← After Party with Emily Jashinsky
After Party with Emily Jashinsky
CBS Challenges, Media Click Myths, w/ Max Tani, PLUS Crockett’s Gift to Opponents, Scott Adams Smear
01:21:02
Emily Jashinsky is joined by Max Tani, Media Editor at Semafor & Co-Host of the "Mixed Signals" podcast, to discuss CBS Evening News’ struggling attempt to relaunch, the myth of media chasing clicks, and Nikki Glaser’s choice to skip some jokes at the Golden Globes. Emily also analyzes legacy media coverage of Scott Adams’ death, as well as a look at a viral clip of Texas Senate candidate Jasmine Crockett calling Texas racist. Emily contrasts it with James Talarico’s messaging. She rounds out the show with a warning about Wegmans use of facial recognition technology and issues a plea to folks on the left and right to consider the bigger picture about the surveillance state. ZBiotics: Visit https://zbiotics.com/AFTERPARTY for 15% off. Stash Financial: Don't Let your money sit around. Go to https://get.stash.com/EMILY to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase. CrowdHealth: This Open Enrollment, stop overpaying for health insurance—discover CrowdHeal...
Loading summary
Transcript112 lines
- [00:01]
Emily
Nobody would ever think that people like.
- [00:02]
Max Tanney
Us would be spies.
- [00:03]
Ad Read Host
Streaming on Peacock.
- [00:05]
Max Tanney
The one thing the Russians would never.
- [00:07]
Ad Read Host
Do is bring on a woman. Most people are not cut out for it. But these women are not most people.
- [00:13]
Ad Read Voice
That is terrifying.
- [00:14]
Emily
It's exciting.
- [00:15]
Ad Read Voice
It means we're alive.
- [00:16]
Emily
No, it means we're about to be dead. Starring Amelia Clarke and Hayley Lou Richardson.
- [00:20]
Max Tanney
To the kgb.
- [00:21]
Ad Read Host
I'm a person of interest.
- [00:22]
Max Tanney
But you two are ponies.
- [00:24]
Emily
Ponies.
- [00:25]
Ad Read Voice
Persons of no interest.
- [00:26]
Max Tanney
Ponies. Streaming now only on Peacock.
- [00:31]
Ad Read Host
Guys, it's no use putting it off. The best time for an underwear refresh is now. Tommy. Don Underwear is designed for a perfect fit that stays put all day. There's zero chafe, thanks to four times more stretch than competing brands. And their innovative horizontal Quick Draw fly is a game changer. With over 30 million pairs sold, there are thousands of men out there more comfortable than you.
- [00:49]
Emily
Don't settle for less.
- [00:50]
Ad Read Host
Go to tommyjohn.com today for 25% off your first order with code comfort. That's tommyjohn.com comfort. Tommy. John comfort. Perfected.
- [01:08]
Emily
Good evening, everyone. I'm Tony decouple. Just kidding. Welcome to afterparty. It's a show, of course, when you just can't get enough of these awful news cycles, you come and join us here live at 10pm or afterwards on the podcast feed, the YouTube feed. Make sure to give us a subscribe. We appreciate it. It helps us a ton. And thanks to everybody who has subscribed up over a hundred thousand subscrib ever since we launched. So we appreciate it so much. Max Tanny of Semaphore is going to be joining us in just one moment. We have a lot of media stories to get to today because I made a little joke about Tony Decopol at the top of the show. We have ratings coming in from decouple's first week on the job. Nikki Glaser is talking a little bit about the editorial process behind the scenes of the Golden Globes, which of course aired on cbs. But Glaser's decision when it came to Trump, I think is actually a very interesting story. Not just about media, but about business more generally. We have, in addition to these stories, we're going to get to some reaction to James Talarico, his appearance on the New York Times podcast with Ezra Klein talking more and more about Christianity. You know that I have thoughts on this, plenty of thoughts on this, of course. And I'm going to get to the media coverage of Scott Adams in addition to new comments from Jasmine Crockett that are pinging around the Internet about Texas just being categorically racist. So a lot to get to, a lot to get to on today's show. I'm glad that we're going to have Max Hanney of 704 joining us in just one moment to get into some of the details about what's happening at C. Yes, but first, this year I am, you've, you've heard me say this, focusing on those small changes that make a huge difference. And for me, it's kind of planning ahead so that I can truly just be in the moment, just let myself cook. And that's especially true when enjoying a few drinks with friends or after a long week of shows and deadlines or even right now. All right. My trick for staying balanced while enjoying social outings is ZBiotics pre alcohol. I brought this with me. You know, I was on the road for the show on Monday. I brought it with me to Palm Beach. It was invented by PhD scientists to tackle rough mornings after drinking. And here's how it works. When you drink that alcohol gets converted into a toxic byproduct in the gut. It's a buildup of this byproduct. It's not dehydration that's to blame for all those rough days after drinking. So pre alcohol produces an enzyme to break that byproduct down. It's very interesting. Just remember to make pre alcohol your first drink of the night. Drink responsible, drink responsibly, and you'll feel your best tomorrow. So if you're ready to try it, go to zbiotics.com afterparty now. You'll get 15% off your first order when you use afterparty at checkout. Plus, it's backed by a 100% money back guarantee, so there's no risk. Subscriptions are also available for maximum consistency. Remember to head to ZBiotics.com afterparty and use the code AFTERPARTY at checkout for 15% off. I think this stuff really makes a difference. Go check it out.
