just making music idly to replace other musicians who maybe

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Speaker 5: sort of putting that music out there where literally impersonating

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Speaker 5: a famous artist and making their music for them in

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Speaker 5: a way and sort of passing it off as their stuff.

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Speaker 5: In this conversation is very much in in that lane

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Speaker 5: because when I dug more into the song, you know,

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Speaker 5: of course, like I came to learn that the ghost

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Speaker 5: writer guy who created it, like he.

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Speaker 4: Produce the song themselves.

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Speaker 5: So the song produced by a human the melodies and

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Speaker 5: vocals written by a human, the lyrics written by a human.

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Speaker 4: The AI portion.

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Speaker 5: Of it, where that comes into play is when he

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Speaker 5: laid down the vocals for the track. He used this,

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Speaker 5: you know, sort of like vocal AI deep fake whatever personality,

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Speaker 5: not personality, but program to turn his vocals to sound

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Speaker 5: like Drake's vocals, and you know, so like there's a

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Speaker 5: very human touch throughout the entire song. The AI came

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Speaker 5: into play in order to sort of like make the

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Speaker 5: vocals sound as if it was Drake on the track. Now,

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Speaker 5: you know, with that being said, there's still causes for

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Speaker 5: a concern that come into play here, because you know,

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Speaker 5: for me, this is like really not so much an

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Speaker 5: issue of like our computers taking over, but you know,

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Speaker 5: should people be allowed to use this technology to basically

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Speaker 5: impersonate other people, impersonate other artists to either you know,

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Speaker 5: undercut their potential earnings as artists, because you know, they

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Speaker 5: could sort of make their songs for them, or maybe

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Speaker 5: make a whrle song or a defading song or something

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Speaker 5: that would be embarrassing in some way and sort of

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Speaker 5: like pass it off as like, yeah, oh, here's a

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Speaker 5: Drake demo where he says this like heinous thing or

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Speaker 5: something like that. I don't know if you're aware of

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Speaker 5: this artist, but you know, an art pop and sort

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Speaker 5: of experimental pop artist who hails from Canada, who goes by.

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Speaker 4: The name of Grimes.

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Speaker 5: She recently, like you know, put out this call to

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Speaker 5: a lot of her fans, and she's kind of very

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Speaker 5: much of this vibe, like she likes technology, she likes

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Speaker 5: machine learning, she likes AI, she likes you know, kind

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Speaker 5: of these futurists, these futurist aesthetics and you know, viewpoints,

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Speaker 5: and she kind of puts that out in her social

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Speaker 5: media and her art, and she encouraged her fans to

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Speaker 5: sort of like start AI generating her music for her.

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Speaker 4: Here, you know, hear some stuff, some stems and whatever

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Speaker 4: for my vocals, which.

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Speaker 5: You can feed into this program or manipulate in every

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Speaker 5: way you want, in whatever way you want to sort

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Speaker 5: of make it sound like it's me singing on a song.

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Speaker 5: And if you put it out and put my name

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Speaker 5: on it, we can cut a fifty to fifty in

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Speaker 5: terms of like the revenue. But you know, in sort

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Speaker 5: of encouraging her fans do that, she also had to

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Speaker 5: sort of put out a message saying like, hey, listen,

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Speaker 5: I can't really endorse the song or allow you to

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Speaker 5: keep it up if you're using it to say crazy

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Speaker 5: stuff or endorse or you know, platform ideologies that I

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Speaker 5: don't agree with that are like extreme or weird or

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Speaker 5: something like that. So, you know, I think there's a

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Speaker 5: lot of you know, potential moral questions that come into

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Speaker 5: play with, you know, the way that this technology could

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Speaker 5: be used to, you know, ruin the reputations of other artists,

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Speaker 5: because it sounds so real because as you were saying earlier,

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Speaker 5: I couldn't really tell that wasn't Drake on the track.

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Speaker 4: It sounds like you can Drake on the song.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely. Is that the same Grimes that was

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Speaker 1: with Elon Musk is at that crimes?

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Speaker 7: Yeah?

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Speaker 4: Yeah, Oh okay.

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Speaker 1: So it's interesting because so this is a person who

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Speaker 1: is sort of embracing the technology and saying, go forth,

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Speaker 1: make them and even she's having to say, but we

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Speaker 1: got to put some limits on it, and I can't

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Speaker 1: really endorse this music and you know, keep it in

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Speaker 1: the in the straight and narrow of not being too

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Speaker 1: wild and crazy, which I think does expose how many

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Speaker 1: moral tricky, difficult moral questions it raises how have other artists,

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Speaker 1: I mean, how have Drake and The Weekend responded to

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Speaker 1: this particular song. I think there were other songs that

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Speaker 1: were put out similarly.

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Speaker 5: Right as far as I could tell, they haven't sort

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Speaker 5: of made any kind of direct, know acknowledgments toward the track,

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Speaker 5: mostly because I think in doing that it's going to

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Speaker 5: bring more attention to it than they want and probably

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Speaker 5: encourage more artists to do it. Any interaction they've had,

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Speaker 5: but those tracks, from what I understand, has been done

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Speaker 5: through their record label. And while the song, and I

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Speaker 5: believe there's another Drake song that's been floating around as

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Speaker 5: well that may have been created the same way. Those

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Speaker 5: tracks are still kind of floating around in a few

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Speaker 5: different places on social media, but from what I understand,

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Speaker 5: they've been taken down off of streaming, taken.

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Speaker 4: Down in an official capacity.

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Speaker 5: On maybe other platforms where it could have potentially been anetized,

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Speaker 5: because they just want to make sure that, like you know,

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Speaker 5: on the platforms where Drake's music is making the labels money,

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Speaker 5: that this song is not like competing with other tracks

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Speaker 5: that he has up and has out. Because the song

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Speaker 5: was getting hundreds of thousands of streams over the course

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Speaker 5: of days.

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Speaker 6: Wow.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, when I went to look for it, it was

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Speaker 1: pretty hard to find, but I was at that point

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Speaker 1: at least able to find it. Do you know if

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Speaker 1: the technology is sufficiently advanced now where you said this

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Speaker 1: was basically like a human did everything except the actual

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Speaker 1: and even the vocals, but then it's run through this

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Speaker 1: AI program that switches his vocals to sound like Drake,

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Speaker 1: to sound like the Weekend. Is the technology anywhere close

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Speaker 1: to advanced enough that you could literally, as someone like me,

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Speaker 1: just type in like make me a song from Drake

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Speaker 1: that sounds in this kind of way, and that it

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Speaker 1: would come up with something that was reasonable.

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Speaker 4: Yeah.

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Speaker 5: No, No, it's it's nowhere near that at this point. Like,

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Speaker 5: there are some instances of you know, weird underground like

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Speaker 5: band camp pages where somebody has like maybe fed a

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Speaker 5: bunch of.

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Speaker 8: Beatles songs into something and then sort of asks to

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Speaker 8: make a bunch of Beatles music and it sounds like

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Speaker 8: this really vague, weird mush.

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Speaker 4: Where it's it's it's kind of weird.

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Speaker 5: It's like looking into you know, a bunch of it's

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Speaker 5: like it's like staring into a word jumble where it's like,

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Speaker 5: if you stare at it long enough, you could pick

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Speaker 5: out certain words and circle them, but it mostly just looks.

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Speaker 4: Kind of like noise. You know, mostly just sounds like noise.

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Speaker 5: It's something that kind of resembles music, but not like,

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Speaker 5: you know, accurately. However, even though it's not there, it

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Speaker 5: probably will eventually reach that point. Things will advance to

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Speaker 5: the point where you could potentially just like punch in

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Speaker 5: I want a Drake song and then.

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Speaker 4: It just like plops out a Drake song in front

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Speaker 4: of you or something like that. And you know, I

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Speaker 4: think there has to be some kind of I.

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Speaker 5: Don't know, initiative on the part of Congress or somebody

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Speaker 5: to sort of like nip this in the bud before

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Speaker 5: it becomes like a bigger thing.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 5: I think there should potentially be at some point like

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Speaker 5: repercussions for people who might possibly use this technology nefariously.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 4: And this doesn't just apply to artists.

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Speaker 5: This applies to public figures, personalities, also individual people as well,

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Speaker 5: because I mean, you know, using this stuff, if you've

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Speaker 5: had enough recordings of anybody's voice, you could potentially just

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Speaker 5: kind of doctor like a phone recording or something like

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Speaker 5: that and like put it out and make it seem

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Speaker 5: like you know, so and so said this that or

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Speaker 5: the other thing and sort of like you know, completely

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Speaker 5: ruin their reputation. You know, it's it's it's kind of

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Speaker 5: like a case of defamation in a way. So there

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Speaker 5: is that, and then you know, I think maybe there

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Speaker 5: needs to be some kind of like you know, I

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Speaker 5: guess look or revision into the greater scheme of copyright

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Speaker 5: law or something in terms of like being able to

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Speaker 5: say you can't literally claim my voice as your own

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Speaker 5: or you know, I'm not advocating for you know, anybody

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Speaker 5: to be sued or sort of taken to court if

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Speaker 5: they have a voice that's maybe similar to another artist's voice,

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Speaker 5: but you know, using this technology to recreate someone's vocal

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Speaker 5: and you know, sell it or market it or commercialize

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Speaker 5: it in some way, I think there should be that

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Speaker 5: should be.

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Speaker 4: De incentivized, you know.

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Speaker 5: I mean, if you know right now, I think it

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Speaker 5: should be kind of treated in the same way that

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Speaker 5: sampling is. You know, there's a lot of there's a

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Speaker 5: lot of sample based music out there, and a lot

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Speaker 5: of great sample based music, but a great deal of

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Speaker 5: it is kind of like you know, operating in the underground,

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Speaker 5: it's allowed to kind of like exist on social media

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Speaker 5: or maybe put up for free on YouTube and that

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Speaker 5: sort of thing.

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Speaker 4: Or even if it is on a.

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Speaker 5: Music streaming platform, it's probably being you know, uploaded by

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Speaker 5: an artist.

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Speaker 4: Who doesn't really have that much of a fan base

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Speaker 4: or a following anyway. You know. However, if a certain

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Speaker 4: song that does happen.

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Speaker 5: To sample a copyrighted track is on a platform where

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Speaker 5: it is making money and it pops off and it

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Speaker 5: gains attention, that's usually when record labels kind of come

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Speaker 5: calling and want a cut of whatever it is that

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Speaker 5: artist is making off that viral song.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, is there an ad sharing there's an

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Speaker 1: ed sharing case going on right now.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, currently there's an ed sheering case going on.

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Speaker 5: I mean, I would say topically, like definitely, you know,

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Speaker 5: in a different realm. However, it is a case that

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Speaker 5: I'm watching and I'm very concerned about because personally, I

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Speaker 5: don't think the similarity musically between the Marvin Gaye song

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Speaker 5: and the Edge Heeran song.

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Speaker 4: Are all that close.

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Speaker 5: And there are other tracks out there that are pretty

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Speaker 5: popular that I think have even greater similarities. To you know,

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Speaker 5: popular songs in the past point ultimately being there. I

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Speaker 5: think if you start kind of, you know, suing artists

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Speaker 5: left and right over these you know, not even not

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Speaker 5: even like a clear plagiarism of a melody or a

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Speaker 5: lyric or something like that, like literally just like you know,

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Speaker 5: it's a similar vibe or it's a similar set of chords,

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Speaker 5: you know, like nailing an artist down over a set

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Speaker 5: of chords, which I mean the chords to let's get

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Speaker 5: it on.

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Speaker 4: I mean, they're nice to listen to.

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Speaker 5: It's a beautiful song, it's a great track, but like

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Speaker 5: they're not profoundly unique, Like it's not a profoundly you know,

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Speaker 5: it's like suing some over a drum beat.

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Speaker 3: You know.

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Speaker 1: Well, I think this gets into like how it's tricky

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Speaker 1: to draw the line because you also don't want to

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Speaker 1: stifle creativity.

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Speaker 4: Right and you can imagine, right.

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Speaker 1: And and so the way that Grimes is looking at

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Speaker 1: this is almost like, oh, this is a whole other

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Speaker 1: genre of art that could be could flourish, could be created.

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Speaker 1: I mean, one thing that seems really clear to me

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Speaker 1: is you have to have total transparency. You can't be

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Speaker 1: trying to pass this track off of oh, this is

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Speaker 1: actually Drake or this is actually the Weekend. Has to

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Speaker 1: be really clear up front what this thing actually is.

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Speaker 1: But even then, it, you know, is still incredibly tricky

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Speaker 1: because you know, you're taking away some of the uniqueness

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Speaker 1: of that artist. I mean, I certainly, I certainly wouldn't

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Speaker 1: love it if there are a bunch of AI, you know,

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Speaker 1: crystal balls that were doing a reasonable job impersonating me,

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Speaker 1: and it became hard to tell what was the real

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Speaker 1: me and what was you know, what some human created

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Speaker 1: and put my voice on top.

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Speaker 4: Of it right exactly.

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Speaker 5: You know, It's like I underst there's some people out there,

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Speaker 5: a lot of fans who don't necessarily, you know, care

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Speaker 5: for a handful of reasons. One because you know, the

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Speaker 5: fans just want to be entertained, and the idea of

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Speaker 5: the prospect of an AI song is interesting, and you know,

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Speaker 5: it's they want to see how accurate it is, how

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Speaker 5: close it is, is it actually a good song and

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Speaker 5: vibe to And you know, Drake at this point is

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Speaker 5: as far as the music industry goes, he has all

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Speaker 5: the money in the world. You know, it's kind of

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Speaker 5: hard to feel bad for Drake missing out on you know,

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Speaker 5: a few hundred thousand or even a couple of million

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Speaker 5: dollars because somebody put out an AI song.

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Speaker 4: It's it's potentially more popular than tracks that he's put out.

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Speaker 5: However, you know, I do worry about like the trickle

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Speaker 5: down effects that could possibly have two smaller artists. You know,

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Speaker 5: I would hate to see an artist or a band

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Speaker 5: who's maybe more on that you know, middle tier of

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Speaker 5: popularity and they're living maybe closer paycheck to paycheck in

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Speaker 5: terms of you know, success and you know, notoriety in

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Speaker 5: the music industry, which may not be as big as Drake,

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Speaker 5: but still valid. You know, there are lots of musicians

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Speaker 5: who operate on you know, that sort of level. I

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Speaker 5: would hate to see them sort of getting undercut by

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Speaker 5: this technology, you.

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Speaker 4: Know, and and in a way.

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Speaker 5: Sometimes they are, especially if they're like you know, ambient

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Speaker 5: artists or electronic artists maybe whose work could be a

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Speaker 5: little more easily recreated through these programs and stuff, or

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Speaker 5: you know, sort of have their livelihoods threatened by you know,

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Speaker 5: Spotify playlists that are just sort of like growing generic

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Speaker 5: music onto it in the background that's not particularly that

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Speaker 5: that's not specifically licensed to any artists who are actually

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Speaker 5: popular in those fields, just so that they can sort

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Speaker 5: of like save themselves streaming revenue money at the end

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Speaker 5: of the day, so they don't have to, you know,

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Speaker 5: sort of like include actual artists in those fields on

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Speaker 5: these playlists.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 5: So I worry about, you know, those artists kind of

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Speaker 5: being hurt by this, by this technology, you know, because

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Speaker 5: of the fans at this point, they're curious.

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Speaker 4: About it, and a lot of them don't.

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Speaker 5: Really seem to air all that much much, you know,

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Speaker 5: in terms of whether or not it could potentially have

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Speaker 5: negative effects. And the music industry, I think is like

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Speaker 5: having a really tough time figuring out how to handle

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Speaker 5: this really hot potato. Because in the past, as the

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Speaker 5: music industry has like tried to go on crusade after

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Speaker 5: crusade against various types of technology that are changing the

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Speaker 5: paradigm of things, be it like you know, home taping

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Speaker 5: is killing music, burning CDs and pirating music is killing music.

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Speaker 4: It's napster, it's this.

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Speaker 5: It's that every time they've gone on one of those

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Speaker 5: crusades streaming is killing music, it's only brought more attention

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Speaker 5: to that thing, and it's only further solidified that thing

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Speaker 5: is like, you know, the thing to do and like

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Speaker 5: the way forward that everything is essentially going to be operating. So,

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Speaker 5: you know, I think them going full throttle and trying

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Speaker 5: to you know, work against this could create almost like

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Speaker 5: a streisand effect.

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Speaker 9: You know.

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Speaker 5: So I'm not really sure what their motivations or what

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Speaker 5: their plan is going to be going forward from here,

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Speaker 5: other than maybe to kind of play whack a mole

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Speaker 5: with these tracks when and if they managed to get hot.

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Speaker 4: Randomly, you know, where.

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Speaker 1: Do artists make the bulk of their money, Like what's

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Speaker 1: the most what's like the largest percentage.

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Speaker 4: Of that much of the time, it's like touring merger.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I thought that that was the case, and I

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Speaker 1: mean that's something that can't be replaced by AI. So

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Speaker 1: I guess that's hopeful for the existing music industry as

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Speaker 1: it is.

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Speaker 4: I mean so far for now.

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Speaker 5: I mean that there was like that Tupac hologram a

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Speaker 5: while ago, which people didn't take the hologram stuff, but like,

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Speaker 5: who the heck knows, at some point it could be

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Speaker 5: something that like you know, comes back or.

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Speaker 1: You know, I think human beings are biased towards human beings,

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Speaker 1: So no, I.

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Speaker 5: Actually agree and I think that's kind of like the

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Speaker 5: strongest argument against the AI thing, because you know, here's

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Speaker 5: a thing in order for us to have a copy

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Speaker 5: of a Drake song or you know, like a like

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Speaker 5: a an understanding of what a copy of a Drake

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Speaker 5: song is, that we have to have an entire catalog

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Speaker 5: of Drake music and.

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Speaker 4: Base that off of in the first place, you know

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Speaker 4: what I mean, you know.

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Speaker 5: In the past, and look, there are lots of like,

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Speaker 5: you know, artists who are sort of like I guess,

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Speaker 5: like you know, not real, or they're you know, ce

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Speaker 5: g I representations of other artists, or you know, they're

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Speaker 5: they're vocal voids something like that. You know, their artists

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Speaker 5: out there sort of like are created by people behind

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Speaker 5: the scenes and a lot of the time because there

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Speaker 5: isn't a human touch or element to that, and you know,

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00:17:32,280 --> 00:17:34,720
Speaker 5: there's no personality, there's no depth to that because it's

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Speaker 5: just a representation of something else. Like it has an audience,

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Speaker 5: but it only sort of goes so far because as

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Speaker 5: you said, people are interested in people.

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Speaker 4: People are intrigued by.

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Speaker 5: Drake as an individual, as a personality, as a storyteller,

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Speaker 5: as you know, somebody who is flawed he makes headlines,

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Speaker 5: you know, through his triumphs and his lows as well.

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Speaker 5: You know, people just find him interesting. And that's kind

399
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Speaker 5: of the case of a lot of their favorite artists

400
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Speaker 5: as well. You know, people obsessed with their favorites on

401
00:18:03,760 --> 00:18:06,560
Speaker 5: a deeper level. You know, the fans of Taylor Swift,

402
00:18:06,560 --> 00:18:08,840
Speaker 5: for example, aren't just into Taylor Swift because they think

403
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Speaker 5: she's a good singer or a good songwriter. They like

404
00:18:11,240 --> 00:18:13,720
Speaker 5: her storytelling. They really kind of get into the personal

405
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Speaker 5: element of her songs and they sort of like understand

406
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Speaker 5: all the lore in terms of like who she dated, Well,

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Speaker 5: there's the relationship.

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Speaker 10: With right, what was going on in this song?

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Speaker 1: What was this all about? What was the emotional like

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Speaker 1: you know, this emotional context that brought the thing is.

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Speaker 4: Like AI can't come up with that, you know.

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Speaker 5: It's like an AI generated program is never going to

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Speaker 5: tell you, like a heartwarming story about its grandmother with

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Speaker 5: the specificity that a human being could, you know.

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Speaker 4: And maybe the technology could.

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Speaker 5: Advance to a point where you know, it's there one day,

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Speaker 5: but like, you know, I think there's a lot of

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Speaker 5: people at least at this point. I don't know culturally,

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00:18:47,119 --> 00:18:49,040
Speaker 5: things could change in twenty or thirty years, but at

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Speaker 5: least at this point, I think your average person you know,

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Speaker 5: could potentially feel like maybe a little gross at their core.

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Speaker 5: They feel like, oh, wow, this like story that I

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Speaker 5: got like really invested in and felt moved I didn't

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Speaker 5: even happen.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 1: It was just like basically AI manipulation, right exactly.

427
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Speaker 5: Because I think, like, you know, the draw or kind

428
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Speaker 5: of the the the emotional impact for a lot of

429
00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:13,040
Speaker 5: music fans is like when they're hearing a certain song

430
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Speaker 5: from a singer or a songwriter or whatever.

431
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Speaker 4: You know, they sort.

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Speaker 5: Of get into it because they believe, Oh, that's reality,

433
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Speaker 5: that's the thing that they did, that's the thing that

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Speaker 5: they had to happen. They're sort of like relaying that

435
00:19:21,520 --> 00:19:24,560
Speaker 5: experience to me through their music. If people were to

436
00:19:24,560 --> 00:19:27,840
Speaker 5: sort of you know, people get upset and you know,

437
00:19:27,880 --> 00:19:30,119
Speaker 5: disappointed when they come to learn and it does happen

438
00:19:30,119 --> 00:19:33,080
Speaker 5: every so often that you know the songwriter or rapper

439
00:19:33,320 --> 00:19:34,800
Speaker 5: x Y or Z actually lied in.

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00:19:34,760 --> 00:19:36,439
Speaker 4: Their song, you know, or they made something up or

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Speaker 4: you know, whatever it was.

442
00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:39,639
Speaker 5: You know, it didn't happen, and it wasn't really within

443
00:19:39,720 --> 00:19:42,480
Speaker 5: the realm of like you know, artistic license or the

444
00:19:42,560 --> 00:19:44,639
Speaker 5: kind of you know, slight exaggerations you could make in

445
00:19:44,680 --> 00:19:47,400
Speaker 5: a song to maybe make it more salacious or interesting.

446
00:19:47,440 --> 00:19:49,800
Speaker 5: You know, coming up with stuff that is completely fake

447
00:19:49,880 --> 00:19:53,720
Speaker 5: whole cloth usually ends up, you know, disappointing fans and

448
00:19:53,720 --> 00:19:56,439
Speaker 5: making people mad, you know, and to understand that or

449
00:19:56,440 --> 00:19:58,919
Speaker 5: come to realization that the artists that you're listening to

450
00:19:59,000 --> 00:20:01,520
Speaker 5: on top of it isn't you and real, the stories

451
00:20:01,520 --> 00:20:04,160
Speaker 5: aren't real, and the thing that made the music isn't

452
00:20:04,200 --> 00:20:04,960
Speaker 5: even a person.

453
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:07,639
Speaker 4: It's like not even a representation of anything. You know.

454
00:20:07,640 --> 00:20:09,440
Speaker 5: It could be a big disappointment to a lot of

455
00:20:09,480 --> 00:20:12,520
Speaker 5: people and just kind of make them divest from the music.

456
00:20:12,240 --> 00:20:12,640
Speaker 4: In a way.

457
00:20:13,040 --> 00:20:16,960
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's all very interesting and very thought provoking.

458
00:20:17,080 --> 00:20:18,919
Speaker 1: So Anthony, thank you so much. It's great to have you.

459
00:20:18,960 --> 00:20:19,399
Speaker 1: Great to meet you.