- [04:23]
Ad Read Voice
Cash flow crunch OnDeck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory, or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing and control over repayment, get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today@ondeck.com funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes. Your business loan may be issued by Ondeck or Celtic Bank. Ondeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans in amount subject to lender approv. Feeling heavy and depleted after the holidays? Prolon's five day fasting mimicking diet makes it easy to reset your body habits and energy heading into the new year. Developed with USC's Longevity Institute, Prolon is a nutrition program that works at the cellular level to rejuvenate you from within, supporting fat loss, glowing skin and sharper focus when paired with proper diet and exercise. It's a simple science backed way to turn intentions into action. No injections, no guesswork, just real results. Get 15% off plus a bonus gift when you subscribe. Prolonlife.com Pandora promo that's prolonlife.com Pandora promo these statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. See site for details.
- [05:39]
Emily
We're joined now by Max Tanney, who is media editor over at Semaphore and Coast of the super interesting podcast Mix Singles. Max, thanks for signals. Mixed Singles would be a different podcast.
- [05:51]
Max Tanney
Listen. Yeah, absolutely. That, that sounds like our spin off. That's going to be like our after our after party.
- [05:57]
Emily
Yeah, you should.
- [05:58]
Max Tanney
Your breaking points.
- [05:59]
Emily
I mean, you had Ryan Lizza on for the last episode.
- [06:03]
Max Tanney
That's right.
- [06:03]
Emily
It was kind of a.
- [06:04]
Max Tanney
We did mixed singles.
- [06:07]
Emily
Yeah.
- [06:07]
Max Tanney
Yes, exactly. Yeah. Both the mixed signals and mixed singles situation.
- [06:11]
Emily
Yes.
- [06:12]
Max Tanney
But we got to have you on the show. We're overdue. Somebody from your team was like reached out to me. We were like. I was like, yes, we got to do it. Anyway, I'm happy to be here.
- [06:19]
Emily
Thanks for anytime. It's a really, really newsy podcast, so if people are interested in the business of media, they should absolutely check it out. And on that note, I want to talk about the ratings that have come in from Tony dicop Coppol's first week at the helm of CVS Evening News because, boy, they're bad. Actually worse than I expected. They've put a lot of effort and you probably can tell us all about this. Max into marketing to Copel not just as the face of CBS Evening News, but really as the face of this reformed, relaunched CBS News brand, period. And give it F1 up on the screen. This is a variety report on viewership as the numbers have come in. This is brutal stuff. So we're looking at 23% decline year over year in the demo and overall for CBS News under Tony decouple. And that's the first week that aired, obviously last week. And another thing I think to pay attention to is that Interestingly, ratings are down across the board for the competitors, but only 9% at ABC and NBC. So CBS is double digit decline compared even with its competitors. After putting all of this effort into marketing to copel and hyping up his first week on this evening news job, there was no shortage, shortage of news to cover last week either, Max. It wasn't a slow news week. So what did you make of that?
- [07:39]
Max Tanney
Yeah, I think it's, there's a few things going on and they're all converging to make the ratings not particularly great. Tony got a little bump on his first day. There's definitely some interest in his new show. They were kind of touting that but clearly there was a steep drop off immediately afterwards. I think there's a confluence of factors. I think one is as, as you mentioned, there's an overall decline in broadcast television as people gravitate towards things like the show and you know, various other podcasts. There just have a million amazingly fine tuned, you know, algorithmically speaking options that people could find out there in YouTube and you know, and in the podcast world and, or just like scrolling on TikTok or what it might be. So that's, that's the first thing that's contributing to the overall sector wide kind of decline. But obviously that doesn't that you, as you correctly mentioned, this decline hasn't impacted abc which is still well, well ahead of CBS Evening News. And it hasn't affected or it hasn't affected NBC News, the evening news broadcast as well, both of which lead CBS by a healthy margin. My, my read on this is, is a fewfold one. There's also always been a huge decline when there is a new host in the anchor chair and CBS more than the other networks has really turned over. David Mirror might not be a person who a lot of people would recognize walking down the street the host of ABC, ABC's News World News Tonight. But he is somebody who has a really loyal base of viewers who've been with him for years and he's been in that anchor chair for years and years now at this point the longest running evening news anchor and CBS has just churned through them. They've had Nora in the last year and a half alone. They've had Nora o', Donnell, they had John Dickerson. Now they have, now they have Tony. John was co hosting it and they had kind of revamped the formula tv. New viewers like consistency and that's not something that CBS is doing with. There's one more reason before I, before I kind of stop ranting here. And I think there is a, I think that there clearly there was a segment of viewers who are watching the evening news who, I think it's fair to say, obvious share left of center beliefs or are on the left in some sort of manner. And I think that they've, I think they've departed. The challenge for CBS is how do you compete for how do you win over viewers kind of on the other side when there's other options. There's plenty of other options out there for, for people to, to get like, you know, on Fox or, or in various other outlets. So I, I think that that is a, I think that's a, that's going to be their challenge kind of going forward, but it's a real uphill battle.
- [10:26]
Emily
Well, so that's actually, no, that's actually what I was just going to ask because I think it's really difficult to do both of these things at the same time, to be kind of digital first and also going for the traditional evening news demographic, which is the folks, as you mentioned, who like consistency, like a sort of stoic, neutral, quote, unquote, neutral anchor in the chair. And they're kind of trying to have it both ways, which is odd. There was a New York Times leak, it was an email from Bari Weiss in a pretty splashy profile yesterday that aired right ahead or that ran right ahead of decouple's big Trump interview that said Barry was instructing CBS staff to make a viral moment out of every evening news broadcast and to drive the news. But the viral moment part of that is interesting. I'm curious, as somebody who follows the business so closely, what you make of them kind of trying to use every bit of the news buffalo with two very disparate audiences.
- [11:23]
Max Tanney
Yeah, that's true.
- [11:24]
Emily
Yeah.
- [11:24]
Max Tanney
They're using it. Right. It's using the whole cow. I think that it's a, I think that that makes sense. I, I think it, I think it makes sense in theory. Right. Like, of course, everybody would want that. Everybody. I want. You want a viral moment from this interview. Maybe, but I, or maybe. But there is, that's not. You can't kind of create them out of thin air like that.
- [11:44]
Emily
Right.
- [11:44]
Max Tanney
That's not exactly how this kind of thing works. Especially when you're doing a five day a week show, an hour long broadcast that has to go on the earth. That's a lot of work, like a tremendous amount of work to put together all of those different packages, coordinate dozens of people across different states. I think it makes it Very difficult to create, to strive to also have something that, you know, is going to necessarily resonate and pop online. Also, it's just not really what the evening news traditionally has done. The evening news is a straightforward, generally roundup of the biggest stories from across the world, A block, B block, C block, with, you know, lighthearted story kind of mixed in there somewhere. It's not necessarily designed to go viral in the way that, you know, if I'm planning for an interview from, for my podcast, you know, we can think about the questions for days that might kind of pop. I think that it's, I think that, I think it would be fine even if Barry was like maybe one of these a week or something, but 1, a.1 per broadcast, I think is a, a pretty tall order. That being said, I don't think it's the wrong thing to strive for. And clearly to Tony's credit, he's been getting a lot of, you know, for better or worse, he's been getting a lot of attention online and definitely a lot more people are paying attention to what he's saying on the CBS Evening News. With respect to John Dickerson, who was my former boss when a long time ago I was, I was, I was an intern for him, his style was really not geared towards necessarily having things that were going to pop online and get people's attention and spark kind of controversy. And I don't really think he did that too often in his time in the evening. Evening news chair Tony. I'm seeing clips from his stuff every day now, so I don't know, maybe that part's working.