460
00:20:19,960 --> 00:20:21,680
Speaker 4: Yeah, they're great to meet you too. Thanks for having

461
00:20:21,680 --> 00:20:22,760
Speaker 4: me on my pleasure.

462
00:20:22,840 --> 00:20:25,920
Speaker 2: We talk a lot here about rogue law enforcement. One

463
00:20:25,920 --> 00:20:29,120
Speaker 2: of the best examples is a recent incident in Boston

464
00:20:29,280 --> 00:20:32,880
Speaker 2: for a simulated FBI and Department of Defense raid where

465
00:20:32,880 --> 00:20:36,800
Speaker 2: they mistakenly barged into the wrong hotel room, kidnapped basically

466
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:39,040
Speaker 2: a man who was sleeping there, and then held him

467
00:20:39,040 --> 00:20:41,840
Speaker 2: hostage for several hours before he could convince them that

468
00:20:41,880 --> 00:20:45,400
Speaker 2: it wasn't part of the drill. CBS News Boston uncovered

469
00:20:45,400 --> 00:20:46,760
Speaker 2: the story. Here's what it said.

470
00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:50,560
Speaker 11: FBI agents working with the Department of Defense barged into

471
00:20:50,600 --> 00:20:53,080
Speaker 11: a room on the fifteenth floor of the Revere Hotel

472
00:20:53,200 --> 00:20:56,280
Speaker 11: on Stuart Street in Boston. The FBI says it happened

473
00:20:56,400 --> 00:20:58,160
Speaker 11: just before midnight on Wednesday.

474
00:20:58,560 --> 00:21:01,080
Speaker 4: Agents banged on the Drawargia Room fifteen oh five.

475
00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:04,280
Speaker 11: Inside was a sleeping Delta Airlines pilot who was a

476
00:21:04,320 --> 00:21:07,040
Speaker 11: guest at the hotel. He opens the door, and sources

477
00:21:07,080 --> 00:21:10,680
Speaker 11: say agents barged in handcuffey, interrogated the pilot for more

478
00:21:10,720 --> 00:21:13,280
Speaker 11: than forty five minutes, and put him in the shower.

479
00:21:13,600 --> 00:21:16,439
Speaker 11: Nearly an hour later, sources say they realized their mistake,

480
00:21:16,640 --> 00:21:19,560
Speaker 11: took the cuffs off and released down. The FBI says

481
00:21:19,600 --> 00:21:23,000
Speaker 11: agents were conducting a training operation and a mock interrogation

482
00:21:23,320 --> 00:21:26,600
Speaker 11: to simulate what a Department of Defense employee deployed overseas

483
00:21:26,760 --> 00:21:27,440
Speaker 11: could encounter.

484
00:21:28,400 --> 00:21:30,080
Speaker 3: Uh, that's pretty nuts, crystal.

485
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:32,000
Speaker 2: So first of all, I don't know why the hell

486
00:21:32,040 --> 00:21:34,320
Speaker 2: we're even doing that, but what they also discovered, like.

487
00:21:34,280 --> 00:21:38,320
Speaker 1: A regular hotel where regular people are sleeping, and even

488
00:21:38,359 --> 00:21:40,680
Speaker 1: if you got the right door, surely there are people

489
00:21:40,760 --> 00:21:42,560
Speaker 1: in like rooms next to him and trying to sleep,

490
00:21:42,560 --> 00:21:44,280
Speaker 1: and you're in there like banging on the door at

491
00:21:44,320 --> 00:21:47,680
Speaker 1: midnight and interrogating somebody in the like what are you doing?

492
00:21:48,200 --> 00:21:48,800
Speaker 12: What are you doing?

493
00:21:49,040 --> 00:21:51,400
Speaker 2: Forty five minutes before they took his handcuffs off, they

494
00:21:51,440 --> 00:21:54,560
Speaker 2: threw him, presumably while he was in his underclothes in

495
00:21:54,640 --> 00:21:58,600
Speaker 2: the shower, and they realized their mistake, and they realized

496
00:21:58,640 --> 00:22:01,879
Speaker 2: their mistake and apologized to him. They said, we were

497
00:22:01,920 --> 00:22:05,400
Speaker 2: assisting the Department of Defense in this training exercise, mistakenly

498
00:22:05,440 --> 00:22:08,440
Speaker 2: wentto the wrong room detain the individual not intended. Thankfully,

499
00:22:08,480 --> 00:22:11,399
Speaker 2: nobody was injured. Boston Police was called and responded to

500
00:22:11,480 --> 00:22:14,399
Speaker 2: the scene. Safety is always the priority of the FBI

501
00:22:14,480 --> 00:22:16,960
Speaker 2: and our law enforcement partners, and we take these incidants

502
00:22:17,320 --> 00:22:18,040
Speaker 2: very seriously.

503
00:22:18,280 --> 00:22:19,399
Speaker 13: Listen, I don't know whose.

504
00:22:19,119 --> 00:22:21,760
Speaker 2: Pilot is, but you need to sue the living crap

505
00:22:21,880 --> 00:22:24,200
Speaker 2: out of these people, and I hope you get a

506
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:29,760
Speaker 2: massive payday because the FEDS can't just drag you out

507
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:33,600
Speaker 2: of your bed while you're asleep and throw you in

508
00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:37,119
Speaker 2: the shower, hair and handcuffs and just it's all just

509
00:22:37,119 --> 00:22:41,840
Speaker 2: one big misunderstanding. So mister pilot, whoever you are, please

510
00:22:41,920 --> 00:22:45,399
Speaker 2: sue that, Please sue these people, and you know, FBI,

511
00:22:45,840 --> 00:22:48,560
Speaker 2: please don't do this at crowded hotels in the middle

512
00:22:48,600 --> 00:22:51,159
Speaker 2: of the night in downtown bo. You know, there are

513
00:22:51,160 --> 00:22:54,520
Speaker 2: some crappy motels where you can probably simulate the same thing.

514
00:22:54,600 --> 00:22:56,879
Speaker 2: And you know, the craziest part is, Chris, we're probably

515
00:22:56,920 --> 00:22:59,919
Speaker 2: paying exorbitant smounts of taxpayer dollars to put this in

516
00:23:00,119 --> 00:23:02,000
Speaker 2: higher farce on in the first place.

517
00:23:02,240 --> 00:23:03,800
Speaker 4: As actually somebody.

518
00:23:03,640 --> 00:23:06,520
Speaker 2: Pointed out, you know, if you tried this something like

519
00:23:06,560 --> 00:23:10,320
Speaker 2: this down in the South, imagine you're doing this in Texas, You're.

520
00:23:10,160 --> 00:23:10,960
Speaker 3: Gonna get killed.

521
00:23:11,119 --> 00:23:14,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, if you've got if you walk into the wrong

522
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:16,399
Speaker 2: hotel room, somebody's gonna blow you away.

523
00:23:16,440 --> 00:23:19,280
Speaker 3: And a lot of people are strapped across this country.

524
00:23:18,960 --> 00:23:22,640
Speaker 1: People and stressed. How many incidents have we had recently

525
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:26,360
Speaker 1: horrifying things of neighbors and you know, people who show

526
00:23:26,440 --> 00:23:28,520
Speaker 1: up accidentally at the wrong house and they end up

527
00:23:28,520 --> 00:23:31,640
Speaker 1: getting murdered because they knocked on the wrong door. Yeah,

528
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:34,880
Speaker 1: people are stressed out. A lot of Americans have guns.

529
00:23:35,320 --> 00:23:36,639
Speaker 1: Imagine how terrifying this is.

530
00:23:36,720 --> 00:23:39,720
Speaker 2: Like you bargin my house. You try and handcuff me

531
00:23:39,960 --> 00:23:42,159
Speaker 2: or something like that, you're gonna get killed, Like, I'm sorry.

532
00:23:42,160 --> 00:23:43,240
Speaker 3: And it's one of those.

533
00:23:43,119 --> 00:23:45,960
Speaker 2: Especially you know, if they're operating the way that you

534
00:23:45,960 --> 00:23:46,159
Speaker 2: did it.

535
00:23:46,160 --> 00:23:47,760
Speaker 3: There are a lot of people who would do that.

536
00:23:47,800 --> 00:23:49,800
Speaker 2: So they're lucky for their own sake and for their

537
00:23:49,800 --> 00:23:51,240
Speaker 2: innocent agents that nothing happened.

538
00:23:51,280 --> 00:23:52,879
Speaker 1: And then it's crazy to take him an hour. This

539
00:23:52,920 --> 00:23:55,600
Speaker 1: guy's trying to persuade them like I am not whatever

540
00:23:55,640 --> 00:23:58,159
Speaker 1: you're doing, I'm not part of it. I'm really not

541
00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:00,479
Speaker 1: part of it. And for an hour they don't believe him.

542
00:24:00,920 --> 00:24:01,080
Speaker 14: Wow.

543
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:03,080
Speaker 4: Yeah, a lot of questions, Like I said, a lot

544
00:24:03,119 --> 00:24:03,640
Speaker 4: of questions.

545
00:24:03,720 --> 00:24:06,919
Speaker 2: Sue them, make sure every single one of them gets fired.

546
00:24:07,240 --> 00:24:11,600
Speaker 4: Do not drop this because this is some craziness. Yeah, anyway,

547
00:24:11,720 --> 00:24:12,600
Speaker 4: we'll see you guys later.

548
00:24:13,240 --> 00:24:16,800
Speaker 1: Got a little story for you about a CNBC reporter

549
00:24:17,040 --> 00:24:22,920
Speaker 1: and the cozy relationship between Washington elites and the media class.

550
00:24:23,560 --> 00:24:26,080
Speaker 1: Go ahead and put this up on the screen. So

551
00:24:26,520 --> 00:24:28,879
Speaker 1: this is headline here with the New York Post, the

552
00:24:28,960 --> 00:24:32,119
Speaker 1: video that exposed the relationship between Trump donor and not

553
00:24:32,160 --> 00:24:34,920
Speaker 1: just sending Trump to Ryan. This is Tom Brocky's huge

554
00:24:35,040 --> 00:24:40,080
Speaker 1: name in Republican Politics and CNBC anchor. She was also

555
00:24:40,520 --> 00:24:43,280
Speaker 1: the person who was involved with Jeff Shell, who was

556
00:24:43,320 --> 00:24:47,280
Speaker 1: the CEO of NBC. He was fired NBC Universal. He

557
00:24:47,480 --> 00:24:51,320
Speaker 1: was fired after an internal investigation revealed what they called

558
00:24:51,320 --> 00:24:55,160
Speaker 1: inappropriate conduct, having some sort of a remote romantic relationship

559
00:24:55,520 --> 00:24:58,399
Speaker 1: with this reporter. So put the next piece up on

560
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:00,560
Speaker 1: the screen. What happened is she was getting ready for

561
00:25:00,680 --> 00:25:05,520
Speaker 1: a live shot and he Tom Barrock, this major Trump donor,

562
00:25:05,960 --> 00:25:10,359
Speaker 1: wanders into the background, and she's seen in this video like,

563
00:25:10,880 --> 00:25:14,320
Speaker 1: you know, telling him to get off the screen, and

564
00:25:14,359 --> 00:25:17,199
Speaker 1: then he walks away and her, you know, colleagues and

565
00:25:17,200 --> 00:25:18,840
Speaker 1: coworkers who are able to see this, and I'm sure

566
00:25:18,840 --> 00:25:22,080
Speaker 1: this has been passed around CNBC quite a lot realize

567
00:25:22,359 --> 00:25:26,480
Speaker 1: that this is this billionaire who, by the way she

568
00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:28,880
Speaker 1: put the next piece up, she had, you know, done

569
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:31,800
Speaker 1: interviews with as a supposedly neutral journalist.

570
00:25:32,520 --> 00:25:33,560
Speaker 6: There were also.

571
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:38,520
Speaker 1: Questions about how she had been able to secure an

572
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:41,800
Speaker 1: interview with Jared Kushner, who, of course, you know, Donald

573
00:25:41,840 --> 00:25:45,520
Speaker 1: Trump's son in law and also key aid in that administration,

574
00:25:46,119 --> 00:25:48,520
Speaker 1: and so there were questions raised about, hey, maybe this

575
00:25:48,680 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: relationship that you had, maybe that's what led to you

576
00:25:51,680 --> 00:25:57,080
Speaker 1: scoring this big interview, So I mean, obviously incredibly embarrassing

577
00:25:57,320 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: for her, but also I think does reveal the nature

578
00:26:01,240 --> 00:26:05,119
Speaker 1: of the incestuous world that is the political media industrial COMPLI.

579
00:26:05,240 --> 00:26:07,720
Speaker 2: This reminds me of the Ali Watkins case. Do you

580
00:26:07,760 --> 00:26:13,680
Speaker 2: remember this case? Twenty seventeen. Ali was a star CIA.

581
00:26:13,400 --> 00:26:14,800
Speaker 4: Reporter here in Washington.

582
00:26:14,800 --> 00:26:18,280
Speaker 2: She was actually and well, she was getting all these

583
00:26:18,320 --> 00:26:20,879
Speaker 2: great scoops over at BuzzFeed, and everyone said, how is

584
00:26:21,040 --> 00:26:24,640
Speaker 2: Ali doing it? And then one of a fifty something

585
00:26:24,720 --> 00:26:28,040
Speaker 2: year old man who had access to set intelligence gets

586
00:26:28,119 --> 00:26:31,479
Speaker 2: indicted and it turns out that she was having a

587
00:26:31,520 --> 00:26:34,719
Speaker 2: long time affair with him, and he just so happened

588
00:26:34,760 --> 00:26:37,199
Speaker 2: to be feeding her a bunch of information which she

589
00:26:37,480 --> 00:26:40,919
Speaker 2: never disclosed to her bosses. And by the way, Ali

590
00:26:41,960 --> 00:26:46,040
Speaker 2: she rode on these scoops from her career, from online

591
00:26:46,240 --> 00:26:49,640
Speaker 2: to the New York Times, where she was publishing some

592
00:26:49,680 --> 00:26:52,440
Speaker 2: of this information. And then I remember this was a

593
00:26:52,440 --> 00:26:55,359
Speaker 2: big scandal kind of at the time. She actually, crazily enough,

594
00:26:55,400 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 2: was not fired by the New York Times for this behavior.

595
00:26:57,840 --> 00:26:58,399
Speaker 10: I just looked it up.

596
00:26:58,440 --> 00:27:00,399
Speaker 2: Now she's writing about subways in New York, So I'm

597
00:27:00,440 --> 00:27:03,119
Speaker 2: happy for her. But the point is that this is

598
00:27:03,200 --> 00:27:04,920
Speaker 2: more common than I think a lot of people think.

599
00:27:05,320 --> 00:27:09,760
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's just the incestuous literally in some cases

600
00:27:10,000 --> 00:27:13,920
Speaker 2: relationships between sources and the people who cover them. And

601
00:27:14,240 --> 00:27:16,600
Speaker 2: you know, the only mistake that they made here was

602
00:27:16,640 --> 00:27:17,679
Speaker 2: getting caught on camera.

603
00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:19,560
Speaker 3: That was it. That's the only thing.

604
00:27:19,600 --> 00:27:20,800
Speaker 2: And by the way, it turned out that she was

605
00:27:20,840 --> 00:27:23,800
Speaker 2: not only having an affair with him, but also with

606
00:27:23,880 --> 00:27:27,320
Speaker 2: the head of NBC who was fired coincidentally on the

607
00:27:27,320 --> 00:27:29,080
Speaker 2: same day as Tucker and Don Lemon, which is why

608
00:27:29,160 --> 00:27:31,320
Speaker 2: nobody heard about it, right, but that was a pretty

609
00:27:31,320 --> 00:27:33,960
Speaker 2: big deal story. Yeah, to have him get fired as well.

610
00:27:34,119 --> 00:27:36,840
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, putting the sex out of it. I

611
00:27:36,840 --> 00:27:39,639
Speaker 1: think it really shows you how a lot of people

612
00:27:39,640 --> 00:27:42,119
Speaker 1: in the industry like they get had by the connections

613
00:27:42,119 --> 00:27:45,960
Speaker 1: and the relationship. To the contrary of in an ideal world,

614
00:27:46,200 --> 00:27:48,840
Speaker 1: this is a reporter who is holding power to account,

615
00:27:49,040 --> 00:27:54,000
Speaker 1: who has an adversarial relationship with key powerful figures, you know,

616
00:27:54,160 --> 00:27:57,680
Speaker 1: in politics. But instead, the real way that you get ahead,

617
00:27:57,720 --> 00:27:59,639
Speaker 1: and the reason that power is often not held to

618
00:27:59,680 --> 00:28:03,679
Speaker 1: accout is by developing these close relationships with them, and

619
00:28:03,680 --> 00:28:05,520
Speaker 1: then you get the scoop and you get the big

620
00:28:05,560 --> 00:28:06,639
Speaker 1: interview and you get.

621
00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:08,040
Speaker 6: The access, et cetera, et cetera.

622
00:28:08,200 --> 00:28:11,560
Speaker 1: So anyway, you know, very embarrassing for her, but I

623
00:28:11,560 --> 00:28:14,440
Speaker 1: think more broadly revealing about the game that's played it.

624
00:28:14,520 --> 00:28:18,159
Speaker 2: Oh, media, that's so insane. She fired yesterday. I mean,

625
00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:21,280
Speaker 2: I guess there's probably some human resources whatever, but there.

626
00:28:21,200 --> 00:28:25,440
Speaker 1: Was apparently there was apparently some sort of human resources

627
00:28:26,280 --> 00:28:30,160
Speaker 1: investigation at CNBC back in twenty twenty one over how

628
00:28:30,200 --> 00:28:32,439
Speaker 1: the hell did you get this scoop with this interview

629
00:28:32,440 --> 00:28:35,280
Speaker 1: with Jared Kushner Because I guess, I mean, I wasn't

630
00:28:35,280 --> 00:28:38,000
Speaker 1: familiar with her. Hadley Gamble is her name. I wasn't

631
00:28:38,000 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 1: familiar with her. I also don't watch the NBC all

632
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:41,680
Speaker 1: the time, but I get the impression she's not like

633
00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 1: one of their top level talent. So then when she

634
00:28:45,200 --> 00:28:47,040
Speaker 1: was able to score this big interview, people were like,

635
00:28:47,080 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 1: what the hell is going on here? And it actually

636
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:52,920
Speaker 1: triggered human resources investigation. Now, in fairness to her, apparently

637
00:28:52,920 --> 00:28:56,760
Speaker 1: it didn't turn up at least enough wrongdoing or corrupt

638
00:28:56,760 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: behavior to get her fired. Or then again, maybe they

639
00:28:59,680 --> 00:29:01,720
Speaker 1: don't know care about cropp behavior if it lands in

640
00:29:01,800 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: a big interview.

641
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:04,720
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's totally nuts, all right, We'll see you guys later.

642
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:09,000
Speaker 3: I'm Maximilian Alvarez.

643
00:29:09,160 --> 00:29:11,520
Speaker 7: I'm the editor in chief of the Real News Network

644
00:29:11,680 --> 00:29:15,240
Speaker 7: and host of the podcast Working People, and this is

645
00:29:15,280 --> 00:29:19,760
Speaker 7: the art of class war on breaking Points. Look, it

646
00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:23,320
Speaker 7: is no secret that I am no fan of corporate media,

647
00:29:24,000 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 7: and if you are watching this channel, then you, like me,

648
00:29:28,120 --> 00:29:32,000
Speaker 7: probably have a healthy distrust or even disdain for most

649
00:29:32,040 --> 00:29:35,960
Speaker 7: corporate media outlets and pundits and would like to ignore

650
00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:39,840
Speaker 7: them entirely if you could. But the fact remains that

651
00:29:39,960 --> 00:29:42,480
Speaker 7: for better or for worse, we can't.

652
00:29:42,400 --> 00:29:43,320
Speaker 3: Just ignore them.

653
00:29:44,040 --> 00:29:50,120
Speaker 7: Being engaged democratic media literate citizens means at least having

654
00:29:50,160 --> 00:29:53,520
Speaker 7: a good handle on what the media ecosystem looks like

655
00:29:54,040 --> 00:29:58,920
Speaker 7: and how media, both independent and corporate media alike, shape

656
00:29:58,920 --> 00:30:03,680
Speaker 7: our discourse, our public policy, our political activity, our culture,

657
00:30:04,040 --> 00:30:07,760
Speaker 7: so on and so forth. And regardless of how we

658
00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:12,320
Speaker 7: feel individually, we can still acknowledge that the changes taking

659
00:30:12,400 --> 00:30:16,680
Speaker 7: place as we speak across the corporate media landscape are

660
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:21,320
Speaker 7: a big story and they will produce political ripple effects

661
00:30:21,360 --> 00:30:25,280
Speaker 7: that will all have to contend with some good, some

662
00:30:25,440 --> 00:30:28,640
Speaker 7: bad others that will just have to wait and see

663
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,600
Speaker 7: how they develop. From the earth shaking news on Monday,

664
00:30:32,640 --> 00:30:35,760
Speaker 7: April twenty fourth, that Fox News has cut ties with

665
00:30:35,840 --> 00:30:39,640
Speaker 7: its star host Tucker Carlson, and CNN has done the

666
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,640
Speaker 7: same with host Don Lemon. To the news that five

667
00:30:42,640 --> 00:30:45,160
Speaker 7: point thirty eight founder Nate Silver is expected to be

668
00:30:45,240 --> 00:30:49,480
Speaker 7: cut from ABC, and NBC chief executive Jeff Shell was

669
00:30:49,560 --> 00:30:54,120
Speaker 7: fired for sexual harassment. There are some seismic shakeups happening

670
00:30:54,280 --> 00:30:57,960
Speaker 7: in the world of corporate media right now, and everyone's

671
00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 7: talking about what these shakeups will mean, and everyone is

672
00:31:02,440 --> 00:31:07,240
Speaker 7: everyone seemingly has an opinion on uh, Tucker and Fox News,

673
00:31:07,720 --> 00:31:13,040
Speaker 7: Lemon and CNN, and I completely understand why. But I

674
00:31:13,120 --> 00:31:16,400
Speaker 7: can't help but wonder why. If we are all as

675
00:31:16,440 --> 00:31:19,640
Speaker 7: invested in the inner workings of our media ecosystem as

676
00:31:19,680 --> 00:31:24,280
Speaker 7: our reactions to this week's news would suggest, why has

677
00:31:24,320 --> 00:31:27,440
Speaker 7: it been so difficult to get people to care about

678
00:31:27,760 --> 00:31:33,080
Speaker 7: critical changes happening within other corners of that ecosystem, Changes

679
00:31:33,200 --> 00:31:35,920
Speaker 7: that I would argue will have just as much, if

680
00:31:35,960 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 7: not more, of an impact on our daily lives and

681
00:31:39,440 --> 00:31:43,080
Speaker 7: our respective access to journalism that we need to be

682
00:31:43,120 --> 00:31:48,920
Speaker 7: informed democratic citizens. Take, for example, the ongoing strike at

683
00:31:48,920 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 7: the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, a vital journalistic institution that is

684
00:31:53,280 --> 00:31:57,160
Speaker 7: descended from The Pittsburgh Gazette, a paper established in seventeen

685
00:31:57,320 --> 00:32:01,160
Speaker 7: eighty six and that has been serving the broader Pittsburgh

686
00:32:01,160 --> 00:32:05,760
Speaker 7: area for generations. In October of last year, over one

687
00:32:05,840 --> 00:32:11,000
Speaker 7: hundred workers represented by five labor unions, including production, distribution,

688
00:32:11,600 --> 00:32:15,880
Speaker 7: advertising and accounts and receivable staff, walked off the job

689
00:32:15,960 --> 00:32:19,719
Speaker 7: on an unfair labor practice strike at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.