- [13:29]
Emily
Well, I was gonna say, actually, is that intentional? I mean, the moment where he was crying about not getting to grow up in Miami and they did that bit with him in Grand Central Station and then he's been doing these kind of dramatic sign offs where he's looking back and almost like, I don't, you just don't see that often in this format or maybe I'm wrong, but where you do this dramatic reflection on what the news was and what it means, and it's brief, but it's. I wonder if some of this, even if it's like for better or worse, all news is good news. What do you make of that?
- [14:00]
Max Tanney
Yeah, I mean, I do. I, you know, when I was watching what you said about this the other day, which is, this is, and this is kind of related, I think that it's good. I think it's a good thing to aspire to, trying to change things up, because there is people are not going to stop watching the evening news. That's just what's happening as people stop watching linear television. They are the pool of people who grew up watching the evening news every night. And that's a habit that they have. They are tremendously old. If you look at the numbers for this, for this show, even when they're getting around 4 million viewers a night, some of that is. Some of that's slipping below 4 million. And the amount of people who are in what's called the demo. Right. Age 25 to 54, that's like the prime demographic for people who advertisers want to reach because they make a lot of money, and they could be making money for a long time and have money to spend for a while. Those. The. The share of the viewership that is 20 in the demo was like half a million people. So that means that the vast majority of viewers are over 54. And my guess is that they're significantly older than that as well. So, you know, this isn't. This is an old audience. And I think it makes a lot of sense to try. If you want to build, you know, kind of a life raft, jump in the lifeboat to the future, you do have to play on digital media. And I think that Tony has done a pretty good job in his first week and a half in creating moments that people wanted to pay attention to, you know, sometimes unintentionally, but I think sometimes intentionally.
- [15:34]
Emily
But that's what's so interesting is it doesn't translate into people who are turning on the show in their living rooms, but what they need it to translate to is. And by the way, to her credit, what Barry brings into CBS News is having built kind of the opposite of what we were just talking about, which is this model really from the age of mass media, where you have the advertisers chasing the demo with disposable income. What Barry did was say, we don't actually. We're not selling ads at Common Sense, which then became the Free Press, and now they are in newsletters as they've joined with cbs.
- [16:09]
Max Tanney
Yeah, right, right.
- [16:10]
Emily
But it's. It's this weird confluence of new media that was supported by subscribers and intentionally was not relying on advertisers as it popped during the COVID era. And. And now bringing it in to an advertiser. I mean, I looked on YouTube. Last I checked, the Trump interview with Decouple on the CBS YouTube page had like 50,000 views in over 20 hours. So it's just how they're making money. And I'm curious what your take is on that. Where do they think, I mean, are they really transitioning into a business where their revenue is all digital? Are they, I don't know. I mean, are they clinging to those, you know, pharma ads and politician ads?
- [16:49]
Max Tanney
I think that you have asked the question that TV news executives have been asking for the last 10 years since they realized, oh, holy shit, this whole Internet thing is going to not. Is not only is just going to be like this thing we kind of have on the side and we have a website, but like actually this is going to be the thing that everybody is engaging with and, and that's going to be a problem for us. I don't think that any of these networks, any of the corporate media companies really solved that. Exactly. I think the Fox is. The companies that have gotten closest are Fox. Yeah, Fox, which saw this, which saw this coming. And I think to a certain degree NBC News, which is trying, which has been trying different things from a corporate restructuring perspective, they spun off all of their cable news assets. Msnbc, even though MSNBC makes a tremendous amount of money every year, they know that that business is kind of going into the tubes and they're trying to kind of recreate, they're trying to try something new and create these kind of digital businesses. I think that cbs, I think that abc, the traditional networks, I think CNN is suffering from this to a certain degree too. They are just not. They, they know that the business model that they've existed on, which is in the cable, for the cable networks, it's the carriage fees, what we all paid for cable and, and supplemented by these advertisements that could reach a tremendous amount. I think Barry had a lot of success with the Free Press, building a super kind of, you know, a well known but niche media brand and targeted at a very specific audience. And she did a great job, executed it, sold that. I think that we live in a fragmented media world now where it's just incredibly hard to run these big broad news organizations like cbs, NBC, ABC that don't have kind of a clear idea exactly of who their audience is going to be. Going broad is just really hard, I think. What do you think? Do you think that that's right?