690
00:32:20,280 --> 00:32:24,920
Speaker 7: The strike began after the newspaper's management, Block Communications, which

691
00:32:25,000 --> 00:32:28,480
Speaker 7: is owned by the Block family, cut off health insurance

692
00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:33,080
Speaker 7: for employees on October first. As Michael Sinado reported at

693
00:32:33,120 --> 00:32:36,560
Speaker 7: The Guardian at the time, quote, the strike is unfolding

694
00:32:36,600 --> 00:32:40,120
Speaker 7: in a US media industry that has seen widespread layoffs

695
00:32:40,200 --> 00:32:45,320
Speaker 7: over the past decade, with newspapers hit especially hard. Workers

696
00:32:45,360 --> 00:32:47,800
Speaker 7: at the Post Gazette have been working without a union

697
00:32:47,880 --> 00:32:52,640
Speaker 7: contract since March twenty seventeen, claiming they haven't received any

698
00:32:52,680 --> 00:32:57,760
Speaker 7: pay raises in sixteen years end. Quote. So why aren't

699
00:32:57,760 --> 00:32:59,920
Speaker 7: we talking about the strike at the Pittsburgh Post Because

700
00:33:00,800 --> 00:33:04,480
Speaker 7: and what can focusing on this strike and looking at

701
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:08,360
Speaker 7: the broader media landscape tell us about the changes happening

702
00:33:08,440 --> 00:33:10,920
Speaker 7: in the industry that we might not be able to

703
00:33:10,920 --> 00:33:13,880
Speaker 7: discern if we are only focusing on the big ticket

704
00:33:13,920 --> 00:33:18,120
Speaker 7: news about Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon to talk about

705
00:33:18,120 --> 00:33:20,160
Speaker 7: all of this and more. I'm honored to be joined

706
00:33:20,200 --> 00:33:23,920
Speaker 7: today by our two guests, Bob Batts Junior and Steve Mellon.

707
00:33:24,680 --> 00:33:27,680
Speaker 7: Bob is a lifelong journalist who worked at the Pittsburgh

708
00:33:27,680 --> 00:33:31,120
Speaker 7: Post Gazette for thirty years before going on strike and

709
00:33:31,240 --> 00:33:35,080
Speaker 7: being named interim editor of the worker's strike paper, the

710
00:33:35,120 --> 00:33:38,959
Speaker 7: first in the digital age, the Pittsburgh Union Progress. This

711
00:33:39,000 --> 00:33:41,840
Speaker 7: is a really cool paper that is run by striking

712
00:33:42,040 --> 00:33:45,840
Speaker 7: members by workers on strike at the Post Gazette. As

713
00:33:45,880 --> 00:33:50,959
Speaker 7: of today, they have published over one thousand stories, plus photos, graphics, ads,

714
00:33:51,000 --> 00:33:54,280
Speaker 7: and even a fictional story, which you can find at

715
00:33:54,400 --> 00:33:58,320
Speaker 7: Union Progress dot com, which offers free subscriptions and a

716
00:33:58,400 --> 00:34:02,680
Speaker 7: thrice weekly newsletter. Steve Mellen has been a journalist and

717
00:34:02,720 --> 00:34:06,120
Speaker 7: photo journalist for more than forty years. For the past

718
00:34:06,120 --> 00:34:09,840
Speaker 7: few decades, much of his work has focused on working people.

719
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,040
Speaker 7: He left the Pittsburgh Press after a strike there in

720
00:34:13,160 --> 00:34:16,200
Speaker 7: nineteen ninety two and spent much of the next four

721
00:34:16,280 --> 00:34:20,080
Speaker 7: years traveling to industrial towns to report on the changes

722
00:34:20,120 --> 00:34:24,160
Speaker 7: people there were experiencing. He returned to newspaper work in

723
00:34:24,239 --> 00:34:27,719
Speaker 7: nineteen ninety seven, taking a job at the Post Gazette.

724
00:34:28,200 --> 00:34:31,239
Speaker 7: He's been on strike since mid October twenty twenty two,

725
00:34:31,320 --> 00:34:34,480
Speaker 7: along with his colleagues, and now co chairs the union's

726
00:34:34,520 --> 00:34:37,760
Speaker 7: Health and Welfare Committee and writes for the strike paper,

727
00:34:37,960 --> 00:34:42,480
Speaker 7: the Pittsburgh Union Progress. Bob Steve, thank you both so

728
00:34:42,600 --> 00:34:45,239
Speaker 7: much for joining us today on breaking points.

729
00:34:45,960 --> 00:34:46,680
Speaker 4: Thank you Max.

730
00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:47,560
Speaker 12: Thanks Max.

731
00:34:47,840 --> 00:34:52,080
Speaker 7: We have, of course spoken at different points for the

732
00:34:52,160 --> 00:34:54,160
Speaker 7: reporting that we've done on the strike here at the

733
00:34:54,200 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 7: Real News Network, including a Worker Solidarity live stream where

734
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:01,560
Speaker 7: we had Bob on a couple months ago, and a

735
00:35:01,600 --> 00:35:05,040
Speaker 7: full length Working People episode my podcast where I got

736
00:35:05,040 --> 00:35:08,800
Speaker 7: to speak at length with Steve. If folks want deeper

737
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:11,319
Speaker 7: context on the strike, I highly recommend that you go

738
00:35:11,440 --> 00:35:15,920
Speaker 7: check those reports out. But for those who haven't seen

739
00:35:15,960 --> 00:35:19,040
Speaker 7: those reports, and for those who may in fact be

740
00:35:19,200 --> 00:35:22,960
Speaker 7: learning about this crucial strike for the first time right now,

741
00:35:23,360 --> 00:35:25,960
Speaker 7: I was wondering if we could start by going around

742
00:35:25,960 --> 00:35:29,560
Speaker 7: the table and just sort of giving people the essential

743
00:35:29,600 --> 00:35:33,759
Speaker 7: context they need about this strike. What led to it,

744
00:35:34,400 --> 00:35:37,839
Speaker 7: how long you know that process had been brewing, What

745
00:35:37,880 --> 00:35:41,680
Speaker 7: the sort of key issues are that brought you and

746
00:35:41,719 --> 00:35:46,000
Speaker 7: your co workers out on the picket line, and any

747
00:35:46,040 --> 00:35:48,759
Speaker 7: other kind of essential context that you think folks need

748
00:35:48,800 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 7: to know upfront about this strike that they may just

749
00:35:51,680 --> 00:35:53,120
Speaker 7: be hearing about right now.

750
00:35:53,239 --> 00:35:55,279
Speaker 3: So, Bob, why don't we start with you, then Steve

751
00:35:55,320 --> 00:35:55,799
Speaker 3: will go to you.

752
00:35:56,320 --> 00:35:59,879
Speaker 15: All right, Thank you, Max. And you know, I feel

753
00:35:59,880 --> 00:36:01,839
Speaker 15: like I'm sitting here at my dining room table. I'm

754
00:36:01,840 --> 00:36:03,839
Speaker 15: caught in two different things that are going on. Sort

755
00:36:03,880 --> 00:36:08,480
Speaker 15: of the economic storm that's hitting the media industry in general,

756
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:13,920
Speaker 15: and sort of this labor uprising or recognizance or awakening

757
00:36:13,960 --> 00:36:17,360
Speaker 15: that's also happening. We're certainly caught in both of those things.

758
00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:20,960
Speaker 15: Our strike has a long history. It's very complicated. There's

759
00:36:21,000 --> 00:36:23,759
Speaker 15: a lot of nuance. But Max, you started out right

760
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:27,120
Speaker 15: by talking about how people haven't gotten contractual raises in

761
00:36:27,520 --> 00:36:31,839
Speaker 15: sixteen years. That's older than my teenage son is. It's

762
00:36:31,880 --> 00:36:36,000
Speaker 15: embarrassing to say, but that's the case with this strike.

763
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:40,800
Speaker 15: We work in the newsroom. We're both editors, photographers, reporters,

764
00:36:40,800 --> 00:36:43,759
Speaker 15: so we make the news, we cover the news. But

765
00:36:44,280 --> 00:36:47,319
Speaker 15: we were proceeded on strike by four other unions who

766
00:36:47,320 --> 00:36:50,600
Speaker 15: had their health care taken away. In October of twenty two.

767
00:36:51,360 --> 00:36:53,880
Speaker 15: We already knew about that, because that happened to us

768
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:57,680
Speaker 15: in twenty twenty, which was three years after our last

769
00:36:57,680 --> 00:37:02,319
Speaker 15: contract expired, and we could not come to terms with

770
00:37:02,360 --> 00:37:05,600
Speaker 15: the new one. Our company imposed conditions on us, said,

771
00:37:06,360 --> 00:37:09,360
Speaker 15: we're at the impass. We cannot come up with a contract.

772
00:37:09,440 --> 00:37:10,880
Speaker 15: We're just going to tell you how it's going to be,

773
00:37:10,880 --> 00:37:14,120
Speaker 15: and that includes this new healthcare that's different than what

774
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:17,919
Speaker 15: you guys bargained before. So when twenty twenty two got here,

775
00:37:18,320 --> 00:37:21,400
Speaker 15: we were ready to go on strike on our own issues,

776
00:37:22,320 --> 00:37:26,120
Speaker 15: our own unfair labor practice charges, which we had already

777
00:37:26,560 --> 00:37:31,720
Speaker 15: just finished this past fall explaining to the National Labor

778
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:35,480
Speaker 15: Relations Board, and since we went on strike a very

779
00:37:35,480 --> 00:37:38,960
Speaker 15: memorable day that Steve was talking about an administrative law

780
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 15: jas said that everything that we're mad about, everything that

781
00:37:41,680 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 15: we are on strikeover, is correct. The company's wrong, the

782
00:37:45,400 --> 00:37:48,799
Speaker 15: breaking federal law. We felt good about that, but that

783
00:37:48,960 --> 00:37:50,600
Speaker 15: was a couple of months ago, and we're still on

784
00:37:50,760 --> 00:37:54,399
Speaker 15: strike because we have we still have not been able

785
00:37:54,440 --> 00:37:57,120
Speaker 15: to get that ruling enforced. We're hoping to get the

786
00:37:57,200 --> 00:38:02,200
Speaker 15: NLRB to do that and to you know, inforced. Basically

787
00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:04,800
Speaker 15: what this logize has said in the meantime.

788
00:38:04,600 --> 00:38:05,520
Speaker 4: Here we are on strike.

789
00:38:06,040 --> 00:38:09,480
Speaker 12: Yeah, actually that's pretty good, Bob. You know, it's still

790
00:38:09,480 --> 00:38:12,080
Speaker 12: depressing to me, I think two thousand and six. I

791
00:38:12,120 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 12: mean here, I'm sixty three years old. I haven't had

792
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:19,239
Speaker 12: a raisin. She's what sixteen years. You know, we've been

793
00:38:19,280 --> 00:38:22,359
Speaker 12: without a contract in since twenty seventeen. You know, I

794
00:38:22,360 --> 00:38:25,960
Speaker 12: didn't need an administrative logize to tell me that the

795
00:38:26,120 --> 00:38:28,120
Speaker 12: post because that was bargaining at bad faith, because that's

796
00:38:28,120 --> 00:38:30,719
Speaker 12: set in on these negotiating sessions. And I'd listened to

797
00:38:31,160 --> 00:38:33,840
Speaker 12: the company's attorney. You know, it's always the company attorney.

798
00:38:33,880 --> 00:38:35,719
Speaker 12: There's several of us from the guild that are usually there.

799
00:38:35,719 --> 00:38:37,640
Speaker 12: It's a bargaining team. And then there's a number of

800
00:38:37,719 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 12: us who just come to the witness to be a

801
00:38:40,280 --> 00:38:42,960
Speaker 12: part of the process. And I sit in there and

802
00:38:43,040 --> 00:38:45,399
Speaker 12: I listened to the company. You know, we will go

803
00:38:45,480 --> 00:38:48,880
Speaker 12: through an extensive process of putting together proposal on say healthcare,

804
00:38:49,840 --> 00:38:53,799
Speaker 12: how to resolve this issue. We'll have meetings and you know,

805
00:38:54,040 --> 00:38:57,080
Speaker 12: we'll debate a good plan, and we'll take that plan

806
00:38:57,160 --> 00:39:00,719
Speaker 12: in and we'll present that plan. And then what we'll

807
00:39:00,719 --> 00:39:06,759
Speaker 12: hear after our extensive explanation is that that won't work

808
00:39:06,760 --> 00:39:09,759
Speaker 12: for us. We like our original proposal. That's over and

809
00:39:09,800 --> 00:39:12,160
Speaker 12: over and over and over again, and it was just

810
00:39:12,400 --> 00:39:15,160
Speaker 12: it was good to hear an administrative law judge confirm

811
00:39:15,600 --> 00:39:18,400
Speaker 12: that the company has not been bargaining in good faith.

812
00:39:18,760 --> 00:39:24,160
Speaker 12: That you know that that uh, they they don't want

813
00:39:24,239 --> 00:39:26,040
Speaker 12: us around. They don't want a union around. They want

814
00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:28,719
Speaker 12: they want to have a union free shop. I think

815
00:39:28,760 --> 00:39:31,359
Speaker 12: that's pretty obvious. They they they want to be able

816
00:39:31,400 --> 00:39:33,399
Speaker 12: to run the newsroom the way they see a fit,

817
00:39:33,520 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 12: with no input from from uh, from the workers, from

818
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 12: the people that actually put this thing out. I think

819
00:39:39,600 --> 00:39:42,040
Speaker 12: we all agree that that would be a disastrous uh.

820
00:39:42,120 --> 00:39:44,959
Speaker 12: That would be disastrous for the Post because that and Max,

821
00:39:45,000 --> 00:39:46,480
Speaker 12: I was so glad to hear you talk a little

822
00:39:46,480 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 12: bit about the history of this paper. And that's one

823
00:39:48,040 --> 00:39:49,880
Speaker 12: of the things that really pains me about this is

824
00:39:49,880 --> 00:39:52,080
Speaker 12: that you know, this is a newspaper with with a

825
00:39:52,200 --> 00:39:56,040
Speaker 12: long and story and and uh a wonderful history in

826
00:39:56,040 --> 00:39:58,960
Speaker 12: this city of doing doing a great job of covering

827
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:04,640
Speaker 12: local news, evolving with the city, and the way I've

828
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:07,720
Speaker 12: seen this newspaper treat people in just the last step,

829
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:11,080
Speaker 12: I don't know, four or five years, it's it's it's

830
00:40:11,120 --> 00:40:14,120
Speaker 12: heartbreaking to me. I know, Bob has committed a good

831
00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:15,680
Speaker 12: chunk of his life to this paper. I have a

832
00:40:15,760 --> 00:40:18,359
Speaker 12: number of our colleagues have we have a number of

833
00:40:18,800 --> 00:40:21,920
Speaker 12: younger colleagues who've come in, very talented people who are

834
00:40:21,960 --> 00:40:24,240
Speaker 12: committed to telling the story of the city, to reporting

835
00:40:24,239 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 12: the important things that people need to know. And to

836
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,640
Speaker 12: see them treated like this is over and over and

837
00:40:30,680 --> 00:40:34,640
Speaker 12: over again. It's really frustrating to me. And it's it's

838
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:38,960
Speaker 12: anger and it angers me. And you know, one of

839
00:40:38,960 --> 00:40:41,960
Speaker 12: the things that I really appreciate is this is being

840
00:40:42,000 --> 00:40:43,359
Speaker 12: able to talk about it. You know, we've been out

841
00:40:43,400 --> 00:40:46,520
Speaker 12: for seven months now, and there was a time when

842
00:40:47,160 --> 00:40:48,680
Speaker 12: it was you know, we were on the news a

843
00:40:48,719 --> 00:40:50,440
Speaker 12: lot because it was new. It's a new strike. It

844
00:40:50,520 --> 00:40:53,759
Speaker 12: was you know, first newspaper strike I think in more

845
00:40:53,800 --> 00:40:56,279
Speaker 12: than two decades, so there was a uniqueness to it.

846
00:40:57,880 --> 00:41:01,439
Speaker 12: And but that time has passed and other things come along. Max.

847
00:41:01,480 --> 00:41:04,320
Speaker 12: You mentioned the Tucker Carlson thing and then Don Lammatt,

848
00:41:04,360 --> 00:41:06,040
Speaker 12: and you know, we kind of get shoved to the side.

849
00:41:06,480 --> 00:41:11,800
Speaker 12: And it's important that the story stay in front of

850
00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:13,719
Speaker 12: people for a number of reasons, not just because of

851
00:41:13,760 --> 00:41:16,520
Speaker 12: what the impact that this strike is going to have

852
00:41:16,560 --> 00:41:19,440
Speaker 12: on the news industry. But the role this plays in

853
00:41:19,920 --> 00:41:23,800
Speaker 12: the general movement now that I see of around the

854
00:41:23,840 --> 00:41:27,239
Speaker 12: country where people are standing up in the newsrooms and

855
00:41:27,280 --> 00:41:29,080
Speaker 12: they're saying enough of this. You know, unions have been

856
00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:32,000
Speaker 12: hammered since nineteen eighty, since Reagan took on the pat

857
00:41:32,080 --> 00:41:34,640
Speaker 12: Co workers. And you know, I think here we are,

858
00:41:34,640 --> 00:41:37,800
Speaker 12: forty years later, saying enough of that. We're tired of

859
00:41:37,800 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 12: getting pushed around, We're tired of getting stomped on. We

860
00:41:40,120 --> 00:41:42,520
Speaker 12: want to have a say. We deserve that. We're the

861
00:41:42,600 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 12: ones who put the paper out, Where the production workers,

862
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:47,359
Speaker 12: where the journalists who put this paper out. We want

863
00:41:47,400 --> 00:41:49,319
Speaker 12: to have a say in how we treated. You know,

864
00:41:49,600 --> 00:41:52,600
Speaker 12: I've got I'm going to in an hour, I'll be downtown,

865
00:41:53,080 --> 00:41:56,799
Speaker 12: downtown Pittsburgh for a rally. The Starbucks United Workers are

866
00:41:56,800 --> 00:41:58,319
Speaker 12: having a rally today. They're in the middle of their

867
00:41:58,320 --> 00:42:00,680
Speaker 12: own bargaining sessions. That to me is a great thing.

868
00:42:00,719 --> 00:42:03,719
Speaker 12: I look, these are you know, I remember unions when

869
00:42:03,719 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 12: I first came to Pittsburgh in the eighties, and you know,

870
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:08,120
Speaker 12: there were guys like me. Now they were older white guys.

871
00:42:08,360 --> 00:42:10,319
Speaker 12: I go down to stand on these strawbucks line. These

872
00:42:10,320 --> 00:42:14,320
Speaker 12: are younger people that're fired up. It's a very diverse crowd,

873
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:17,520
Speaker 12: and they hang with us. They'll come and stand, they'll

874
00:42:17,560 --> 00:42:19,880
Speaker 12: stand with us on a picket line. These are people

875
00:42:20,040 --> 00:42:22,759
Speaker 12: my daughter's age, twenty four years old. I'm standing next

876
00:42:22,760 --> 00:42:25,080
Speaker 12: to Tory Tambalini. A couple of weeks ago, we were

877
00:42:25,080 --> 00:42:27,759
Speaker 12: trying to stop a truck, one of the delivery trucks,

878
00:42:27,760 --> 00:42:29,360
Speaker 12: from delivering the post because that we were standing in

879
00:42:29,360 --> 00:42:32,839
Speaker 12: front of an idling Mac truck. That's a very uncomfortable thing.

880
00:42:33,120 --> 00:42:35,040
Speaker 12: And Tory looked at me and she said, I'm not moving.

881
00:42:35,040 --> 00:42:36,960
Speaker 12: Are you moving? I said, I'm not moving if you're

882
00:42:36,960 --> 00:42:39,160
Speaker 12: not moving. So we did not move, and that truck

883
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:42,279
Speaker 12: didn't get through. They were probably thirty of us there,

884
00:42:42,280 --> 00:42:44,319
Speaker 12: twenty or thirty of us. That's good to see. That

885
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:45,240
Speaker 12: one is my heart.

886
00:42:45,920 --> 00:42:48,480
Speaker 7: And something that I really don't want to be lost

887
00:42:48,520 --> 00:42:52,080
Speaker 7: on folks. As a crucial part of this story, right,

888
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:54,960
Speaker 7: we're going to finish off by talking about what the

889
00:42:54,960 --> 00:42:57,200
Speaker 7: post is, that strike means in the context of the

890
00:42:57,280 --> 00:43:01,880
Speaker 7: labor movement in general, which we cover relentlessly here for

891
00:43:02,000 --> 00:43:04,440
Speaker 7: my segments on breaking points at the Real News Network,

892
00:43:04,520 --> 00:43:09,080
Speaker 7: so on and so forth. But I think in that vein, right,

893
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:14,040
Speaker 7: it's really significant that a these striking journalists at the

894
00:43:14,080 --> 00:43:17,520
Speaker 7: Post Gazette have been keeping a strike newspaper, going to

895
00:43:17,640 --> 00:43:21,000
Speaker 7: continue serving the communities that they are reporting on and

896
00:43:21,040 --> 00:43:25,680
Speaker 7: for while they are on strike not getting paid. That

897
00:43:25,760 --> 00:43:29,440
Speaker 7: in itself, I think is a really remarkable accomplishment, and

898
00:43:29,440 --> 00:43:33,560
Speaker 7: everyone should go subscribe to the union Progress because that

899
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:35,840
Speaker 7: is one way that you can support striking workers at

900
00:43:35,880 --> 00:43:38,640
Speaker 7: the Post Gazette. But also, like you said, Steve, I

901
00:43:38,680 --> 00:43:41,520
Speaker 7: mean the fact that y'all are standing in solidarity with

902
00:43:41,840 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 7: Starbucks workers who are fighting their own fight, right, That

903
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:47,439
Speaker 7: is what the bosses fear. That is what we need

904
00:43:47,480 --> 00:43:51,600
Speaker 7: more than ever, and that includes folks who are watching this.

905
00:43:51,680 --> 00:43:54,840
Speaker 7: We all have a role to play in that. But

906
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 7: before we get there, I want to just zero in

907
00:43:56,680 --> 00:44:00,640
Speaker 7: really quick on kind of what this means for the

908
00:44:00,760 --> 00:44:06,360
Speaker 7: media industry and particularly the market that you guys serve

909
00:44:06,600 --> 00:44:10,200
Speaker 7: over there in the broader Pittsburgh area, right, because.

910
00:44:09,960 --> 00:44:12,319
Speaker 3: There's there's a lot going on here.

911
00:44:12,360 --> 00:44:15,800
Speaker 7: As we said that, I think for the average news

912
00:44:15,840 --> 00:44:20,800
Speaker 7: consumer may be hard to parse out right, because media

913
00:44:20,920 --> 00:44:23,719
Speaker 7: gets sort of like lumped into this giant bucket.

914
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:24,160
Speaker 3: Right.

915
00:44:24,760 --> 00:44:28,680
Speaker 7: In fact, a lot of people's well founded disdain for

916
00:44:28,800 --> 00:44:31,960
Speaker 7: say corporate media or the media in general tends to

917
00:44:32,040 --> 00:44:35,080
Speaker 7: come from, you know, people who they perceive to be,

918
00:44:35,360 --> 00:44:38,840
Speaker 7: you know, the partisan hacks and figureheads on the mainstream

919
00:44:38,880 --> 00:44:42,840
Speaker 7: networks like Tucker Carlson, Don Lemon, the people at the

920
00:44:42,840 --> 00:44:45,719
Speaker 7: opinion section at the New York Times, Right, I hate

921
00:44:45,719 --> 00:44:48,200
Speaker 7: the opinion section at the New York Times, But even

922
00:44:48,280 --> 00:44:50,480
Speaker 7: I have to admit that it's like, well, you know,

923
00:44:50,560 --> 00:44:52,880
Speaker 7: the New York Times sucks ass because part of my

924
00:44:52,880 --> 00:44:55,680
Speaker 7: friends for the opinion section, but they still do the

925
00:44:55,680 --> 00:44:58,440
Speaker 7: news desk, does you know, reporting that's important. They got

926
00:44:58,480 --> 00:45:00,480
Speaker 7: a lot of resources, right, I just to kind of

927
00:45:00,480 --> 00:45:03,160
Speaker 7: accept that, Right. So, even that's just like one example

928
00:45:03,200 --> 00:45:06,760
Speaker 7: of how this slippage can occur where we lump in

929
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 7: the people that we righteously hate in the media and

930
00:45:11,040 --> 00:45:13,480
Speaker 7: we throw the baby out with the bath water, right,

931
00:45:13,560 --> 00:45:16,319
Speaker 7: And that we can see that kind of happening on.

932
00:45:16,280 --> 00:45:18,640
Speaker 3: The local media level as well. Right.

933
00:45:19,239 --> 00:45:23,480
Speaker 7: But we have like a real, like intense drama unfolding

934
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:26,680
Speaker 7: here where you know, the former owner of the paper

935
00:45:27,760 --> 00:45:30,719
Speaker 7: bill block, you know, passed away and then this sort

936
00:45:30,760 --> 00:45:34,759
Speaker 7: of succession style drama unfolded with who was going to

937
00:45:34,800 --> 00:45:37,319
Speaker 7: inherit the paper, what direction it was going to take,

938
00:45:37,719 --> 00:45:41,560
Speaker 7: and how that connects to the larger sort of kind

939
00:45:41,560 --> 00:45:45,600
Speaker 7: of changes that we're seeing in the industry, with local

940
00:45:45,680 --> 00:45:50,920
Speaker 7: newsrooms closing basically continuously for the past twenty twenty five

941
00:45:51,120 --> 00:45:55,040
Speaker 7: years as we speak right now. I mean, there are

942
00:45:55,800 --> 00:45:58,319
Speaker 7: there's a bit of a bloodbath kind of going on

943
00:45:58,560 --> 00:46:01,839
Speaker 7: in the media industry, with layoffs at a wide range

944
00:46:01,840 --> 00:46:08,279
Speaker 7: of outlets, from Fandom, ESPN, Box, NBC News and NBC MSNBC,

945
00:46:08,920 --> 00:46:13,880
Speaker 7: Vice News, BuzzFeed, the Washington Post. There are union drives

946
00:46:13,880 --> 00:46:18,719
Speaker 7: at outlets like Business Insider and hearst Own magazines. I mean,

947
00:46:18,760 --> 00:46:20,719
Speaker 7: there's a lot going on here, and it may be

948
00:46:20,760 --> 00:46:23,520
Speaker 7: hard for people to parse through. So I just wanted

949
00:46:23,560 --> 00:46:25,319
Speaker 7: to ask if you guys could say a little bit

950
00:46:25,440 --> 00:46:30,840
Speaker 7: about what it means to have a union workforce at

951
00:46:30,880 --> 00:46:34,960
Speaker 7: a local outlet like the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, Like, why

952
00:46:34,960 --> 00:46:36,440
Speaker 7: should people care about that?

953
00:46:37,400 --> 00:46:40,560
Speaker 15: Well, I mean, you care about what's happening in your

954
00:46:40,600 --> 00:46:43,839
Speaker 15: community and what your local officials are doing, and what

955
00:46:43,880 --> 00:46:47,240
Speaker 15: your neighbors are up to, and how much they paid

956
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:50,480
Speaker 15: for their taxes on that woods that got torn down

957
00:46:50,560 --> 00:46:53,120
Speaker 15: next to your house and they're building a development to it.

958
00:46:53,480 --> 00:46:58,560
Speaker 15: Local news matters to your community. I'm here to tell

959
00:46:58,600 --> 00:47:01,520
Speaker 15: you that you can cover a community very well with

960
00:47:01,680 --> 00:47:05,680
Speaker 15: corporate news, because seven months ago I was corporate news.

961
00:47:05,719 --> 00:47:09,560
Speaker 15: I got paid by a corporation to cover local news. Suddenly,

962
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:13,480
Speaker 15: six seven months ago, I was independent media because I

963
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:16,719
Speaker 15: was suddenly not getting a paycheck. I was doing exactly

964
00:47:16,760 --> 00:47:20,000
Speaker 15: the same thing. Boots on the ground, you know, but

965
00:47:20,320 --> 00:47:25,400
Speaker 15: on the ground, I live on your ground. Journalism telling

966
00:47:25,440 --> 00:47:29,719
Speaker 15: you what's going on and what somebody says is going

967
00:47:29,760 --> 00:47:35,720
Speaker 15: on isn't true. How the state playoff basketball championships.

968
00:47:35,080 --> 00:47:35,800
Speaker 4: Are going to work.

969
00:47:36,040 --> 00:47:37,880
Speaker 15: Who's running for county executive?

970
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:38,560
Speaker 3: You know?

971
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:44,160
Speaker 15: Who pays for it? Can corporately funded? Good local news

972
00:47:44,280 --> 00:47:46,879
Speaker 15: is great because you have a lot of people who

973
00:47:46,960 --> 00:47:49,200
Speaker 15: are very good at what they do, and they are

974
00:47:49,280 --> 00:47:53,000
Speaker 15: keeping a watch on your officials and your culture and

975
00:47:53,160 --> 00:47:57,600
Speaker 15: your everything. So we chose to just keep doing that

976
00:47:57,800 --> 00:48:01,000
Speaker 15: on strike because that's what we do, that's what we do,

977
00:48:01,040 --> 00:48:02,880
Speaker 15: that's what we're made of. So we don't care if

978
00:48:02,880 --> 00:48:05,200
Speaker 15: we get We do care, but we can do it

979
00:48:05,440 --> 00:48:06,600
Speaker 15: whether or not we get.

980
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:07,120
Speaker 4: Paid for it.

981
00:48:07,520 --> 00:48:10,680
Speaker 15: But I would say, like the North start to quote

982
00:48:10,719 --> 00:48:12,880
Speaker 15: something that Steve was talking about at a meeting we

983
00:48:12,960 --> 00:48:16,560
Speaker 15: had the other night, is covering your local news and

984
00:48:16,600 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 15: being smart about it. I mean, there's a big difference

985
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:22,520
Speaker 15: between me and Steve and Tucker Carlson, and I'm nothing

986
00:48:22,560 --> 00:48:26,160
Speaker 15: but glad about that. We are journalists. Tucker Carlston was

987
00:48:26,200 --> 00:48:29,719
Speaker 15: like a celebrity, you know, figurehead. Keep your eye on

988
00:48:29,800 --> 00:48:33,280
Speaker 15: local news. You'll you'll care about it at one point,

989
00:48:33,360 --> 00:48:36,719
Speaker 15: even if you think you don't. And that's the thing

990
00:48:36,719 --> 00:48:42,840
Speaker 15: that we're fighting for with this strike in Pittsburgh.

991
00:48:43,160 --> 00:48:46,439
Speaker 12: Yeah, Bob, I'm glad you mentioned that. I mean, we're

992
00:48:46,440 --> 00:48:50,040
Speaker 12: doing this now without any pay. So that's i think

993
00:48:50,080 --> 00:48:53,200
Speaker 12: a testament to our colleagues who are committed to this.

994
00:48:53,400 --> 00:48:55,279
Speaker 12: You know, there's there are a couple of disconnects here. One,

995
00:48:55,320 --> 00:48:57,560
Speaker 12: You're right, Bob, there's a disconnect between what we do

996
00:48:57,680 --> 00:49:01,040
Speaker 12: and what Tucker Carlson and Don Lemon does mean. Uh

997
00:49:01,600 --> 00:49:05,040
Speaker 12: that there's there's a huge divide there it and it

998
00:49:05,080 --> 00:49:08,840
Speaker 12: pains me that we're sometimes lumped in that category. You know,

999
00:49:09,600 --> 00:49:12,080
Speaker 12: we're the ones who go sit in three hour meetings,

1000
00:49:12,200 --> 00:49:15,160
Speaker 12: you know, and take endless notes and then for over

1001
00:49:15,160 --> 00:49:17,040
Speaker 12: that story till eleven o'clock at night to figure out, Okay,

1002
00:49:17,040 --> 00:49:18,840
Speaker 12: what's important take out of here? You know what do

1003
00:49:19,520 --> 00:49:22,279
Speaker 12: the readers need to know? Uh, that's the kind of

1004
00:49:22,360 --> 00:49:25,799
Speaker 12: thing you know, we we we go sit in these

1005
00:49:25,880 --> 00:49:27,960
Speaker 12: high school ball games because that's important. You know, it's

1006
00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,319
Speaker 12: important to a community to that takes pride in its

1007
00:49:30,360 --> 00:49:33,880
Speaker 12: high school athletes, you know, to to uh to. That's

1008
00:49:34,000 --> 00:49:36,000
Speaker 12: that's how the community gets a sense of who it

1009
00:49:36,040 --> 00:49:37,920
Speaker 12: is a sense of identity for a community. You know,

1010
00:49:38,239 --> 00:49:40,760
Speaker 12: a newspaper, a local newspaper forms a lot of functions.

1011
00:49:40,800 --> 00:49:43,439
Speaker 12: It does inform people, lets people know the important things.

1012
00:49:43,440 --> 00:49:45,520
Speaker 12: What's happening at the county jail. You know why this

1013
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:47,000
Speaker 12: has been an issue in here in Pittsburg. Why we

1014
00:49:47,000 --> 00:49:49,399
Speaker 12: have so many people die in the county jail. They're

1015
00:49:49,440 --> 00:49:51,760
Speaker 12: turning down that woods. Just like Bob said, Who's what's

1016
00:49:51,800 --> 00:49:53,560
Speaker 12: going to happen with the taxes? What's that mean to me?

1017
00:49:53,600 --> 00:49:56,120
Speaker 12: Those are all really important things. In addition, it helps

1018
00:49:56,520 --> 00:49:58,279
Speaker 12: you know, it's a reflection of the community. And this

1019
00:49:58,400 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 12: gets to the feature stories do viituaries that we publish.

1020
00:50:01,719 --> 00:50:03,759
Speaker 12: You know, the community sees it's self reflected in the

1021
00:50:03,800 --> 00:50:05,360
Speaker 12: news in a local newspaper in a way it is

1022
00:50:05,400 --> 00:50:09,239
Speaker 12: not going to see itself reflected on CNN or MSNBC

1023
00:50:09,360 --> 00:50:10,759
Speaker 12: or Fox News or any of the others. That's like

1024
00:50:10,800 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 12: a that's that's a fantasy world. If you want to

1025
00:50:15,480 --> 00:50:17,640
Speaker 12: see what the world actually looks like, what your community

1026
00:50:17,640 --> 00:50:20,839
Speaker 12: looks like, go to your local paper. You know the one.

1027
00:50:21,120 --> 00:50:25,560
Speaker 12: The other disconnect here is that you know, Bob is right.

1028
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:27,880
Speaker 12: You know, we're committed to this. The people who walked

1029
00:50:27,880 --> 00:50:30,319
Speaker 12: out of that newsroom on the eighteenth of October are

1030
00:50:30,320 --> 00:50:34,759
Speaker 12: committed to local journalism. They're committed because we're still doing it.

1031
00:50:34,760 --> 00:50:36,200
Speaker 12: We're not getting paid, but we're still doing it. We

1032
00:50:36,239 --> 00:50:38,680
Speaker 12: still think it's important. Obviously, the owners of the paper

1033
00:50:38,719 --> 00:50:40,680
Speaker 12: don't share that belief, and I think that's the thing

1034
00:50:40,680 --> 00:50:43,719
Speaker 12: that bothers me so much about many of the newspaper

1035
00:50:43,719 --> 00:50:48,160
Speaker 12: owners now owned by hedge bunchers, whoever, their values are

1036
00:50:48,160 --> 00:50:51,960
Speaker 12: not our values. You know, their values are treating these

1037
00:50:51,960 --> 00:50:54,560
Speaker 12: newspapers like piggybanks that they can drain dry and the

1038
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:57,120
Speaker 12: cast aside, you know, cast the carcass aside. What's that

1039
00:50:57,200 --> 00:51:00,239
Speaker 12: do to the community. It's heartbreaking to see what that does.

1040
00:51:01,120 --> 00:51:03,160
Speaker 12: You know, we got some communities now that have you know,

1041
00:51:03,200 --> 00:51:06,440
Speaker 12: major metropolitan areas that have newspapers that have a staff

1042
00:51:06,440 --> 00:51:10,480
Speaker 12: of forty people. You cannot cover a place like Pittsburgh

1043
00:51:10,480 --> 00:51:12,279
Speaker 12: with forty people. You know, we're trying to do it,

1044
00:51:12,520 --> 00:51:14,640
Speaker 12: but Bob, how many people we now have a dozen.

1045
00:51:14,960 --> 00:51:17,319
Speaker 12: We're working our butts off, and we're just we're not

1046
00:51:17,360 --> 00:51:19,799
Speaker 12: even scratching the surface here of what needs to be

1047
00:51:19,840 --> 00:51:25,759
Speaker 12: covered in this city. So that's that's heartbreaking to me.

1048
00:51:26,160 --> 00:51:29,120
Speaker 12: I think what's happening here in Pittsburgh is important. You know,

1049
00:51:29,160 --> 00:51:34,200
Speaker 12: I've had news friends in this industry for forty years.

1050
00:51:34,440 --> 00:51:40,760
Speaker 12: And if I knew fifty people back in nineteen ninety

1051
00:51:40,760 --> 00:51:42,640
Speaker 12: that we're working in the newspaper, let's go to two

1052
00:51:42,680 --> 00:51:45,279
Speaker 12: thousand who are working in the newspaper industry. I can

1053
00:51:45,280 --> 00:51:47,040
Speaker 12: probably count two or three of them that are still

1054
00:51:47,040 --> 00:51:49,200
Speaker 12: in the industry now that are that are not here

1055
00:51:49,200 --> 00:51:51,200
Speaker 12: in Pittsburgh. You know, so many of these people have

1056
00:51:51,320 --> 00:51:54,000
Speaker 12: gone on, they've retired, they've taken other jobs, they're in

1057
00:51:54,080 --> 00:51:56,520
Speaker 12: pr they've gotten out of the business, they're teaching or

1058
00:51:56,560 --> 00:52:01,960
Speaker 12: doing something else, and we don't we can have a

1059
00:52:02,040 --> 00:52:05,120
Speaker 12: voice in this you know. The thing that's important. What

1060
00:52:05,160 --> 00:52:08,600
Speaker 12: I love about Pittsburgh it's a union town, and that

1061
00:52:08,680 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 12: we're a union shop, and so the company can't come

1062
00:52:12,160 --> 00:52:15,120
Speaker 12: in and just say you're out of here. We're changing things.

1063
00:52:15,160 --> 00:52:18,920
Speaker 12: We don't need you ten people. We're tossing you guys. No,

1064
00:52:19,520 --> 00:52:21,120
Speaker 12: we're going to stand up and say no, you're not

1065
00:52:21,160 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 12: going to do that. You're not this what we're doing.

1066
00:52:23,320 --> 00:52:25,920
Speaker 12: What what happens at the post is that is going

1067
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:29,160
Speaker 12: to affect this community. And we're not going to put

1068
00:52:29,200 --> 00:52:31,399
Speaker 12: up with that. We have friends and neighbors. We know

1069
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:33,520
Speaker 12: we have a community we care about. We're not going

1070
00:52:33,560 --> 00:52:35,840
Speaker 12: to let that happen. We care about what happens our families,

1071
00:52:35,960 --> 00:52:38,520
Speaker 12: to ourselves. Obviously it's all wrapped up into a hole.

1072
00:52:38,920 --> 00:52:41,480
Speaker 12: But if we didn't if we did not have a union,

1073
00:52:42,000 --> 00:52:43,840
Speaker 12: Bob and I probably wouldn't be sitting here talking. We

1074
00:52:43,840 --> 00:52:45,600
Speaker 12: would have been out of here probably ten years ago,

1075
00:52:46,239 --> 00:52:48,799
Speaker 12: given our age and everything. That would have tossed our

1076
00:52:48,840 --> 00:52:52,759
Speaker 12: asses out of here. So, you know, I wish everybody

1077
00:52:52,800 --> 00:52:56,120
Speaker 12: in the newspaper industry had this opportunity. You know, somebody

1078
00:52:56,200 --> 00:52:59,200
Speaker 12: sitting in the middle of in the Midwest whose boss

1079
00:52:59,200 --> 00:53:01,160
Speaker 12: comes in, is that comes in. The owner comes in

1080
00:53:01,520 --> 00:53:03,400
Speaker 12: and said, we're going to two days a week and

1081
00:53:03,440 --> 00:53:07,439
Speaker 12: I'm getting rid of forty percent of the staff deal

1082
00:53:07,480 --> 00:53:11,840
Speaker 12: with it, and we we uh we can in Pittsburgh

1083
00:53:11,960 --> 00:53:14,440
Speaker 12: say no, we're not going to deal with that. You

1084
00:53:14,520 --> 00:53:15,719
Speaker 12: have to deal with us.

1085
00:53:16,200 --> 00:53:18,200
Speaker 7: So, like with the last five minutes that I've got

1086
00:53:18,239 --> 00:53:19,880
Speaker 7: you guys, I want to kind of drill down on

1087
00:53:19,920 --> 00:53:24,120
Speaker 7: this point, right, because again I'm speaking to viewers here

1088
00:53:24,160 --> 00:53:27,239
Speaker 7: at breaking points. I know you guys are a kind

1089
00:53:27,239 --> 00:53:30,040
Speaker 7: of heterodox bunch, right, That's why you're here. We got

1090
00:53:30,120 --> 00:53:33,680
Speaker 7: folks with more right leaning politics, more left leaning politics,

1091
00:53:33,960 --> 00:53:37,440
Speaker 7: somewhere in the middle. That's great, but I want to

1092
00:53:37,560 --> 00:53:42,000
Speaker 7: caution everyone watching against taking the partisan bait here.

1093
00:53:42,360 --> 00:53:42,560
Speaker 3: Right.

1094
00:53:42,719 --> 00:53:45,759
Speaker 7: Maybe you hate BuzzFeed News and the work that they did,

1095
00:53:45,920 --> 00:53:47,520
Speaker 7: that's you know, that's fine, that's.

1096
00:53:47,280 --> 00:53:48,000
Speaker 3: That's your call.

1097
00:53:48,520 --> 00:53:50,880
Speaker 7: And maybe you're cheering on the fact that they just

1098
00:53:50,960 --> 00:53:53,200
Speaker 7: you know, laid off, you know, like all their all

1099
00:53:53,239 --> 00:53:56,200
Speaker 7: their workers and they're they're going under. Like you may

1100
00:53:56,239 --> 00:53:58,640
Speaker 7: think that that's a win for your side. But what

1101
00:53:58,760 --> 00:54:01,760
Speaker 7: we are trying to communicate here is that the larger

1102
00:54:01,840 --> 00:54:08,120
Speaker 7: ground swell, the larger systemic failure failings of for profit journalism,

1103
00:54:08,480 --> 00:54:13,400
Speaker 7: corporate ownership or or private equity ownership over the vital

1104
00:54:13,440 --> 00:54:17,640
Speaker 7: civic institution of journalism and the media landscape writ large,

1105
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:21,160
Speaker 7: this spells disaster for all of us, regardless of what

1106
00:54:21,360 --> 00:54:24,200
Speaker 7: side of the political spectrum we happen to be on.

1107
00:54:24,440 --> 00:54:26,520
Speaker 7: So you may cheer when you know people at an

1108
00:54:26,520 --> 00:54:29,120
Speaker 7: outlet that you hate kind of get fired, but I

1109
00:54:29,200 --> 00:54:31,520
Speaker 7: promise you it is coming for the outlets that you

1110
00:54:31,600 --> 00:54:35,520
Speaker 7: read as well, and the independent journalists, the folks on

1111
00:54:35,600 --> 00:54:38,840
Speaker 7: Substack or even outlets like ours at the Real News Network, like,

1112
00:54:38,920 --> 00:54:42,280
Speaker 7: we are not going to be able to serve all

1113
00:54:42,400 --> 00:54:45,279
Speaker 7: of the needs that need to be served here in

1114
00:54:45,360 --> 00:54:48,239
Speaker 7: the absence of those outlets like We've got a long

1115
00:54:48,280 --> 00:54:51,920
Speaker 7: way to go to rebuild a healthy, functioning media ecosystem

1116
00:54:52,320 --> 00:54:55,960
Speaker 7: in this country, especially one that is committed to actual journalism,

1117
00:54:56,040 --> 00:55:00,480
Speaker 7: not just corporate sensationalist crap like they you know, pedal

1118
00:55:00,560 --> 00:55:05,480
Speaker 7: at the mainstream networks, right, And in that vein, we also,

1119
00:55:06,120 --> 00:55:09,520
Speaker 7: for that very reason, have a vested interest in the

1120
00:55:09,560 --> 00:55:12,759
Speaker 7: struggle at the Pittsburgh Post Gazette as far as it

1121
00:55:12,800 --> 00:55:16,760
Speaker 7: pertains to the labor movement, right because labor workers banding

1122
00:55:16,880 --> 00:55:21,799
Speaker 7: together and actually forming that backstop that Steve talked about, right,

1123
00:55:21,920 --> 00:55:25,759
Speaker 7: that kind of wall that working people can form if

1124
00:55:25,760 --> 00:55:28,480
Speaker 7: they are banded together in such a fashion to say

1125
00:55:28,760 --> 00:55:30,880
Speaker 7: we are not going to just let rich people in

1126
00:55:30,960 --> 00:55:35,280
Speaker 7: corporations and elites dictate everything that happens in our society.

1127
00:55:35,360 --> 00:55:38,160
Speaker 7: We have a say in what happens here. We deserve

1128
00:55:38,200 --> 00:55:40,960
Speaker 7: to be at the bargaining table to bargain over the

1129
00:55:41,040 --> 00:55:44,120
Speaker 7: terms and conditions of our employment and in fact how

1130
00:55:44,239 --> 00:55:48,200
Speaker 7: these businesses, whether they be Starbucks, Amazon, or the Pittsburgh

1131
00:55:48,200 --> 00:55:51,880
Speaker 7: Post Gazette, are run. And we all have a vested

1132
00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,879
Speaker 7: interest in that as fellow workers, as consumers, so on

1133
00:55:56,200 --> 00:55:58,080
Speaker 7: and so forth. So I want to kind of end

1134
00:55:58,520 --> 00:56:00,000
Speaker 7: just with the kind of short round of the table,

1135
00:56:00,000 --> 00:56:03,080
Speaker 7: well talking about that and the significance of the Post

1136
00:56:03,160 --> 00:56:06,440
Speaker 7: Gazette struggle in terms of the broader kind of labor

1137
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:09,200
Speaker 7: movement that we cover here at breaking points at the

1138
00:56:09,239 --> 00:56:13,040
Speaker 7: real news and beyond, because I think one thing that

1139
00:56:13,120 --> 00:56:15,839
Speaker 7: really sticks out to me because I see, I get

1140
00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:20,160
Speaker 7: the press releases from you guys and your union every

1141
00:56:20,160 --> 00:56:23,160
Speaker 7: time there's another bargaining session with management at the Post

1142
00:56:23,160 --> 00:56:26,719
Speaker 7: Gazette and they don't show up, they or they just

1143
00:56:26,760 --> 00:56:29,799
Speaker 7: show up and they stonewall every new proposition. They just

1144
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:33,080
Speaker 7: fold their arms and say nope, Like what seems very

1145
00:56:33,120 --> 00:56:35,880
Speaker 7: clear to me, and I'm speaking for myself here, you know,

1146
00:56:35,960 --> 00:56:39,560
Speaker 7: not speaking for anyone else, but looking at what management

1147
00:56:39,680 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 7: at the Post Gazette is doing and how they are trying.