- [18:48]
Emily
No, I think it's right. I think it's. It's hard to do both of those things at the same time. And it's especially hard. This is where I agree with you on the NBC point. When you have all of the overhead that traditional media had. I mean, Colbert is running into this problem too. He doesn't have disastrous ratings from the standpoint of late night comedy right now, but he has crazy amounts of staff. I mean, the reports about how many people work on that show, the reports about how much money is spent on that. You can't get 2 million people for your evening news broadcast and still have all the overhead of the evening News broadcast in 1997. And I feel like that adjustment right now, you'll know this better than I do, but that adjustment with all of these cuts and layoffs we're seeing across media is tough.
- [19:28]
Max Tanney
I mean, totally. And the thing is that to a certain degree, and I found, as I've been a reporter, media editor, podcast, somebody who's talked about this, that I've found myself becoming grab. Starting to repeat the lines of, you know, the people who are doing the. The job cutting, which is like, I don't ever want to necessarily. I. That makes me feel a little bit. I'm not that person. And so that makes me feel kind of a little bit strange about the whole situation. But I, but, but the reality is this. You create a show every night right here in, you know, from your apartment, from your studio. You could do it on the road, which you were doing yesterday, and do it with minimal staff. And it looks pretty good. And you find like a good amount of people who, who watch it. These broadcast news companies that are, do also doing an hour of visual programming on the news have hundreds, dozens and hundreds of staff. And the reality is you can set up a webcam, get some decent lighting, be informed on the subjects, and reach, you know, obviously not as many people, but reach a decent number of people this way for a lot less, a lot less money. And so I think that that is right. Another challenge. They have this big overhead because they have to put these broadcasts together. They can't be as nimble and as fast as these types of things, and they have to spend a lot more money doing it. It's a huge challenge and I don't think it's really solvable.
- [20:49]
Emily
Speaking of which, before we move off of this large conversation about Tony Decouple, which we've now gone for 20 minutes on, I don't regret a second of it. Max, I have to ask if you have any idea what's going on with the graphics that Prem Thacker of Zateo posted about Whiskey Friday, Tony de Goal. So it looks like according to an image that Prem got his hands on, CBS quote, seems to be preparing a new segment called Whiskey Fridays with Tony Decopil. Per source System staff were only first made aware of it as they encountered CBS testing set designs of a faux stocked bar in the newsroom featuring a large sponsor banner for Jack Daniels. We have another graphic as well, but it turned out Jack Daniels, it's looking like from a journalist who covers booze. What a job. This isn't officially like, Jack Daniels is pushing back and saying they had nothing to do with it. And so it looks like behind the scenes, CBS was doing these mock ups, hoping that sponsorship from Jack Daniels or someone else would come in. And it's all for a segment with decouple where they're trying to, I guess, be you. They've put him a lot. This is a little thing, but without jackets on, like just his shirt and his tie. And they're trying to make him look more buttoned down. At the same time, they're alluding to Cronkite. It's very muddled, Max. Like the brand doesn't make a ton of sense right now.
- [22:08]
Max Tanney
I, you know, there. This is something that's been tried a number of times in, in broadcast television news. A few years ago, I don't know if you'll recall, nobody remembers this, but cb, CNN redid their morning show. They had Don, they moved Don Lemon to the way he was doing it, doing the show with Kaitlan Collins. Right. And they, they made a big deal of like, we're taking him out of the suit and tie. We're gonna have him. Chris licked the president at the time. It's like, we're gonna have him wear like a turtleneck and, and a blazer and it's gonna be like more casual and more like your friends you're having breakfast with or whatever. And, you know, I think that ultimately, at the end of the day, what we've seen from the world of podcasting from and from like those successful, continuing, successful television broadcasts that are out there. I don't think anybody cares what you're wearing or what you look like. It's a signal you're sending. I just, I, I also, I did find the lack of the coat, the big tie. I don't know if he's wearing the undershirt. Like, I, I did find it to. It looked a little strange. But you know what? Tony's a good looking guy. I'll give it to him. I don't mind. I think it's okay. Also, I, sir, there's some other stuff that I've been like, ah, Tony, kind of, what are you doing? But I've enjoyed. I actually, I find the stunts, I, I'VE I've thought have been. I thought have been interesting and like, why not? They're the lowest rated network show. Like try something out.
- [23:23]
Emily
I don't know.
- [23:24]
Max Tanney
Yeah, right.
- [23:24]
Emily
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [23:25]
Max Tanney
It can't get that much worse. It can, but you know, I'll give them the benefit of the doubt on that one. As far as Whiskey Fridays goes, those. Who knows. Who knows what's. What's happening there?
- [23:33]
Emily
Yeah, I'd love to know. Actually. It's. It's right now in production Limbo. Like the Seacot segment. We have no idea if it's ever going to air.