1148
00:56:42,320 --> 00:56:45,040
Speaker 3: To stretch this strike out.

1149
00:56:45,160 --> 00:56:48,359
Speaker 7: They don't they are not bargaining in good faith at

1150
00:56:48,440 --> 00:56:52,000
Speaker 7: the bargaining table, as the NLRB has said, they are

1151
00:56:52,080 --> 00:56:55,840
Speaker 7: trying to effectively kill the unions, right. They are trying

1152
00:56:55,880 --> 00:57:00,000
Speaker 7: to strangle the unionized workforce to the point that they

1153
00:57:00,000 --> 00:57:04,040
Speaker 7: they could eventually push a decertification vote and get the

1154
00:57:04,160 --> 00:57:06,400
Speaker 7: union out of their newsroom. They don't want to close

1155
00:57:06,440 --> 00:57:08,799
Speaker 7: the shop down, but as you said, Steve, they want

1156
00:57:08,800 --> 00:57:11,479
Speaker 7: to get rid of the union. This is happening all

1157
00:57:11,560 --> 00:57:15,480
Speaker 7: across the board, right. Warrior met Cole coal miners in

1158
00:57:15,560 --> 00:57:18,480
Speaker 7: Deep Red, Alabama, who were on strike for nearly two years.

1159
00:57:19,120 --> 00:57:22,640
Speaker 7: Warrior met Cole has filed a petition to decertify the

1160
00:57:22,760 --> 00:57:24,520
Speaker 7: union there the United mind.

1161
00:57:24,360 --> 00:57:25,520
Speaker 3: Workers of America.

1162
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:29,080
Speaker 7: That was always their plan was to stretch things out,

1163
00:57:29,200 --> 00:57:33,000
Speaker 7: demoralize people, not bargaining good faith, and ultimately try to

1164
00:57:33,080 --> 00:57:35,200
Speaker 7: kick the union out so that the company could better

1165
00:57:35,240 --> 00:57:38,919
Speaker 7: serve its Wall Street shareholders. Keep in mind, the number

1166
00:57:38,960 --> 00:57:41,520
Speaker 7: one shareholder of Warrior Met Cole is Black Rock in

1167
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:44,600
Speaker 7: New York City. This is what Starbucks is trying to do.

1168
00:57:44,720 --> 00:57:47,439
Speaker 7: They're trying to delay, They're trying to union bus, They're

1169
00:57:47,440 --> 00:57:51,080
Speaker 7: trying to fire people and close down shops until eventually

1170
00:57:51,120 --> 00:57:53,920
Speaker 7: the union drive runs out of steam. This is what

1171
00:57:54,040 --> 00:57:56,800
Speaker 7: workers at CNCH Industrial who were on strike in the

1172
00:57:56,840 --> 00:57:59,920
Speaker 7: Midwest last year told me when they were saying that

1173
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:02,760
Speaker 7: management also was not budging at the bargaining table, and

1174
00:58:02,800 --> 00:58:05,360
Speaker 7: they were getting whispers that management was planning to push

1175
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:09,640
Speaker 7: a decertification vote to get the UAW out of their shop.

1176
00:58:09,760 --> 00:58:13,000
Speaker 7: So this is class war that we are watching. And

1177
00:58:13,040 --> 00:58:15,480
Speaker 7: I wanted to ask Bob and Steve if you just

1178
00:58:15,520 --> 00:58:18,400
Speaker 7: had a few words to say two folks in closing

1179
00:58:18,480 --> 00:58:22,360
Speaker 7: about the significance of the post gazette strike in terms

1180
00:58:22,360 --> 00:58:24,840
Speaker 7: of the labor movement right now in this country and

1181
00:58:24,960 --> 00:58:27,800
Speaker 7: what folks watching and listening can do to stand in

1182
00:58:27,840 --> 00:58:28,960
Speaker 7: solidarity with y'all.

1183
00:58:29,800 --> 00:58:32,360
Speaker 15: Well, I mean, as I said before, that we're sitting

1184
00:58:32,400 --> 00:58:35,760
Speaker 15: here in the middle of the two storms, the economic

1185
00:58:35,840 --> 00:58:38,720
Speaker 15: storm that city media and also this sort of labor

1186
00:58:39,520 --> 00:58:42,640
Speaker 15: you know, uprising that we're part of too. So Steve

1187
00:58:42,720 --> 00:58:45,280
Speaker 15: and I laid out how passionate we and our colleagues

1188
00:58:45,280 --> 00:58:48,320
Speaker 15: are about local news, and that's coming from our place

1189
00:58:48,360 --> 00:58:52,440
Speaker 15: as journalists. Now we find ourselves as kind of labor activists,

1190
00:58:52,560 --> 00:58:56,280
Speaker 15: labor catalysts, and we care quite a bit about that

1191
00:58:56,360 --> 00:59:00,320
Speaker 15: as well. Steve is going to this Starbucks rally today,

1192
00:59:00,360 --> 00:59:02,920
Speaker 15: not just as a reporter, which he's very good at,

1193
00:59:03,000 --> 00:59:05,880
Speaker 15: probably as a photographer as well, but he's also going

1194
00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:10,200
Speaker 15: someone going as someone that has a long standing but

1195
00:59:10,320 --> 00:59:16,360
Speaker 15: certainly newly honed interest in and understanding of labor issues.

1196
00:59:16,920 --> 00:59:19,120
Speaker 15: And so one thing that I think is going to

1197
00:59:19,200 --> 00:59:20,600
Speaker 15: come out of this, I don't know where any of

1198
00:59:20,600 --> 00:59:22,800
Speaker 15: this is going to go. And you know, even our

1199
00:59:22,840 --> 00:59:25,760
Speaker 15: own strike and this isn't my idea. I stole this

1200
00:59:25,800 --> 00:59:29,920
Speaker 15: from our National Newsguild president, John Schloyz. But when you

1201
00:59:29,960 --> 00:59:32,880
Speaker 15: have a whole bunch of journalists in Pittsburgh on strike,

1202
00:59:33,000 --> 00:59:35,440
Speaker 15: or we have one hundred and twenty news workers maybe

1203
00:59:35,480 --> 00:59:37,760
Speaker 15: now forty of us are in the newsroom, When you

1204
00:59:37,840 --> 00:59:42,280
Speaker 15: have the New York Times workers newsroom workers descending on

1205
00:59:42,320 --> 00:59:47,400
Speaker 15: a shareholders meeting yesterday, you have the Washington Post newsroom

1206
00:59:47,440 --> 00:59:51,600
Speaker 15: workers taking like a lunch long strike. You know we're

1207
00:59:51,600 --> 00:59:54,680
Speaker 15: going to lunch out today. It's not just us, And

1208
00:59:55,120 --> 00:59:56,600
Speaker 15: what you're going to have is you're going to have

1209
00:59:56,680 --> 01:00:00,480
Speaker 15: journalists that at least are more sympathetic and empathy and

1210
01:00:00,560 --> 01:00:03,880
Speaker 15: knowledgeable about labor and how strikes work and what it

1211
01:00:03,920 --> 01:00:06,480
Speaker 15: feels like to be on the line for two years

1212
01:00:06,480 --> 01:00:09,440
Speaker 15: in the case of Warrior Coal and everything that Starbucks

1213
01:00:09,520 --> 01:00:12,760
Speaker 15: workers are going through. So in some ways, I just

1214
01:00:12,840 --> 01:00:19,080
Speaker 15: think some of us media types, independent or corporate or both,

1215
01:00:19,440 --> 01:00:23,280
Speaker 15: are getting schooled on what some of this stuff means.

1216
01:00:23,320 --> 01:00:25,959
Speaker 15: And I think Steve and I and my colleagues are

1217
01:00:26,120 --> 01:00:29,840
Speaker 15: just as passionate about unions and having a voice in

1218
01:00:29,920 --> 01:00:32,200
Speaker 15: your workplace, and we want to be part.

1219
01:00:32,000 --> 01:00:32,960
Speaker 4: Of that as well.

1220
01:00:33,640 --> 01:00:38,800
Speaker 12: You know, you know, we're what abob now seven months

1221
01:00:38,800 --> 01:00:42,000
Speaker 12: into this thing, and you know there are times when

1222
01:00:42,280 --> 01:00:44,600
Speaker 12: I'm on the phone on the people with some of

1223
01:00:44,600 --> 01:00:47,200
Speaker 12: my colleagues a lot, you knows, as a member of

1224
01:00:47,200 --> 01:00:49,280
Speaker 12: the Health and Welfare Commadian and so I have these

1225
01:00:49,320 --> 01:00:51,840
Speaker 12: conversations a lot, and people tell me, you know, six months,

1226
01:00:51,880 --> 01:00:53,520
Speaker 12: seven months into this that you know it just like

1227
01:00:53,960 --> 01:00:56,200
Speaker 12: the world is going on without me, that you know,

1228
01:00:56,640 --> 01:00:59,360
Speaker 12: my life is stalled and the world's going on without me.

1229
01:00:59,440 --> 01:01:01,840
Speaker 12: These are fellows strikers, and you know, I have these

1230
01:01:01,880 --> 01:01:04,320
Speaker 12: conversations with people, and it's it's easy to see that

1231
01:01:04,800 --> 01:01:07,000
Speaker 12: on the inside what really helps. I've had a couple

1232
01:01:07,040 --> 01:01:09,480
Speaker 12: of conversations this week. Yesterday I was on the phone

1233
01:01:09,520 --> 01:01:12,960
Speaker 12: with the young woman from the Pacific I think it's

1234
01:01:13,000 --> 01:01:18,440
Speaker 12: the UH Pacific Asian Labor Organization here in Pittsburgh's a

1235
01:01:18,440 --> 01:01:22,960
Speaker 12: fairly new organization advocating for you know, people who are immigrants,

1236
01:01:24,120 --> 01:01:26,720
Speaker 12: who are new into the workforce here that really don't

1237
01:01:26,800 --> 01:01:30,520
Speaker 12: understand their rights. Trying to teach people what those rights are,

1238
01:01:30,720 --> 01:01:32,920
Speaker 12: and the people in the work newly undered in the workforce,

1239
01:01:33,120 --> 01:01:34,760
Speaker 12: and how they can stand up for their rights. And

1240
01:01:34,840 --> 01:01:36,880
Speaker 12: you know, she said to me, I was interviewing for

1241
01:01:36,920 --> 01:01:38,800
Speaker 12: her for a story, and she said to me afterwards,

1242
01:01:38,800 --> 01:01:41,760
Speaker 12: she said, Steve, she said, we're watching you guys. We're

1243
01:01:41,760 --> 01:01:45,160
Speaker 12: paying attention, and we really appreciate the stand where you're taking.

1244
01:01:45,160 --> 01:01:46,640
Speaker 12: I've heard that a couple of times that in the

1245
01:01:46,680 --> 01:01:49,320
Speaker 12: past week or so, and you know, that really lifts

1246
01:01:49,320 --> 01:01:53,760
Speaker 12: my heart to know that that that this effort is

1247
01:01:54,440 --> 01:01:56,680
Speaker 12: worth it. You know, no matter what the outcome is here,

1248
01:01:57,000 --> 01:01:59,440
Speaker 12: you know the fact that we're standing up, that we're

1249
01:01:59,520 --> 01:02:03,160
Speaker 12: we are are in some ways showing people how this's done.

1250
01:02:03,320 --> 01:02:05,320
Speaker 12: You know, we've one of the problems we have is

1251
01:02:05,320 --> 01:02:09,720
Speaker 12: that we can't go to anybody for advice because nobody's

1252
01:02:09,760 --> 01:02:12,080
Speaker 12: been on strike, and nobody in the newspaper is alive

1253
01:02:12,160 --> 01:02:14,200
Speaker 12: now involved in this has been on strike this long.

1254
01:02:14,640 --> 01:02:18,000
Speaker 12: So you know, we're we are blazing new paths. You know,

1255
01:02:18,440 --> 01:02:20,880
Speaker 12: the Starbucks workers, you know what of them came up

1256
01:02:20,920 --> 01:02:22,400
Speaker 12: to me a couple of weeks ago and said, Steve,

1257
01:02:22,480 --> 01:02:24,760
Speaker 12: we we kind of feel like you guys are big brothers.

1258
01:02:26,320 --> 01:02:29,840
Speaker 12: So you know that that makes me feel those comments

1259
01:02:29,880 --> 01:02:32,640
Speaker 12: like that. You know, it's it's hard to state how

1260
01:02:34,280 --> 01:02:37,480
Speaker 12: how sustaining those comments can be and how important it

1261
01:02:37,480 --> 01:02:39,760
Speaker 12: can be to hear those things from us, because you know,

1262
01:02:39,800 --> 01:02:41,760
Speaker 12: sometimes when you're in the bubble and you're getting up

1263
01:02:41,760 --> 01:02:43,360
Speaker 12: every morning every day and you're thinking, I'm still on

1264
01:02:43,400 --> 01:02:45,000
Speaker 12: strike because they don't have any money. I got to

1265
01:02:45,040 --> 01:02:46,680
Speaker 12: go to work for free. You know, we have all

1266
01:02:46,720 --> 01:02:49,200
Speaker 12: these other issues we have to deal with, you know,

1267
01:02:49,280 --> 01:02:53,000
Speaker 12: keeping the strike fund up, hearing that is is important

1268
01:02:53,120 --> 01:02:57,680
Speaker 12: for sustaining this, keeping our mental health in in good stead.

1269
01:02:57,920 --> 01:03:01,080
Speaker 12: You know, there's a workers Memorial Day tomorrow. One of

1270
01:03:01,120 --> 01:03:03,320
Speaker 12: the big issues that they're dealing with now this year.

1271
01:03:03,560 --> 01:03:05,840
Speaker 12: It's not just people dying on the job, it's mental health.

1272
01:03:05,880 --> 01:03:09,240
Speaker 12: They realize that. So it's kind of fortuitous that it's

1273
01:03:09,400 --> 01:03:11,680
Speaker 12: that that that we're talking about this at this time.

1274
01:03:11,920 --> 01:03:14,360
Speaker 12: Another big thing, you know, you're right Max the Post,

1275
01:03:14,360 --> 01:03:16,840
Speaker 12: because that views this is a war of attrition. You know,

1276
01:03:17,200 --> 01:03:20,600
Speaker 12: they've got money, we don't. That's that's what it boils

1277
01:03:20,600 --> 01:03:22,480
Speaker 12: down to in their minds, and they think they can

1278
01:03:22,520 --> 01:03:24,880
Speaker 12: win with that. You know, we have a strike fund.

1279
01:03:24,920 --> 01:03:26,280
Speaker 12: You know, I hate to come down to this, but

1280
01:03:26,520 --> 01:03:28,640
Speaker 12: you know we have a strike fund. That's how people

1281
01:03:28,640 --> 01:03:31,280
Speaker 12: are paying their bills. And you know, I hate to

1282
01:03:31,320 --> 01:03:33,640
Speaker 12: say it, but you know, if you go to the

1283
01:03:33,800 --> 01:03:36,960
Speaker 12: go to pup, go to the donate page and donate

1284
01:03:37,000 --> 01:03:39,320
Speaker 12: some money to the strike relief fund. Those you know,

1285
01:03:39,360 --> 01:03:42,120
Speaker 12: we need mental health. We also need to be able

1286
01:03:42,160 --> 01:03:45,200
Speaker 12: to sustain this financially because the blocks are probably right,

1287
01:03:45,240 --> 01:03:46,920
Speaker 12: they've got more money than we do. You know what

1288
01:03:46,960 --> 01:03:49,640
Speaker 12: we have We have the community on our side. We

1289
01:03:49,760 --> 01:03:52,440
Speaker 12: have the moral high ground here. I'm going to claim that.

1290
01:03:53,040 --> 01:03:56,920
Speaker 12: Uh and uh, we have the best journalists. One thing

1291
01:03:56,960 --> 01:03:59,280
Speaker 12: we don't have is we don't have the money.

1292
01:03:58,960 --> 01:03:59,360
Speaker 3: That they have.

1293
01:03:59,520 --> 01:04:01,640
Speaker 12: There there or write about that. I don't think that

1294
01:04:02,160 --> 01:04:04,560
Speaker 12: I'll take where I'm at with no money any day

1295
01:04:04,560 --> 01:04:07,720
Speaker 12: of the week. But the fact is we got bills to.

1296
01:04:07,680 --> 01:04:12,720
Speaker 7: Pay from the Real News Network and Breaking Points. We

1297
01:04:12,960 --> 01:04:16,160
Speaker 7: are with you, guys. We stand in solidarity with y'all.

1298
01:04:16,240 --> 01:04:18,920
Speaker 7: And I want to encourage everyone watching and listening to

1299
01:04:19,000 --> 01:04:23,520
Speaker 7: this to please go to the Pittsburgh Union Progress website

1300
01:04:24,160 --> 01:04:26,760
Speaker 7: subscribe to the strike paper. You can, as Steve and

1301
01:04:26,760 --> 01:04:29,240
Speaker 7: Bob mentioned, you can find links to donate to their

1302
01:04:29,240 --> 01:04:34,360
Speaker 7: strike fund there. Post publicly about this, keep this story alive,

1303
01:04:34,600 --> 01:04:38,080
Speaker 7: let people know about it, reach out to the owners

1304
01:04:38,080 --> 01:04:40,920
Speaker 7: of the paper to express your thoughts and feelings about

1305
01:04:41,240 --> 01:04:45,840
Speaker 7: the strike and the value of having these workers secure

1306
01:04:45,880 --> 01:04:48,400
Speaker 7: the contract that they deserve so they can keep doing

1307
01:04:48,440 --> 01:04:51,960
Speaker 7: the work that they love and serving the communities that

1308
01:04:52,000 --> 01:04:54,560
Speaker 7: they are a part of. So I want to thank

1309
01:04:54,880 --> 01:04:58,120
Speaker 7: the great Bob Bats Junior and Steve Mellan for joining

1310
01:04:58,200 --> 01:05:01,840
Speaker 7: us today on Breaking Points. Bob is a lifelong journalist

1311
01:05:01,880 --> 01:05:04,480
Speaker 7: who worked for the Pittsburgh Post Gazette for thirty years

1312
01:05:04,520 --> 01:05:08,160
Speaker 7: before going on strike and being named interim editor of

1313
01:05:08,200 --> 01:05:12,400
Speaker 7: the worker's strike paper, the Pittsburgh Union Progress. As of today,

1314
01:05:12,440 --> 01:05:16,280
Speaker 7: they've published over one thousand stories, plus photos, graphics, ads,

1315
01:05:16,320 --> 01:05:18,520
Speaker 7: and even a fictional story, which you can find at

1316
01:05:18,600 --> 01:05:22,880
Speaker 7: Union Progress dot com. Steve has been a journalist and

1317
01:05:22,960 --> 01:05:26,720
Speaker 7: photojournalist for more than forty years. For the past few decades,

1318
01:05:27,200 --> 01:05:30,640
Speaker 7: much of his work has focused on working people. He

1319
01:05:30,720 --> 01:05:33,320
Speaker 7: left the Pittsburgh Press after a strike there in nineteen

1320
01:05:33,400 --> 01:05:35,520
Speaker 7: ninety two and spent much of the next four years

1321
01:05:35,560 --> 01:05:39,160
Speaker 7: traveling to industrial towns to report on the changes people

1322
01:05:39,200 --> 01:05:42,680
Speaker 7: there were experiencing, and he returned to the newspaper work

1323
01:05:42,680 --> 01:05:45,840
Speaker 7: in nineteen ninety seven, taking a job at the Pittsburgh

1324
01:05:45,880 --> 01:05:49,000
Speaker 7: Post Gazette, where he has been on strike with his

1325
01:05:49,040 --> 01:05:53,600
Speaker 7: co workers since October of twenty twenty two. Bob Steve,

1326
01:05:53,880 --> 01:05:56,160
Speaker 7: thank you both so much for joining me today on

1327
01:05:56,240 --> 01:05:59,240
Speaker 7: Breaking Points. Thank you all for watching this segment with

1328
01:05:59,360 --> 01:06:02,520
Speaker 7: Breaking Points, and be sure to subscribe to my news outlet,

1329
01:06:02,600 --> 01:06:05,640
Speaker 7: the Real News Network with links in the show description.

1330
01:06:06,280 --> 01:06:08,600
Speaker 7: See you soon for the next edition of the Art

1331
01:06:08,640 --> 01:06:12,280
Speaker 7: of Class War. Take care of yourselves, take care of

1332
01:06:12,320 --> 01:06:14,600
Speaker 7: each other, Solidarity forever.

1333
01:06:18,280 --> 01:06:22,000
Speaker 16: Right now, at around three o'clock Eastern, you could see

1334
01:06:22,000 --> 01:06:26,880
Speaker 16: that gray black plume of smoke coming out, which gets

1335
01:06:27,040 --> 01:06:32,000
Speaker 16: worse and smells worse as the day moves into night,

1336
01:06:33,000 --> 01:06:37,080
Speaker 16: and definitely as night goes into the early morning. Hey,

1337
01:06:37,080 --> 01:06:40,120
Speaker 16: it's Jordan with Status KUP News with a special report

1338
01:06:40,280 --> 01:06:44,040
Speaker 16: on the ground in Kalamazoo, Michigan. For breaking points. I

1339
01:06:44,120 --> 01:06:47,680
Speaker 16: am wearing a mask outside on a rainy day because

1340
01:06:47,800 --> 01:06:53,720
Speaker 16: right behind us is Graphic Packaging International, a multi billion

1341
01:06:53,880 --> 01:06:59,919
Speaker 16: dollar packaging company that is literally poisoning the poor black

1342
01:07:00,080 --> 01:07:05,840
Speaker 16: part of Kalamazoo, Michigan. They are releasing over thirty different

1343
01:07:06,400 --> 01:07:11,720
Speaker 16: kinds of toxic gas which is causing crazy rates of asthma,

1344
01:07:11,840 --> 01:07:18,800
Speaker 16: COPD cancers in the community. And since twenty fifteen, one thousand,

1345
01:07:19,080 --> 01:07:22,480
Speaker 16: nine hundred and fifty let me repeat, one, nine hundred

1346
01:07:22,480 --> 01:07:27,040
Speaker 16: and fifty black infants under the age of one have

1347
01:07:27,240 --> 01:07:33,000
Speaker 16: died in Kalamazoo County. The majority of black residents live

1348
01:07:33,760 --> 01:07:38,120
Speaker 16: in this area on the north side near Graphic Packaging plant.

1349
01:07:39,000 --> 01:07:45,240
Speaker 16: My cameraman and I both yesterday and today we reported

1350
01:07:45,320 --> 01:07:48,120
Speaker 16: right next to the plant yesterday and both had headaggs

1351
01:07:48,160 --> 01:07:50,840
Speaker 16: and sore throat and even being half a block away

1352
01:07:51,600 --> 01:07:56,080
Speaker 16: you could feel it with a headagg dizziness. We have

1353
01:07:56,160 --> 01:07:58,840
Speaker 16: a lot more to tell you what is being released.

1354
01:07:59,640 --> 01:08:03,320
Speaker 17: From that and there's over thirty different toxic gases and chemicals,

1355
01:08:03,600 --> 01:08:06,120
Speaker 17: sulfur to axide, hydrogen, sulfide mouth.

1356
01:08:06,320 --> 01:08:07,720
Speaker 6: I'm not go oner, captain.

1357
01:08:08,400 --> 01:08:14,040
Speaker 18: Do order to an asthma attack. Then she was seventeen.

1358
01:08:15,000 --> 01:08:20,640
Speaker 18: Then I found my son unresponsible. He couldn't breathe, Uh

1359
01:08:20,760 --> 01:08:24,120
Speaker 18: to a asthma attack. Now, due to that, my son

1360
01:08:24,160 --> 01:08:28,639
Speaker 18: has a track. He's on twenty four hour oxygen and

1361
01:08:28,680 --> 01:08:30,840
Speaker 18: I have a life support machine at my house.

1362
01:08:31,200 --> 01:08:32,000
Speaker 6: How old is you say?

1363
01:08:32,160 --> 01:08:33,720
Speaker 10: My son is thirty two.

1364
01:08:34,280 --> 01:08:37,280
Speaker 18: She complained about the smell she had, Like I said, uh,

1365
01:08:37,439 --> 01:08:39,559
Speaker 18: almost every day I had to take her to go

1366
01:08:39,600 --> 01:08:42,400
Speaker 18: get an asthma tribute at the hospital. To the point

1367
01:08:42,479 --> 01:08:45,519
Speaker 18: it got so bad that the hospital had her come

1368
01:08:45,560 --> 01:08:48,679
Speaker 18: in two times a week. It had a shot flown

1369
01:08:48,760 --> 01:08:53,400
Speaker 18: in from California that she had to get inserted into

1370
01:08:53,560 --> 01:08:56,799
Speaker 18: her and stayed at the hospital for like three hours

1371
01:08:56,800 --> 01:08:58,839
Speaker 18: to make sure she did have no kind of reaction

1372
01:08:59,000 --> 01:09:01,760
Speaker 18: from it to be able to come outside. This is

1373
01:09:01,800 --> 01:09:10,400
Speaker 18: graphic packaging, and the smell out here, it's joking the

1374
01:09:10,479 --> 01:09:18,439
Speaker 18: shit out to me right now, August fifth, This is

1375
01:09:18,479 --> 01:09:19,439
Speaker 18: graphic packaging.

1376
01:09:20,640 --> 01:09:24,040
Speaker 6: This is one fifteen in the morning.

1377
01:09:26,760 --> 01:09:34,600
Speaker 18: Today is Wednesday, August twenty fourth at three fifteen in

1378
01:09:34,680 --> 01:09:35,160
Speaker 18: the morning.

1379
01:09:36,320 --> 01:09:37,800
Speaker 3: This is graphic packaging.

1380
01:09:44,240 --> 01:09:50,640
Speaker 10: It smells like wall age. Got the suitt.

1381
01:09:54,760 --> 01:10:06,400
Speaker 18: Look how thick the white smokey.

1382
01:10:02,040 --> 01:10:04,280
Speaker 10: It's choky bis. I tried to videotape it.

1383
01:10:06,920 --> 01:10:10,559
Speaker 18: It is September fourth, about one forty in the morning.

1384
01:10:11,200 --> 01:10:18,120
Speaker 18: This is graphic packaging. Once again, look at this. I'm

1385
01:10:18,120 --> 01:10:20,880
Speaker 18: at home now look at this fourth while. Oh, this

1386
01:10:21,000 --> 01:10:25,200
Speaker 18: is graphic packaging at two fifty seven in the morning.

1387
01:10:26,680 --> 01:10:29,120
Speaker 18: It's probably two fifty seven or two fifty eight. Now

1388
01:10:29,200 --> 01:10:33,920
Speaker 18: look at this, y'all. It's killing us. As a young kid,

1389
01:10:34,000 --> 01:10:37,960
Speaker 18: my son was great active. You couldn't sit him down.

1390
01:10:38,000 --> 01:10:40,360
Speaker 18: He wouldn't stop moving, and he didn't have asthma when

1391
01:10:40,360 --> 01:10:42,479
Speaker 18: he was young. He didn't get asthma until we moved

1392
01:10:42,720 --> 01:10:43,240
Speaker 18: over here.

1393
01:10:44,360 --> 01:10:44,920
Speaker 7: When was that.

1394
01:10:46,960 --> 01:10:50,240
Speaker 18: About five years ago?

1395
01:10:50,920 --> 01:10:51,760
Speaker 10: What about your daughter?

1396
01:10:51,960 --> 01:10:54,960
Speaker 16: Was she was she relatively healthy before you guys moved here.

1397
01:10:55,400 --> 01:10:58,960
Speaker 18: Uh, she had asthma a little, I mean she had asthma,

1398
01:10:59,240 --> 01:11:02,439
Speaker 18: but she was act just like my son, kept moving.

1399
01:11:02,520 --> 01:11:03,519
Speaker 10: You couldn't sider down.

1400
01:11:03,880 --> 01:11:07,799
Speaker 18: She played football, she played basketball, baseball, rad track.

1401
01:11:08,080 --> 01:11:09,719
Speaker 10: She did everything she possibly could.

1402
01:11:10,360 --> 01:11:12,800
Speaker 16: Just a little case of asthma and which could be

1403
01:11:12,800 --> 01:11:15,479
Speaker 16: helped within hailer. But it was after you moved here

1404
01:11:15,640 --> 01:11:18,640
Speaker 16: that for her the asthma got a lot worse, and

1405
01:11:18,760 --> 01:11:19,840
Speaker 16: your son the same thing.

1406
01:11:20,040 --> 01:11:23,040
Speaker 18: Yes, we done reached out to several people. We have

1407
01:11:23,160 --> 01:11:26,160
Speaker 18: not got to respond back. It's like they don't care

1408
01:11:26,640 --> 01:11:29,639
Speaker 18: how we live. They don't care if we live or die.

1409
01:11:29,720 --> 01:11:33,720
Speaker 18: That's how I feel. Women begging and begging and begging

1410
01:11:33,920 --> 01:11:36,120
Speaker 18: for them to do something about this factory.

1411
01:11:36,280 --> 01:11:38,760
Speaker 10: And they did something, all right. They gave them all

1412
01:11:38,840 --> 01:11:41,840
Speaker 10: them billions of dollars to expand to make it even

1413
01:11:41,920 --> 01:11:43,040
Speaker 10: worse for us over here.

1414
01:11:43,280 --> 01:11:47,920
Speaker 16: Governor Whitmere, yes, deal was dealing with COVID and many

1415
01:11:47,960 --> 01:11:51,559
Speaker 16: other things. But her administration, she came in office in

1416
01:11:51,560 --> 01:11:56,400
Speaker 16: twenty nineteen, her administration was fielding these complaints from a

1417
01:11:56,479 --> 01:12:00,479
Speaker 16: lot of residents on the North Side and twenty one.

1418
01:12:01,640 --> 01:12:05,360
Speaker 16: I still don't understand it. But a multi billion dollar company,

1419
01:12:05,479 --> 01:12:09,040
Speaker 16: Graphic Packaging, which is international. They're all over the United States,

1420
01:12:09,080 --> 01:12:12,840
Speaker 16: headquartered in Atlanta. But I guess they wanted to expand here.

1421
01:12:13,640 --> 01:12:19,880
Speaker 16: And the governor, her Michigan Economic Development Council, which is

1422
01:12:20,200 --> 01:12:23,559
Speaker 16: an arm of the government, approved a deal that would

1423
01:12:23,600 --> 01:12:26,840
Speaker 16: allow Graphic Packaging one hundred and twenty five billion dollar

1424
01:12:26,920 --> 01:12:31,840
Speaker 16: bond deal to expand can you make why would they

1425
01:12:31,920 --> 01:12:37,200
Speaker 16: have allowed expansion knowing all the complaints and at that point,

1426
01:12:37,240 --> 01:12:39,840
Speaker 16: Graphic Packaging had also been fined quite a bit for

1427
01:12:40,000 --> 01:12:42,759
Speaker 16: leaks and things like that. Was the state not aware

1428
01:12:42,920 --> 01:12:45,040
Speaker 16: of all the complaints. We're not just talking like, oh,

1429
01:12:45,080 --> 01:12:49,479
Speaker 16: it smells bad, but it's not a safety problem. It's

1430
01:12:49,960 --> 01:12:52,880
Speaker 16: the smell is overwhelming, and you have kids dying of

1431
01:12:52,880 --> 01:12:58,880
Speaker 16: severe asthma attacks. Kids can't even play outside the school

1432
01:12:58,920 --> 01:13:01,240
Speaker 16: near the plant. They don't even take them outside for recess.

1433
01:13:01,600 --> 01:13:05,120
Speaker 16: So not that you have the governor on speed dial,

1434
01:13:05,160 --> 01:13:08,320
Speaker 16: but I have to assume she was aware. Her administration

1435
01:13:08,520 --> 01:13:10,360
Speaker 16: was aware of this problem and approved it.

1436
01:13:10,400 --> 01:13:16,759
Speaker 19: Anyway, There's no there's no rational explanation for the state

1437
01:13:16,880 --> 01:13:20,640
Speaker 19: not being aware because by that point, Graphic Package had

1438
01:13:20,680 --> 01:13:24,400
Speaker 19: been fined several times, there had been a number of

1439
01:13:24,520 --> 01:13:25,519
Speaker 19: complaints filed.

1440
01:13:25,880 --> 01:13:27,720
Speaker 4: So yes, they were aware.

1441
01:13:27,520 --> 01:13:29,040
Speaker 6: Like it's it's affecting the whole city.

1442
01:13:29,080 --> 01:13:32,839
Speaker 17: Because at first Graphic Packaging was releasing five hundred thousand

1443
01:13:33,000 --> 01:13:36,280
Speaker 17: tons of toxic gases and chemicals. With the expansion, they

1444
01:13:36,280 --> 01:13:39,280
Speaker 17: had added an additional seven hundred thousand tons of toxic

1445
01:13:39,320 --> 01:13:42,559
Speaker 17: chemicals and gases so now there's one point two million

1446
01:13:43,320 --> 01:13:46,920
Speaker 17: tons of toxic chemicals and gases just blowing the whole

1447
01:13:47,000 --> 01:13:49,320
Speaker 17: on the whole city.

1448
01:13:49,600 --> 01:13:52,840
Speaker 20: Two thirty in the afternoon, I am about a half

1449
01:13:52,880 --> 01:13:56,719
Speaker 20: a block away from Graphic Packaging, which is the multi

1450
01:13:56,840 --> 01:14:02,639
Speaker 20: billion dollar international packaging o care here that is basically

1451
01:14:02,680 --> 01:14:06,639
Speaker 20: poisoning the city of Klamazoo, predominantly the poor black part

1452
01:14:07,200 --> 01:14:11,840
Speaker 20: of Calamba Zoo. Not going any closer because it really.

1453
01:14:12,120 --> 01:14:13,440
Speaker 16: The smell is overwhelming.

1454
01:14:14,680 --> 01:14:16,759
Speaker 20: They gives you a headache and sore throat.

1455
01:14:17,240 --> 01:14:20,040
Speaker 21: Yes, we smell it all the time, been smelling it

1456
01:14:20,080 --> 01:14:24,559
Speaker 21: for years. It has affected my husband's breathing as and

1457
01:14:24,680 --> 01:14:29,519
Speaker 21: he's on uh he has asthma and breathing. He has

1458
01:14:29,920 --> 01:14:33,880
Speaker 21: breathing treatments. And my daughter she had asthma oh about

1459
01:14:33,880 --> 01:14:35,880
Speaker 21: five years ago when she was in high school, and

1460
01:14:36,520 --> 01:14:38,479
Speaker 21: I kept thinking I didn't know it at first. I

1461
01:14:38,520 --> 01:14:41,960
Speaker 21: was thinking she kept getting tired and tired, and I'm thinking, okay,

1462
01:14:42,000 --> 01:14:44,799
Speaker 21: so what could be wrong. I mean, you're active in school.

1463
01:14:45,000 --> 01:14:46,759
Speaker 21: But when I took it to the doctor, that's.

1464
01:14:46,560 --> 01:14:47,160
Speaker 6: What it was.

1465
01:14:47,560 --> 01:14:50,240
Speaker 21: In the summer, we can't even open our windows due

1466
01:14:50,240 --> 01:14:53,880
Speaker 21: to the smell at all. My daughter's graduation party was

1467
01:14:53,920 --> 01:14:58,240
Speaker 21: in my backyard, and I was so embarrassed because alls

1468
01:14:58,240 --> 01:15:00,960
Speaker 21: I smell was a pollution is I mean it smelled

1469
01:15:01,000 --> 01:15:05,599
Speaker 21: like dog. It's smell like a sewage and uh that's

1470
01:15:05,640 --> 01:15:05,960
Speaker 21: what it was.

1471
01:15:05,960 --> 01:15:07,320
Speaker 6: Smelled like, just like a sewage.

1472
01:15:07,320 --> 01:15:09,680
Speaker 21: And as my company was sitting around, you know, and

1473
01:15:09,720 --> 01:15:12,519
Speaker 21: I noticed the faces and you know, people were just leaving.

1474
01:15:14,360 --> 01:15:21,519
Speaker 22: We always smelt it. We always thought it was the river. Yeah,

1475
01:15:21,920 --> 01:15:28,040
Speaker 22: but it's it's bad. My grandkids been sick and my

1476
01:15:28,120 --> 01:15:33,880
Speaker 22: oldest been sick two years since he came into this world,

1477
01:15:34,400 --> 01:15:39,960
Speaker 22: nose running, coughing for the whole two years. Though they

1478
01:15:39,960 --> 01:15:41,440
Speaker 22: don't care about us.

1479
01:15:42,800 --> 01:15:46,800
Speaker 16: And the Uh did you notice that the more they

1480
01:15:46,880 --> 01:15:49,040
Speaker 16: were outside where obviously.

1481
01:15:48,600 --> 01:15:52,519
Speaker 22: The more they outside, the worst they would get if

1482
01:15:52,560 --> 01:15:55,640
Speaker 22: I keep them in the house. But you can't contain kids.

1483
01:15:56,240 --> 01:15:58,360
Speaker 22: They want to go outside, you know what I'm saying,

1484
01:15:59,439 --> 01:16:02,479
Speaker 22: Bop who use in all that form and they can't

1485
01:16:02,479 --> 01:16:05,439
Speaker 22: go outside and enjoy it because they're gonna be sick.

1486
01:16:05,439 --> 01:16:09,800
Speaker 22: It gonna matter a hundred degrees outside, They're still gonna

1487
01:16:09,840 --> 01:16:10,240
Speaker 22: be sick.

1488
01:16:11,320 --> 01:16:11,519
Speaker 12: You know.

1489
01:16:11,640 --> 01:16:14,519
Speaker 21: It's so bad now that Okay, my granddaughter she has

1490
01:16:14,560 --> 01:16:18,599
Speaker 21: asthma really bad. She's twenty and every time she comes

1491
01:16:18,600 --> 01:16:21,439
Speaker 21: over to my house, she's a granny. I'm not coming

1492
01:16:21,439 --> 01:16:23,439
Speaker 21: over here anymore because I always have to use mine

1493
01:16:23,520 --> 01:16:25,800
Speaker 21: heller every time I come over. And then I also

1494
01:16:25,800 --> 01:16:29,759
Speaker 21: have a great grandson, which is her baby. She says,

1495
01:16:29,800 --> 01:16:31,960
Speaker 21: every time he comes over, he gets sick. She say,

1496
01:16:32,040 --> 01:16:33,760
Speaker 21: you know what, every time your baby sits, she says,

1497
01:16:33,840 --> 01:16:35,519
Speaker 21: never gets sick until he comes to your house.

1498
01:16:35,960 --> 01:16:37,639
Speaker 6: And she took him to the doctor because.

1499
01:16:37,439 --> 01:16:40,439
Speaker 21: She thought he had a cold, and they and he's

1500
01:16:40,600 --> 01:16:43,200
Speaker 21: only seven months and the doctor said he doesn't have

1501
01:16:43,240 --> 01:16:46,720
Speaker 21: a cold. They told her that it was asthma, and

1502
01:16:46,800 --> 01:16:49,839
Speaker 21: ask her what kind of environment was he in, and.

1503
01:16:50,200 --> 01:16:51,479
Speaker 6: She told him safe.

1504
01:16:51,520 --> 01:16:53,559
Speaker 21: That's all she was say was safe, because she really

1505
01:16:53,800 --> 01:16:55,240
Speaker 21: think didn't understand the courtion.

1506
01:16:55,400 --> 01:16:55,720
Speaker 6: But yes.

1507
01:16:56,080 --> 01:16:59,439
Speaker 21: And then my other great granddaughter, I keep her every

1508
01:16:59,640 --> 01:17:03,519
Speaker 21: other weekend, and every time she comes over, she'll say, Granny,

1509
01:17:03,840 --> 01:17:06,240
Speaker 21: it stinks. And she gets sick for some reason and

1510
01:17:06,280 --> 01:17:08,639
Speaker 21: we don't know why. And I asked her, Mama, said,

1511
01:17:08,720 --> 01:17:11,800
Speaker 21: was she's sick before she came over? She said no,

1512
01:17:12,240 --> 01:17:15,479
Speaker 21: But every time she comes to our house she gets sick.

1513
01:17:15,680 --> 01:17:17,920
Speaker 21: And then when I take her home, I'll call her mama. Next,

1514
01:17:18,000 --> 01:17:20,479
Speaker 21: I said, how was she doing? She said, Oh, she's fine,

1515
01:17:21,000 --> 01:17:22,800
Speaker 21: She's not doing any of those things you said she

1516
01:17:22,920 --> 01:17:26,559
Speaker 21: was doing so and and oh and.

1517
01:17:26,479 --> 01:17:28,000
Speaker 6: My great grandson.

1518
01:17:28,720 --> 01:17:31,080
Speaker 21: The doctor would he said, since he doesn't have a cold,

1519
01:17:32,040 --> 01:17:36,200
Speaker 21: they actually gave him some medicine for asthma.

1520
01:17:36,840 --> 01:17:38,479
Speaker 10: So he's on he's on some medication.

1521
01:17:38,760 --> 01:17:41,080
Speaker 6: And there's so many stories. All the stories are the same.

1522
01:17:41,240 --> 01:17:43,920
Speaker 17: Like I'm the one that gets the messages and the

1523
01:17:43,920 --> 01:17:45,639
Speaker 17: calls all the time because I'm know when to file

1524
01:17:45,680 --> 01:17:48,599
Speaker 17: the lawsuit. We have a civil rights complaining against Environmental

1525
01:17:48,640 --> 01:17:50,599
Speaker 17: Great Lakes and Energy. We have a civil rights complaining

1526
01:17:50,600 --> 01:17:54,920
Speaker 17: against the city of Kalma Zoo. We're gonna file another

1527
01:17:54,960 --> 01:18:01,240
Speaker 17: lawsuit against the government soon. And I just heard another

1528
01:18:01,280 --> 01:18:03,120
Speaker 17: story from a lady that said she had a quit

1529
01:18:03,160 --> 01:18:03,559
Speaker 17: her job.

1530
01:18:03,720 --> 01:18:05,240
Speaker 6: She lives a couple of blocks away.

1531
01:18:05,720 --> 01:18:08,800
Speaker 17: She has raising her grandchildren and she has to take

1532
01:18:08,840 --> 01:18:11,480
Speaker 17: them to the doctor every single day for breathing problems

1533
01:18:11,640 --> 01:18:12,240
Speaker 17: every day.

1534
01:18:12,479 --> 01:18:14,960
Speaker 19: This is not anywhere near as much of an issue

1535
01:18:15,400 --> 01:18:17,960
Speaker 19: on this side of town because prevailing winds push it.

1536
01:18:17,960 --> 01:18:18,679
Speaker 12: Away from here.

1537
01:18:18,760 --> 01:18:23,720
Speaker 19: But yeah, after the expansion, it's become a lot more noticeable.

1538
01:18:24,280 --> 01:18:26,200
Speaker 19: So we took a little while after they got up

1539
01:18:26,200 --> 01:18:28,720
Speaker 19: and running with the full expansion before we started to

1540
01:18:28,800 --> 01:18:34,240
Speaker 19: notice it pretty regularly, and really in the last since

1541
01:18:34,320 --> 01:18:37,320
Speaker 19: this last summer, it's been.

1542
01:18:39,000 --> 01:18:42,080
Speaker 4: Probably i would say.

1543
01:18:43,800 --> 01:18:47,000
Speaker 19: Three days a week or so where you can smell it,

1544
01:18:47,080 --> 01:18:50,719
Speaker 19: and probably usually it'll be about one day a week

1545
01:18:50,760 --> 01:18:54,320
Speaker 19: where it's you get a headache going outside, or my

1546
01:18:54,400 --> 01:18:57,080
Speaker 19: wife is a little more sensitive, she'll get her lips

1547
01:18:57,080 --> 01:19:01,519
Speaker 19: will burn and she's actually gotten some like rash under skin.

1548
01:19:02,120 --> 01:19:05,360
Speaker 19: But yeah, it's it's liked out about about once a

1549
01:19:05,360 --> 01:19:06,080
Speaker 19: week probably.

1550
01:19:06,280 --> 01:19:08,120
Speaker 22: They tell them to move this planning out. Oh it's

1551
01:19:08,120 --> 01:19:13,040
Speaker 22: shut down us. We go try to fight. They don't

1552
01:19:13,040 --> 01:19:19,280
Speaker 22: care because y'all minorities to us. They look at us

1553
01:19:19,320 --> 01:19:21,240
Speaker 22: like we beneath them.

1554
01:19:21,560 --> 01:19:22,400
Speaker 6: We are human.

1555
01:19:23,800 --> 01:19:26,000
Speaker 22: Why I'm beneath you because I didn't take ten extra

1556
01:19:26,400 --> 01:19:30,439
Speaker 22: courses at the college. They talking about slavery over and

1557
01:19:30,479 --> 01:19:32,759
Speaker 22: all that. No, it's not because we still live in slavery.

1558
01:19:32,920 --> 01:19:36,400
Speaker 22: Because y'all still don't give a fuck about us. Why

1559
01:19:36,400 --> 01:19:40,240
Speaker 22: do we have to go through this? Because if somebody

1560
01:19:40,320 --> 01:19:44,120
Speaker 22: white who stayed this was on the way and portage

1561
01:19:44,280 --> 01:19:46,479
Speaker 22: and somebody white would have came and told them, look

1562
01:19:46,479 --> 01:19:48,800
Speaker 22: at this gases, look at all this, they would have

1563
01:19:48,840 --> 01:19:49,759
Speaker 22: cut that shit out.

1564
01:19:49,640 --> 01:19:50,559
Speaker 4: A long time ago.

1565
01:19:51,800 --> 01:19:58,559
Speaker 16: The smell is really bad. I can't even describe it.

1566
01:19:58,560 --> 01:20:05,519
Speaker 16: It's just a mix of like rotten something, and it

1567
01:20:05,640 --> 01:20:11,519
Speaker 16: almost like the more you the closer you get, it's

1568
01:20:11,880 --> 01:20:14,479
Speaker 16: a rotten smell and it kind of goes up your

1569
01:20:14,520 --> 01:20:19,000
Speaker 16: nostrils a little bit. And this is at whatever time

1570
01:20:19,000 --> 01:20:20,599
Speaker 16: it is now, probably six o'clock.

1571
01:20:20,840 --> 01:20:21,640
Speaker 3: Sure you've heard that.

1572
01:20:21,760 --> 01:20:25,479
Speaker 16: Now, since the expansion, the smoke and the smell is

1573
01:20:25,520 --> 01:20:27,800
Speaker 16: starting to go to the west side, in the whiter

1574
01:20:27,920 --> 01:20:31,479
Speaker 16: part of the town. White folks are starting to complain.

1575
01:20:32,000 --> 01:20:35,679
Speaker 16: Do you think if enough white people get angry, maybe

1576
01:20:35,720 --> 01:20:36,720
Speaker 16: they'll do something about it.

1577
01:20:36,840 --> 01:20:37,719
Speaker 10: That's what I'm thinking.

1578
01:20:38,000 --> 01:20:41,599
Speaker 18: If enough rich white people could play that's over there

1579
01:20:41,640 --> 01:20:44,400
Speaker 18: by the western area, in the west side area, the nice,

1580
01:20:44,520 --> 01:20:48,160
Speaker 18: nice neighborhoods, then I think they're finally gonna do something

1581
01:20:48,200 --> 01:20:51,880
Speaker 18: about it. But right now, us black in this community,

1582
01:20:52,080 --> 01:20:55,519
Speaker 18: they don't care. They don't care at all. Whit more,

1583
01:20:55,600 --> 01:20:58,799
Speaker 18: she doesn't care. I thought she did when I voted

1584
01:20:58,840 --> 01:21:00,920
Speaker 18: for her, But I say, she don't care.

1585
01:21:02,479 --> 01:21:05,320
Speaker 16: What about President Biden. Obviously he's not the governor, but

1586
01:21:05,520 --> 01:21:09,760
Speaker 16: he talks a lot about environmental justice and he likes,

1587
01:21:09,880 --> 01:21:12,960
Speaker 16: you know, he says, he ran that. You know, I'm

1588
01:21:14,040 --> 01:21:16,200
Speaker 16: I've done a lot for the black community. He said,

1589
01:21:16,760 --> 01:21:20,439
Speaker 16: I find that highly questionable. But shouldn't the president step

1590
01:21:20,479 --> 01:21:23,080
Speaker 16: in if American citizens are basically being poisoned?

1591
01:21:23,240 --> 01:21:26,559
Speaker 18: Yes, the president should. That's what I think. He's the president.

1592
01:21:26,800 --> 01:21:31,160
Speaker 18: He got charge over Whittmore, he gets telled him what

1593
01:21:31,200 --> 01:21:33,280
Speaker 18: to do and what not to do. I think he

1594
01:21:33,360 --> 01:21:35,880
Speaker 18: really just don't care neither. All they wanted was the

1595
01:21:35,960 --> 01:21:39,320
Speaker 18: votes that we gave him. They told a good lie

1596
01:21:39,520 --> 01:21:43,519
Speaker 18: until they got into office, and that's all it is

1597
01:21:43,680 --> 01:21:44,000
Speaker 18: was a lie.

1598
01:21:44,120 --> 01:21:46,360
Speaker 10: They're not doing anything that they said it was gonna do.

1599
01:21:48,880 --> 01:21:50,639
Speaker 23: Hey there, my name is James Lee. Welcome to another

1600
01:21:50,680 --> 01:21:52,800
Speaker 23: segment of fifty one to forty nine on Breaking Points,

1601
01:21:52,800 --> 01:21:56,879
Speaker 23: where we uncover together the true motivations and incentives underlying

1602
01:21:56,880 --> 01:22:00,840
Speaker 23: their political, business, and cultural institutions. And today, hey, we're

1603
01:22:00,840 --> 01:22:03,840
Speaker 23: going to talk about Elon Musk's new company town.

1604
01:22:04,240 --> 01:22:07,479
Speaker 24: If you'd like to live in Elon Musk's proposed utopia town,

1605
01:22:07,720 --> 01:22:09,640
Speaker 24: get a job at one of his companies, and you

1606
01:22:09,720 --> 01:22:14,040
Speaker 24: could become the newest resident of Snailbrook. Musk employees have

1607
01:22:14,120 --> 01:22:16,400
Speaker 24: described it as a Texas utopia.

1608
01:22:16,479 --> 01:22:19,200
Speaker 23: What do you think does Elon's new utopia represent a

1609
01:22:19,240 --> 01:22:22,320
Speaker 23: form of benevolent paternalism where the company is there to

1610
01:22:22,360 --> 01:22:24,880
Speaker 23: take care of its employees needs and provide them with

1611
01:22:24,920 --> 01:22:27,799
Speaker 23: a good quality of life, or is this just another

1612
01:22:28,000 --> 01:22:31,519
Speaker 23: incarnation of modern day serfdom? Reporting from the Wall Street

1613
01:22:31,560 --> 01:22:34,880
Speaker 23: Journal quote. In meetings with landowners and real estate agents,

1614
01:22:34,920 --> 01:22:38,280
Speaker 23: mister Musk and employees of his companies have described his

1615
01:22:38,400 --> 01:22:41,519
Speaker 23: vision as sort of a Texas utopia along the Colorado River,

1616
01:22:41,760 --> 01:22:44,959
Speaker 23: whereas employees could live and work the boring company. Employees

1617
01:22:44,960 --> 01:22:47,240
Speaker 23: could apply for a home with rent starting at about

1618
01:22:47,280 --> 01:22:50,879
Speaker 23: eight hundred dollars a month for a two or three bedroom,

1619
01:22:51,080 --> 01:22:53,479
Speaker 23: but if an employee leaves or is fired, he or

1620
01:22:53,520 --> 01:22:55,520
Speaker 23: she would have to vacate the house.

1621
01:22:55,320 --> 01:22:57,080
Speaker 4: Within thirty days.

1622
01:22:57,080 --> 01:23:00,800
Speaker 23: Depending on your background, your opinion of company towns can

1623
01:23:00,920 --> 01:23:04,879
Speaker 23: probably go one of two ways. Forbes Magazine, rights affordable

1624
01:23:04,960 --> 01:23:08,960
Speaker 23: Housing Corporate America can be part of the solution quote.

1625
01:23:09,200 --> 01:23:12,480
Speaker 23: As housing prices continue to rise across the nation, developers,

1626
01:23:12,520 --> 01:23:16,200
Speaker 23: local governments, and major corporations have an opportunity to work

1627
01:23:16,240 --> 01:23:19,440
Speaker 23: together in the twenty first century as partners rather than adversaries,

1628
01:23:19,439 --> 01:23:23,559
Speaker 23: to help address the inequities of housing affordability. On numerous fronts.

1629
01:23:23,920 --> 01:23:26,960
Speaker 23: This would be the most generous interpretation. I'll just put

1630
01:23:26,960 --> 01:23:30,200
Speaker 23: it that way. It's kind of perfect that Forest Magazine,

1631
01:23:30,240 --> 01:23:34,240
Speaker 23: a flagship Corporatis publication, was the one to actually put

1632
01:23:34,280 --> 01:23:37,360
Speaker 23: forth this take, a take that I'm very familiar with

1633
01:23:37,439 --> 01:23:40,400
Speaker 23: because it's the world where I come from. This is

1634
01:23:40,439 --> 01:23:42,559
Speaker 23: going to be a slight to my alma mater. But

1635
01:23:42,880 --> 01:23:45,600
Speaker 23: day one of business school, we were indoctrinated with this

1636
01:23:45,760 --> 01:23:48,240
Speaker 23: notion that we weren't in it for the money. We

1637
01:23:48,240 --> 01:23:51,240
Speaker 23: were in quote, the business of doing good. But then

1638
01:23:51,280 --> 01:23:53,879
Speaker 23: we took classes about how to make money through private equity,

1639
01:23:54,040 --> 01:23:57,160
Speaker 23: how to union bus, how to personify a brand in

1640
01:23:57,200 --> 01:24:00,439
Speaker 23: a way to manipulate consumers to buy by buy, and

1641
01:24:00,479 --> 01:24:05,600
Speaker 23: that was somehow good. That was okay, because it obfuscated

1642
01:24:05,680 --> 01:24:07,920
Speaker 23: the realities of what we were doing. This is, just

1643
01:24:08,000 --> 01:24:11,680
Speaker 23: my opinion, the genesis of a lot of society's problems

1644
01:24:11,720 --> 01:24:14,519
Speaker 23: that the business community purports to want to solve are

1645
01:24:14,560 --> 01:24:20,240
Speaker 23: oftentimes byproducts of private industries blind pursuit of profit.

1646
01:24:20,520 --> 01:24:23,000
Speaker 25: Okay, So I saw this tweet the day about Elon

1647
01:24:23,080 --> 01:24:26,080
Speaker 25: Musk reportedly building a town in Texas for his employees

1648
01:24:26,120 --> 01:24:28,080
Speaker 25: to work and live in, and I saw up here

1649
01:24:28,400 --> 01:24:30,000
Speaker 25: that they were like, oh my gosh, the history of

1650
01:24:30,000 --> 01:24:32,439
Speaker 25: company towns, and I was like, oh no, we're back

1651
01:24:32,479 --> 01:24:33,160
Speaker 25: on this now.

1652
01:24:33,200 --> 01:24:35,080
Speaker 23: This is the other take, the take that I think

1653
01:24:35,160 --> 01:24:38,160
Speaker 23: is more honest because it's based on history. You know,

1654
01:24:38,280 --> 01:24:41,240
Speaker 23: the old adage that past behavior is the best predictor

1655
01:24:41,280 --> 01:24:42,160
Speaker 23: of future behavior.

1656
01:24:42,400 --> 01:24:44,680
Speaker 25: So company towns were popular in the US from the

1657
01:24:44,720 --> 01:24:47,719
Speaker 25: eighteen eighties to the nineteen thirties. The company would own

1658
01:24:47,800 --> 01:24:50,320
Speaker 25: all the buildings and businesses in that town, and these

1659
01:24:50,360 --> 01:24:54,760
Speaker 25: companies tried to build a like utopian workers society.

1660
01:24:54,960 --> 01:24:57,400
Speaker 23: Coincidence, I think not that this is the exact pitch

1661
01:24:57,439 --> 01:25:01,280
Speaker 23: that Elon Musk is making a Texas utopia. And what

1662
01:25:01,320 --> 01:25:03,280
Speaker 23: does history tell us about such utopias.

1663
01:25:03,640 --> 01:25:07,479
Speaker 13: I'm in Lelo, Colorado, where in nineteen fourteen Colorado National

1664
01:25:07,520 --> 01:25:12,160
Speaker 13: guardsmen killed upwards of twenty plus citizens, including women and children,

1665
01:25:12,240 --> 01:25:16,280
Speaker 13: for striking against Colorado Fuel and Irons extremely unsafe and

1666
01:25:16,360 --> 01:25:19,880
Speaker 13: exploitative labor practices. At the time, Colorado Fuel and Iron

1667
01:25:19,920 --> 01:25:22,920
Speaker 13: built company towns to house their workers, providing them with

1668
01:25:23,000 --> 01:25:26,519
Speaker 13: health care, education, and basic amenities. However, these towns were

1669
01:25:26,520 --> 01:25:29,040
Speaker 13: wholly owned and operated by the company, and they were

1670
01:25:29,080 --> 01:25:33,160
Speaker 13: created to control their workers exploit their labor, instill loyalty,

1671
01:25:33,320 --> 01:25:34,880
Speaker 13: and to prevent unionization.

1672
01:25:35,160 --> 01:25:37,519
Speaker 23: Ah, I get it, and I think you get it too.

1673
01:25:37,640 --> 01:25:40,400
Speaker 23: It will be a utopian worker society in the sense

1674
01:25:40,439 --> 01:25:44,600
Speaker 23: that it will be optimized for the company to extract

1675
01:25:44,600 --> 01:25:47,040
Speaker 23: the most amount of value that it can out of

1676
01:25:47,040 --> 01:25:53,360
Speaker 23: the worker. Key tenets of such utopia productivity, efficiency, centralized control.

1677
01:25:53,560 --> 01:25:56,120
Speaker 23: Is it possible that it is not a coincidence? Why

1678
01:25:56,120 --> 01:25:59,519
Speaker 23: in America healthcare is tied to your employer. Vacation days

1679
01:25:59,760 --> 01:26:02,000
Speaker 23: you get any at all, are set by the company.

1680
01:26:02,400 --> 01:26:06,360
Speaker 23: Sick days, parentalies all tied to your employer. I think

1681
01:26:06,360 --> 01:26:10,639
Speaker 23: this is done by design to increase the corporate sphere

1682
01:26:10,640 --> 01:26:15,599
Speaker 23: of influence and limit your recourse against potential exploitation. Do

1683
01:26:15,680 --> 01:26:18,479
Speaker 23: you really want to add housing to that list as well?

1684
01:26:18,800 --> 01:26:22,320
Speaker 26: I took a job that was ran by a billionaire,

1685
01:26:22,560 --> 01:26:24,880
Speaker 26: and how the housing was set up is that you

1686
01:26:24,920 --> 01:26:28,000
Speaker 26: could either live in the housing or you could find

1687
01:26:28,000 --> 01:26:31,120
Speaker 26: your own apartment or house. And these homes were nice.

1688
01:26:31,160 --> 01:26:33,720
Speaker 26: They were many mansions. Okay, they were really nice, but

1689
01:26:33,760 --> 01:26:37,800
Speaker 26: it was terrifying because that job was so abusive. But

1690
01:26:37,920 --> 01:26:40,720
Speaker 26: I didn't want to lead because that meant I did

1691
01:26:40,760 --> 01:26:41,599
Speaker 26: not have housing.

1692
01:26:41,920 --> 01:26:44,360
Speaker 23: This is serfdom. No. I mean, I kind of get it.

1693
01:26:44,400 --> 01:26:47,559
Speaker 23: The housing is going to be below market rate. But

1694
01:26:48,320 --> 01:26:52,280
Speaker 23: with every basic human need tied to your employer, are

1695
01:26:52,320 --> 01:26:54,840
Speaker 23: you really truly free? Really think about it all the

1696
01:26:54,960 --> 01:26:58,800
Speaker 23: downstream effects. Imagine if you're being discriminated at work by

1697
01:26:58,800 --> 01:27:02,120
Speaker 23: your boss, or if you spot a safety issue, or

1698
01:27:02,160 --> 01:27:05,559
Speaker 23: you simply have a different viewpoint than Elon, If you're

1699
01:27:05,560 --> 01:27:07,639
Speaker 23: in constant fear of losing your job and your shelter

1700
01:27:07,800 --> 01:27:11,360
Speaker 23: in one fell soup, do you actually have any freedom

1701
01:27:11,400 --> 01:27:14,280
Speaker 23: at all? We're talking about Elon Musk here, a hardcore

1702
01:27:14,360 --> 01:27:16,760
Speaker 23: kind of guy, one who really likes to test the

1703
01:27:16,800 --> 01:27:20,040
Speaker 23: boundaries of the law. Case in point, his Tesla gigafactory

1704
01:27:20,120 --> 01:27:23,840
Speaker 23: was purportedly built on wage theft and safety violations.

1705
01:27:24,040 --> 01:27:29,000
Speaker 9: Were Little towns have downtown main streets with old buildings,

1706
01:27:29,800 --> 01:27:32,160
Speaker 9: and they're full of mom and pop restaurants and shops.

1707
01:27:32,160 --> 01:27:35,000
Speaker 9: Elon Musk came to town. His team are bringing a

1708
01:27:35,040 --> 01:27:37,880
Speaker 9: whole new energy to our counting the jobs that are

1709
01:27:37,920 --> 01:27:40,360
Speaker 9: not an hour away from where they live. A lot

1710
01:27:40,400 --> 01:27:43,320
Speaker 9: of times our kids grow up and they've had to

1711
01:27:43,360 --> 01:27:47,040
Speaker 9: go away to be an engineer. The more opportunities we plant,

1712
01:27:47,160 --> 01:27:48,880
Speaker 9: the more the kids will be with us.

1713
01:27:48,960 --> 01:27:51,280
Speaker 23: This is somewhat tricky for me to discuss because I

1714
01:27:51,320 --> 01:27:54,439
Speaker 23: am not in the Elon Musk is an idiot type camp.

1715
01:27:54,760 --> 01:27:58,120
Speaker 23: This is a guy. He built PayPal, He revolutionized electric

1716
01:27:58,200 --> 01:28:03,160
Speaker 23: vehicles at Tesla SpaceX, is beating NASA at Space Exploration Twitter.

1717
01:28:03,320 --> 01:28:06,160
Speaker 23: I'm not so sure about it. I'm gonna withhold judgment there.

1718
01:28:06,479 --> 01:28:08,720
Speaker 23: You can't take those successes away from him. But come on,

1719
01:28:09,040 --> 01:28:10,920
Speaker 23: let's be real. What do you think is gonna happen

1720
01:28:10,960 --> 01:28:13,519
Speaker 23: to that town? Do you think he's gonna be like guys, guys,

1721
01:28:13,920 --> 01:28:16,559
Speaker 23: we have to respect the history and culture of the town.

1722
01:28:16,680 --> 01:28:19,760
Speaker 23: We have to be sure not to displace the local population.

1723
01:28:20,040 --> 01:28:21,560
Speaker 23: We have to build responsibly.

1724
01:28:22,000 --> 01:28:22,800
Speaker 12: No way.

1725
01:28:23,000 --> 01:28:26,880
Speaker 23: He's already trying to dump wastewater into the Colorado River.

1726
01:28:27,160 --> 01:28:28,760
Speaker 23: And they say that the reason that they have to

1727
01:28:28,800 --> 01:28:31,120
Speaker 23: do that is that the facility right now doesn't tie

1728
01:28:31,120 --> 01:28:34,400
Speaker 23: into the city's treatment system. The infrastructure is currently not

1729
01:28:34,479 --> 01:28:37,400
Speaker 23: in place yet, so in the interim, this is their solution.

1730
01:28:37,560 --> 01:28:40,759
Speaker 23: And that's according to Rejieve Patel, an environmental consultant working

1731
01:28:40,760 --> 01:28:43,040
Speaker 23: with the boring company. Yeah, what's the big deal? One

1732
01:28:43,080 --> 01:28:46,240
Speaker 23: hundred and forty thousand gallons of wastewater, no worries. By

1733
01:28:46,240 --> 01:28:49,599
Speaker 23: the way, I did some digging. The environmental consultant, Rejieve Patel,

1734
01:28:49,760 --> 01:28:52,760
Speaker 23: is a partner at Green Think Consulting, LLC, where they

1735
01:28:52,800 --> 01:28:57,559
Speaker 23: provide regulatory expertise and environmental compliance. I know, environmental consulting.

1736
01:28:57,560 --> 01:29:00,400
Speaker 23: It sounds really wholesome, but it is just corporate for

1737
01:29:01,000 --> 01:29:03,160
Speaker 23: we will help you find the best way to skirt

1738
01:29:03,240 --> 01:29:05,559
Speaker 23: environmental regulations and not get sued.

1739
01:29:05,960 --> 01:29:08,400
Speaker 14: The dirt that you pull out of a tunnel, there

1740
01:29:08,439 --> 01:29:10,439
Speaker 14: are government regulations on what you have to do with that,

1741
01:29:10,520 --> 01:29:14,200
Speaker 14: because there's oil, there's grease, there's products in there. There

1742
01:29:14,200 --> 01:29:17,599
Speaker 14: are families down there drinking well water from the same well,

1743
01:29:17,760 --> 01:29:20,599
Speaker 14: from the same aquafer groundwater that I'm pulling from too,

1744
01:29:20,920 --> 01:29:23,400
Speaker 14: And I hope, I hope they're concerned that I want

1745
01:29:23,400 --> 01:29:25,760
Speaker 14: this to be a positive thing. I'm not anti musk,

1746
01:29:25,800 --> 01:29:29,920
Speaker 14: I'm not anti growth, I'm not anti tunneling. But I'm

1747
01:29:29,960 --> 01:29:33,840
Speaker 14: anti breaking the law and I'm anti corporations who think

1748
01:29:33,880 --> 01:29:36,120
Speaker 14: they can tell our officials that the rules don't apply

1749
01:29:36,160 --> 01:29:36,400
Speaker 14: to them.

1750
01:29:36,560 --> 01:29:38,760
Speaker 23: Right. I talked about this at length a few weeks ago,

1751
01:29:38,840 --> 01:29:41,479
Speaker 23: but we got a big problem in present day America.

1752
01:29:41,520 --> 01:29:45,240
Speaker 23: We got a case of billionaires acting like wanta be kings.

1753
01:29:45,479 --> 01:29:48,640
Speaker 23: People like Elon Musk think they are the law, like

1754
01:29:48,680 --> 01:29:50,360
Speaker 23: he says all these wonderful things. I want to protect

1755
01:29:50,400 --> 01:29:52,680
Speaker 23: the environment, I want to preserve free speech, I want

1756
01:29:52,720 --> 01:29:55,439
Speaker 23: to build this utopian town, save humanity, YadA YadA. But

1757
01:29:55,520 --> 01:29:57,760
Speaker 23: that's not who Elon Musk is.

1758
01:29:58,280 --> 01:30:02,680
Speaker 25: His approach is to do anything required to keep his

1759
01:30:02,800 --> 01:30:04,440
Speaker 25: businesses competitive.

1760
01:30:04,640 --> 01:30:07,559
Speaker 23: He is a ruthless businessman, and a lot of people

1761
01:30:07,600 --> 01:30:09,720
Speaker 23: revere him for that. But that is all he is.

1762
01:30:09,800 --> 01:30:13,200
Speaker 23: He is for protecting his speech, his freedom, not yours.

1763
01:30:13,800 --> 01:30:16,120
Speaker 7: If he wants people to work like he wanted them

1764
01:30:16,120 --> 01:30:18,720
Speaker 7: to work at Twitter, yeah town.

1765
01:30:18,720 --> 01:30:19,880
Speaker 4: They never leave in that town.

1766
01:30:19,960 --> 01:30:20,760
Speaker 10: Not wrong about that.

1767
01:30:21,280 --> 01:30:23,920
Speaker 3: They go to work four seven in that town.

1768
01:30:24,040 --> 01:30:27,639
Speaker 23: They're not wrong. Companytown or no company town. To Elon Musk,

1769
01:30:28,080 --> 01:30:32,799
Speaker 23: everything everyone is a resource, a means to build his empire,

1770
01:30:32,880 --> 01:30:36,559
Speaker 23: to expand his empire. You are a Cognis machine. If

1771
01:30:36,600 --> 01:30:40,240
Speaker 23: you are working great, but if you get sick, injured,

1772
01:30:40,280 --> 01:30:43,520
Speaker 23: step out of line, you will be discarded and replaced.

1773
01:30:43,760 --> 01:30:45,960
Speaker 5: Book like hell, I mean, you just have to put in,

1774
01:30:46,960 --> 01:30:50,679
Speaker 5: you know, eighty hour eighty one hundred hour weeks every week.

1775
01:30:50,840 --> 01:30:53,800
Speaker 23: The thing about all this work is that because he

1776
01:30:54,000 --> 01:30:57,120
Speaker 23: owns the company, he reaps all the reward. But if

1777
01:30:57,120 --> 01:31:00,160
Speaker 23: you're like on the factory floor, it's a little bit more.

1778
01:31:00,400 --> 01:31:01,840
Speaker 4: To indentured servitude.

1779
01:31:01,880 --> 01:31:05,840
Speaker 23: So snail Brook tests Elon Musk's new company Town. I

1780
01:31:05,880 --> 01:31:08,200
Speaker 23: hate to say it with his employees sounding pretty jazzed

1781
01:31:08,240 --> 01:31:11,400
Speaker 23: about it, but it's not gonna be utopia. Well maybe

1782
01:31:11,400 --> 01:31:14,479
Speaker 23: for Elon it'll be his utopia, but for most everyone

1783
01:31:14,520 --> 01:31:18,160
Speaker 23: else it'll be dystopia. But hey, that's just what I believe.

1784
01:31:18,240 --> 01:31:20,080
Speaker 23: I want to know your thoughts. What do you think

1785
01:31:20,120 --> 01:31:23,800
Speaker 23: about Elon Musk and his utopian Companytown. Let's talk about

1786
01:31:23,880 --> 01:31:26,840
Speaker 23: in the comments section below. If you found this video helpful,

1787
01:31:26,920 --> 01:31:29,240
Speaker 23: please take a second to go over to my YouTube

1788
01:31:29,320 --> 01:31:31,960
Speaker 23: channel fifty one forty nine. I have many videos breaking

1789
01:31:31,960 --> 01:31:33,920
Speaker 23: down various different subjects. The link will be in the

1790
01:31:33,920 --> 01:31:37,799
Speaker 23: description below. Keep on tuning into breaking points, and as always,

1791
01:31:38,080 --> 01:31:50,080
Speaker 23: thank you so much for your time today.

1792
01:31:52,680 --> 01:31:55,439
Speaker 27: Three reasons BuzzFeed News closed in the style of a

1793
01:31:55,439 --> 01:31:59,880
Speaker 27: BuzzFeed listicle, decline, an advertising revenue, challenges of the digital

1794
01:32:00,040 --> 01:32:03,280
Speaker 27: news landscape, over alliance on social media. That's pretty much it.

1795
01:32:03,320 --> 01:32:05,080
Speaker 27: Those are the things I'm going to talk about. Obviously,

1796
01:32:05,360 --> 01:32:08,840
Speaker 27: a realisticalist more than three things, but the ten things

1797
01:32:08,840 --> 01:32:11,679
Speaker 27: that it's bad up didn't really all make sense. Also,

1798
01:32:11,720 --> 01:32:13,840
Speaker 27: the last time I did this, it gave me a

1799
01:32:13,880 --> 01:32:17,400
Speaker 27: funny title like three reasons BuzzFeed News closed, and we're

1800
01:32:17,439 --> 01:32:19,559
Speaker 27: all totally bummed out about it. I don't know why

1801
01:32:19,640 --> 01:32:21,120
Speaker 27: it's not being funny anymore.

1802
01:32:21,439 --> 01:32:21,519
Speaker 4: So.

1803
01:32:21,680 --> 01:32:25,400
Speaker 27: When I was in college, BuzzFeed was just dumb quizzes

1804
01:32:25,439 --> 01:32:28,080
Speaker 27: and lists and they spread around on Facebook or wherever.

1805
01:32:28,520 --> 01:32:31,000
Speaker 27: All did was gathered potentially viral content from around the

1806
01:32:31,000 --> 01:32:34,400
Speaker 27: web and try to capitalize on memes and nostalgia and stuff.

1807
01:32:34,680 --> 01:32:37,679
Speaker 27: But in twenty eleven, they hired Ben Smith from Politico

1808
01:32:37,800 --> 01:32:41,280
Speaker 27: to help make a news division. Over the following few years,

1809
01:32:41,320 --> 01:32:45,120
Speaker 27: they added staff, built an investigative team, started winning awards.

1810
01:32:45,240 --> 01:32:47,800
Speaker 27: In twenty sixteen, they won a National Magazine Award. In

1811
01:32:47,840 --> 01:32:50,599
Speaker 27: twenty twenty one, they won a Pulitzer for their coverage

1812
01:32:50,680 --> 01:32:53,960
Speaker 27: of internment camps in China. They published exposd's had a

1813
01:32:54,000 --> 01:32:56,639
Speaker 27: spot in the White House Press Corps. They had become

1814
01:32:56,760 --> 01:32:59,920
Speaker 27: a mainstream outlet. Now at the same time, they operated

1815
01:33:00,120 --> 01:33:01,920
Speaker 27: at a loss. I don't think there's anything wrong with

1816
01:33:01,960 --> 01:33:04,280
Speaker 27: that news is important. At one point they tried to

1817
01:33:04,280 --> 01:33:07,160
Speaker 27: get a billionaire to buy them. They had advertising, but

1818
01:33:07,320 --> 01:33:10,920
Speaker 27: obviously it wasn't enough. In twenty nineteen, they laid off staff.

1819
01:33:11,120 --> 01:33:13,920
Speaker 27: In twenty twenty one, BuzzFeed Proper went public. Then in

1820
01:33:14,000 --> 01:33:16,720
Speaker 27: twenty twenty two there were a few more layoffs in

1821
01:33:16,720 --> 01:33:20,360
Speaker 27: the news division, and finally, in April twenty twenty three,

1822
01:33:20,680 --> 01:33:24,840
Speaker 27: CEO Jonah Peretti announced that BuzzFeed News was closing. But

1823
01:33:24,880 --> 01:33:28,200
Speaker 27: there are digital media companies that have done alright, So

1824
01:33:28,280 --> 01:33:31,559
Speaker 27: why did BuzzFeed have to fail? And I think there

1825
01:33:31,560 --> 01:33:34,280
Speaker 27: are a few key reasons, well, a couple key reasons,

1826
01:33:34,640 --> 01:33:37,040
Speaker 27: and actually the first I want to talk about. In

1827
01:33:37,120 --> 01:33:39,320
Speaker 27: order to talk about it, we should take a second

1828
01:33:39,360 --> 01:33:42,880
Speaker 27: to talk about the algorithm, specifically the Facebook algorithm.

1829
01:33:42,960 --> 01:33:45,679
Speaker 15: I still don't understand the algorithm currently.

1830
01:33:45,800 --> 01:33:50,240
Speaker 27: The Facebook algorithm uses four factors to decide which posts

1831
01:33:50,400 --> 01:33:54,479
Speaker 27: you see first. Facebook takes all of your friends, all

1832
01:33:54,560 --> 01:33:56,920
Speaker 27: the pages you follow, all the photos that you ever

1833
01:33:56,920 --> 01:33:58,960
Speaker 27: want to have to see again, but sometimes Facebook shows

1834
01:33:58,960 --> 01:34:01,840
Speaker 27: it to you anyway. And then Facebook assesses thousands of

1835
01:34:01,880 --> 01:34:05,439
Speaker 27: signals that are attached to that content, like who posted

1836
01:34:05,479 --> 01:34:07,920
Speaker 27: it and how often you interact with the person who

1837
01:34:07,960 --> 01:34:10,559
Speaker 27: posted it, whether you liked it or commented, and I'm

1838
01:34:10,600 --> 01:34:13,880
Speaker 27: sure countless other parameters that we would just find chilling

1839
01:34:13,920 --> 01:34:16,120
Speaker 27: if we knew about all of them. Then it takes

1840
01:34:16,160 --> 01:34:19,960
Speaker 27: those signals and makes predictions about what you want to see.

1841
01:34:20,000 --> 01:34:22,080
Speaker 27: So every time your friend from college who you haven't

1842
01:34:22,080 --> 01:34:24,320
Speaker 27: seen in ten years post a picture of her stupid

1843
01:34:24,400 --> 01:34:27,160
Speaker 27: kids average artwork and gushes about how complex it is,

1844
01:34:27,320 --> 01:34:29,640
Speaker 27: and you spend five minutes examining it for traces of

1845
01:34:29,720 --> 01:34:32,479
Speaker 27: actual talent, of which there are clearly none, And so

1846
01:34:32,600 --> 01:34:36,360
Speaker 27: Facebook understands that you delight in hating those pictures, which

1847
01:34:36,400 --> 01:34:39,840
Speaker 27: is why Facebook is constantly showing them to you. So

1848
01:34:40,040 --> 01:34:44,240
Speaker 27: the algorithm then gives all that stuff a relevancy rating,

1849
01:34:44,560 --> 01:34:48,080
Speaker 27: and it starts presenting it to you accordingly. Now, up

1850
01:34:48,160 --> 01:34:53,000
Speaker 27: until twenty eleven, Facebook's algorithm was called edge Rank, but

1851
01:34:53,120 --> 01:34:56,200
Speaker 27: there are always changes being made. After a change in

1852
01:34:56,240 --> 01:35:00,320
Speaker 27: twenty twelve, suddenly the reach of brands dropped thirty eight percent.

1853
01:35:00,640 --> 01:35:03,880
Speaker 27: This Forbes contributor writes about the experience of having posts

1854
01:35:03,920 --> 01:35:07,200
Speaker 27: reached forty eight percent of his audience in August and

1855
01:35:07,240 --> 01:35:10,639
Speaker 27: then only three percent of his audience a couple months later.

1856
01:35:11,240 --> 01:35:14,360
Speaker 27: That change was billed as a way to reduce spam

1857
01:35:14,400 --> 01:35:18,000
Speaker 27: from certain brands, but had the added effect of making

1858
01:35:18,280 --> 01:35:21,679
Speaker 27: room for more ads on Facebook Now. In twenty thirteen,

1859
01:35:21,840 --> 01:35:24,639
Speaker 27: they retired edge rank and went totally to machine learning.

1860
01:35:24,800 --> 01:35:27,519
Speaker 27: In twenty fourteen, they gave a big boost to video.

1861
01:35:27,560 --> 01:35:31,040
Speaker 27: Also in twenty fourteen, apparently a major downturn in organic reach,

1862
01:35:31,280 --> 01:35:35,840
Speaker 27: Facebook warned pages against posting overly promotional updates, saying that

1863
01:35:35,880 --> 01:35:39,200
Speaker 27: such posts would be shown to fewer people. In twenty fifteen,

1864
01:35:39,479 --> 01:35:42,200
Speaker 27: they warned pages that they would see lower traffic because

1865
01:35:42,240 --> 01:35:45,759
Speaker 27: Facebook was favoring friends updates. In twenty eighteen, again, Facebook

1866
01:35:45,760 --> 01:35:49,040
Speaker 27: announced that they would prioritize posts from friends and family

1867
01:35:49,120 --> 01:35:53,280
Speaker 27: over public content. The algorithm is constantly evolving, and their

1868
01:35:53,280 --> 01:35:56,719
Speaker 27: priority is keeping users on the platform and making money.

1869
01:35:56,960 --> 01:35:59,080
Speaker 27: And if the way to do that is to disfavor

1870
01:35:59,160 --> 01:36:02,320
Speaker 27: posts from brand unless they're paying for it, then they

1871
01:36:02,400 --> 01:36:05,280
Speaker 27: will so clicking out of Facebook to go to your

1872
01:36:05,400 --> 01:36:08,639
Speaker 27: news site when you're not even paying for it, what's

1873
01:36:08,720 --> 01:36:12,360
Speaker 27: in it for Facebook? Nothing? So with that in mind,

1874
01:36:12,439 --> 01:36:16,280
Speaker 27: it seems crazy to rely on Facebook's algorithm, or probably

1875
01:36:16,280 --> 01:36:19,080
Speaker 27: the algorithm of any social media company for the success

1876
01:36:19,320 --> 01:36:21,920
Speaker 27: of your business, because they can just take it away

1877
01:36:21,920 --> 01:36:24,000
Speaker 27: from you. There's only so much you can do about it,

1878
01:36:24,320 --> 01:36:28,920
Speaker 27: and that's not new information. But it appears that even

1879
01:36:29,000 --> 01:36:33,360
Speaker 27: with all of that volatility, that algorithm was what BuzzFeed

1880
01:36:33,600 --> 01:36:36,120
Speaker 27: was banking on because Ben Smith, who I mentioned helped

1881
01:36:36,240 --> 01:36:39,240
Speaker 27: launch the news division in twenty eleven, wrote that they

1882
01:36:39,280 --> 01:36:42,960
Speaker 27: had immersed themselves in an optimistic web culture that imagined

1883
01:36:43,000 --> 01:36:45,880
Speaker 27: a reader who cared about which Disney princess she was

1884
01:36:46,160 --> 01:36:49,040
Speaker 27: and also the worst of how the American justice system

1885
01:36:49,040 --> 01:36:52,080
Speaker 27: treated abused women who wanted to argue about the color

1886
01:36:52,120 --> 01:36:54,680
Speaker 27: of the dress, and also understand the science behind it.

1887
01:36:55,080 --> 01:36:56,920
Speaker 27: That was back when all of it was mixed up

1888
01:36:56,920 --> 01:37:00,160
Speaker 27: in your Facebook feed and it felt novel. So this

1889
01:37:00,240 --> 01:37:03,120
Speaker 27: is issue number one. BuzzFeed's growth was thanks to their

1890
01:37:03,200 --> 01:37:07,000
Speaker 27: content spreading around on Facebook or other social media that

1891
01:37:07,120 --> 01:37:08,920
Speaker 27: is clearly not reliable, and you come to be at

1892
01:37:08,920 --> 01:37:10,920
Speaker 27: the mercy of the algorithm and you're just waiting for

1893
01:37:11,000 --> 01:37:14,200
Speaker 27: numbers out of your control to start dropping off. As

1894
01:37:14,320 --> 01:37:17,320
Speaker 27: was recently pointed out, BuzzFeed leadership has called out a

1895
01:37:17,400 --> 01:37:21,120
Speaker 27: sharp decrease in Facebook referral traffic during the past few

1896
01:37:21,160 --> 01:37:24,439
Speaker 27: earnings calls, and as Ross Barkin points out, a lot

1897
01:37:24,439 --> 01:37:27,439
Speaker 27: of millennials have aged out of BuzzFeed, and for gen

1898
01:37:27,560 --> 01:37:31,479
Speaker 27: z TikTok probably fills that need for addictive, pointless content

1899
01:37:31,600 --> 01:37:36,040
Speaker 27: much better than BuzzFeed ever could. So a huge source

1900
01:37:36,040 --> 01:37:40,040
Speaker 27: of traffic was dwindling, and that is bad for advertising. Now,

1901
01:37:40,080 --> 01:37:43,839
Speaker 27: BuzzFeed News always operated at a loss. In twenty eighteen,

1902
01:37:44,000 --> 01:37:47,080
Speaker 27: they had approximately two hundred and fifty employees, but didn't

1903
01:37:47,160 --> 01:37:50,799
Speaker 27: generate anything close to the revenue needed to cover costs.

1904
01:37:51,840 --> 01:37:54,559
Speaker 27: The idea was that it was subsidized by the rest

1905
01:37:54,680 --> 01:37:57,880
Speaker 27: of BuzzFeed. Nothing wrong with that. Funding is obviously a

1906
01:37:57,880 --> 01:38:01,200
Speaker 27: perennial problem in the news business. Already had the admirable

1907
01:38:01,240 --> 01:38:04,360
Speaker 27: goal of wanting to keep the news free, but how

1908
01:38:04,400 --> 01:38:07,120
Speaker 27: to do that. In twenty eighteen, they tried to get

1909
01:38:07,120 --> 01:38:09,439
Speaker 27: bought by a billionaire, which is one way to get

1910
01:38:09,479 --> 01:38:12,639
Speaker 27: news outlets funded. That's how, for example, the Intercept got

1911
01:38:12,680 --> 01:38:14,920
Speaker 27: off the ground. But having your news outlet in the

1912
01:38:14,960 --> 01:38:18,599
Speaker 27: hands of just a single wealthy person is obviously not ideal,

1913
01:38:18,800 --> 01:38:20,720
Speaker 27: So the Intercept put themselves on a path to get

1914
01:38:20,720 --> 01:38:24,160
Speaker 27: away from that. BuzzFeed would never even get that opportunity

1915
01:38:24,280 --> 01:38:26,920
Speaker 27: because they weren't able to sell to that billionaire. But

1916
01:38:26,960 --> 01:38:30,040
Speaker 27: here's another thing. BuzzFeed has done a lot of good,

1917
01:38:30,200 --> 01:38:32,920
Speaker 27: serious work. You go to their website under the investigations

1918
01:38:32,920 --> 01:38:35,479
Speaker 27: tab and you have four or five six thousand word

1919
01:38:35,479 --> 01:38:39,240
Speaker 27: pieces on deadly terror networks and drug cartels use huge

1920
01:38:39,280 --> 01:38:42,800
Speaker 27: banks to finance their crimes. How Amazon escapes blame when

1921
01:38:42,840 --> 01:38:46,080
Speaker 27: one of their delivery trucks run someone over. Insurance companies

1922
01:38:46,080 --> 01:38:49,000
Speaker 27: paying comps to investigate their own customers, but I wonder

1923
01:38:49,000 --> 01:38:51,360
Speaker 27: if they would have been able to inspire people to

1924
01:38:51,600 --> 01:38:54,200
Speaker 27: pay them or to donate to the degree that they

1925
01:38:54,240 --> 01:38:57,919
Speaker 27: would need to move toward independence truly, because to inspire

1926
01:38:57,960 --> 01:39:00,960
Speaker 27: someone to donate or pay for pay well content, they

1927
01:39:00,960 --> 01:39:02,840
Speaker 27: have to see a lot of value in your work,

1928
01:39:02,920 --> 01:39:05,520
Speaker 27: and they have to see the urgency of their contributions.

1929
01:39:05,560 --> 01:39:08,240
Speaker 27: And who sees urgency in a contribution to a for

1930
01:39:08,360 --> 01:39:11,080
Speaker 27: profit company, So that might be a tough sell. That's

1931
01:39:11,120 --> 01:39:13,280
Speaker 27: one problem. But this kind of brings us to the

1932
01:39:13,280 --> 01:39:15,519
Speaker 27: branding issue, and I hate the word branding, but the

1933
01:39:15,560 --> 01:39:19,160
Speaker 27: idea that people would delight in the intermingling of substance

1934
01:39:19,160 --> 01:39:23,200
Speaker 27: of journalism and mindless entertainment seems to have been a

1935
01:39:23,320 --> 01:39:27,479
Speaker 27: huge miscalculation. In twenty fourteen, few research asked Americans what

1936
01:39:27,640 --> 01:39:30,880
Speaker 27: news outlets they trust, and BuzzFeed came in last out

1937
01:39:30,880 --> 01:39:34,200
Speaker 27: of thirty six. In twenty sixteen, Columbia Journalism Review gave

1938
01:39:34,240 --> 01:39:37,439
Speaker 27: participants a long form article. Some people thought it was

1939
01:39:37,439 --> 01:39:40,000
Speaker 27: from The New Yorker, some thought it was from BuzzFeed,

1940
01:39:40,240 --> 01:39:42,639
Speaker 27: and they found there was a trust gap and people

1941
01:39:42,720 --> 01:39:45,759
Speaker 27: viewed the New Yorker as more credible. Not a huge surprise,

1942
01:39:45,920 --> 01:39:48,720
Speaker 27: but the point is that it appears they never were

1943
01:39:48,760 --> 01:39:52,040
Speaker 27: able to overcome this branding issue. Now, this might be

1944
01:39:52,080 --> 01:39:56,000
Speaker 27: why BuzzFeed News went to its own website in twenty eighteen. Now, interestingly,

1945
01:39:56,080 --> 01:39:59,639
Speaker 27: according to digit Day, BuzzFeed News's editor in chief actually

1946
01:39:59,680 --> 01:40:02,679
Speaker 27: said that they were poised to make this newsroom financially

1947
01:40:02,760 --> 01:40:06,000
Speaker 27: sustainable over the course of twenty twenty three. Now, clearly

1948
01:40:06,000 --> 01:40:07,840
Speaker 27: they didn't get the chance to explore that. I don't

1949
01:40:07,880 --> 01:40:09,840
Speaker 27: know what their plan was, but when it comes to

1950
01:40:09,880 --> 01:40:12,400
Speaker 27: funding of news, I think there are a couple things

1951
01:40:12,439 --> 01:40:16,680
Speaker 27: we really just need to accept. Serious journalism can be expensive,

1952
01:40:17,000 --> 01:40:20,599
Speaker 27: and if news outlets are investment vehicles, journalism is almost

1953
01:40:20,640 --> 01:40:24,240
Speaker 27: always going to suffer. Half the newspapers in this country

1954
01:40:24,320 --> 01:40:26,760
Speaker 27: are owned by hedge funds, which is why newspapers are

1955
01:40:26,800 --> 01:40:30,800
Speaker 27: constantly being gutted and closed advertising and classifieds used to

1956
01:40:30,840 --> 01:40:33,040
Speaker 27: pay for small and mid range papers to operate, and

1957
01:40:33,080 --> 01:40:36,080
Speaker 27: that's mostly drive up. Large papers like The Posts and

1958
01:40:36,320 --> 01:40:39,439
Speaker 27: The New York Times are institutions that people can't escape

1959
01:40:39,479 --> 01:40:42,840
Speaker 27: paying for, and they have in house ad agencies creating

1960
01:40:42,840 --> 01:40:46,720
Speaker 27: branded content, including for fossil fuel companies. Cable News has

1961
01:40:46,920 --> 01:40:51,840
Speaker 27: cable carriage fees and huge advertising. They are also institutions

1962
01:40:51,880 --> 01:40:54,479
Speaker 27: that can't be escaped. And even still, why does cable

1963
01:40:54,479 --> 01:40:59,080
Speaker 27: news employ so many pundits Because it's cheap for independent media, though,

1964
01:40:59,080 --> 01:41:03,000
Speaker 27: I think it's pretty clear that premium subscribers and partial

1965
01:41:03,040 --> 01:41:06,720
Speaker 27: paywalls are a good way for organizations to do good

1966
01:41:06,760 --> 01:41:09,920
Speaker 27: work and survive. And if your income is coming from

1967
01:41:09,960 --> 01:41:12,719
Speaker 27: subscribers who believe in what you do, you're not behold

1968
01:41:12,720 --> 01:41:15,760
Speaker 27: in two advertisers or investors, as was the case here

1969
01:41:15,800 --> 01:41:19,320
Speaker 27: where several large shareholders urge BuzzFeed to shut down the

1970
01:41:19,520 --> 01:41:22,680
Speaker 27: entire news operation. Shutting down the newsroom could add up

1971
01:41:22,680 --> 01:41:25,400
Speaker 27: to three hundred million dollars of market capitalization to the

1972
01:41:25,439 --> 01:41:28,559
Speaker 27: struggling stock. Oh good, But where even that breaks down

1973
01:41:29,240 --> 01:41:32,040
Speaker 27: is on the local level, where investigative journalism is still

1974
01:41:32,080 --> 01:41:35,880
Speaker 27: expensive but you have fewer potential readers to rely on

1975
01:41:35,920 --> 01:41:39,200
Speaker 27: and to solve for. That is more serious public funding

1976
01:41:39,280 --> 01:41:42,439
Speaker 27: for journalism, because journalism has to be regarded and as

1977
01:41:42,479 --> 01:41:44,880
Speaker 27: a public good. There are just certain things that need

1978
01:41:44,960 --> 01:41:49,320
Speaker 27: to be emancipated from a profit directive and that will

1979
01:41:49,360 --> 01:41:51,160
Speaker 27: do it for me. If you found this video interesting

1980
01:41:51,240 --> 01:41:54,320
Speaker 27: or helpful, make sure you are subscribed to Breaking Points.

1981
01:41:54,400 --> 01:41:56,200
Speaker 27: You can also check out my YouTube channel where I

1982
01:41:56,280 --> 01:41:59,000
Speaker 27: talk all about media and politics and other things link

1983
01:41:59,000 --> 01:42:02,080
Speaker 27: in the description likeing and sharing always helps. Thank you

1984
01:42:02,200 --> 01:42:04,559
Speaker 27: to Breaking Points. Thank you so much for watching and

1985
01:42:04,680 --> 01:42:06,840
Speaker 27: I will see you in the next one.