- [23:41]
Max Tanney
I will say they said the New York Post reported that. That a CBS spokesperson said they were. They were indeed doing mock ups for something potentially that they might do. This is not imminently happening. Yes, but it is in the. It's in the C. COD segment.
- [23:53]
Emily
Lim if we're going to. I mean, if that's what we're going to see from de Goble. My honest to God advice advice is that it shouldn't be purely an aesthetic shtick. It should be he should actually drink a bunch. Like what late night comedy host did that? Like Seth Meyer does that every once in a while. And then honestly, people will trust him more if you get his take, like a genuine, authentic take on what he thinks about like Lindsey Graham or some. I mean, but that's the problem with trying to do both things at once with trying to be Walter Cronkite and Whiskey Tony.
- [24:26]
Max Tanney
Yeah, tough.
- [24:27]
Emily
Tough to pull off. That's true.
- [24:29]
Max Tanney
That's true. I agree with that.
- [24:31]
Emily
All right, let's move on to a story I was really curious to get your take on. This is Nikki Glaser talking about what she cut from the Golden Globes, which of course did air on cbs. There is another CBS tie in to this story. All things lead to cbs, obviously. But she said she cut Trump jokes, even cut one of the jokes that Steve Martin sent in about Donald Trump because, quote, I'm gonna put the article up on the screen. It's not funny. I was going to come in at some point and say I'm hearing from the bar that we're out of ice and, you know, we don't really need ice. And actually I hate ice. And it just felt, oh, even that's just being too trivial. That's what it felt like. This isn't even that anymore. It's hard to strike the right tone. She was telling this to Howard Stern. She went on to say that she threw away a joke Steve Martin sent in about the renaming of the Kennedy Center. And Glazer said Martin agreed with scrapping the joke, saying it didn't fit the tone of the show. It was like, you just don't say that guy guy's name right now. I just want to give it space. That is genuinely interesting. And you've reported stories about kind of the vibe shift, if you can call it that, happening on both the business and editorial side. And it seems like in a, in a way it's not as though Glaser was doing that to kowtow to Trump or, you know, be in any way like compliant with Trump, please him. She's just doing it for, I think, a pretty defensible, like, that's a defensible anti Trump argument, but it's different from what we were seeing in 2017.
- [25:59]
Max Tanney
Yeah, I think that there is clearly there was a little bit of stuff that you saw at the Golden Globes that had, and you see this every year at the award shows, particularly, yeah, the Hollywood award shows. Not necessarily like music, but you see it at the Oscars and at the Golden Globes. There's allusions to things that are going on explicitly or implicitly to things that are kind of going on, you know, with regards to Trump and in, in the case of the Oscars last year, you know, with Gaza and we're there, I, you know, I think that it, well, first of all, I, having read the stuff, I, I think you could just lose it because the jokes aren't that good. That's fine general take. I'm like, this is weak stuff anyway. It's not the best material.
- [26:39]
Emily
Did you see Conan, did you see Conan in Oxford? The, the clip was going viral the last couple of weeks. He said people get too angry when they joke about Trump and it makes it like lose the comedy. Like, it just, it's less funny when it's just kind of serious. You're so angry that it's hard to be totally light hearted.
- [26:57]
Max Tanney
I do think in general too, there's, I think we're just at the stage where 10 years in, I think you've got a 10 plus years in to the Trump experience from campaign through, you know, the various terms in office. I think there is a, I think that there's is a, the easy material that you could get is long gone. So to get, you know, good stuff that you, to be done about Trump on the air, I think is, I think is a little bit difficult. But yeah, I mean, as, as you mentioned, I, you know, I've done, I have done some reporting on kind of the cultural. Some of the different approaches in Hollywood and in the kind of broader cultural space towards how to think about Trump and kind of talk about Trump and engage with Trump in these spaces. I do think that just over the last few years in general, and I think this is slightly different than what Nikki Glaser is talking about, there has been this broad shift where you've seen Trump engage with celebrities a lot more in public, particularly athletes. I think that during Trump's first term, there just weren't that many opportunities. There weren't that many times when Trump was mixing up with celebrities, with the exception of Kanye coming to the White House. Nowadays, you see Trump at NFL games, you see Trump going to the Ryder cup on Long island. You see him at the US Open. He's just engaging a lot more with the world of celebrity and with culture. You saw it with him influencing Paramount to make a new Rush Hour movie. So there is this kind of interesting way in which it does feel like there is this level to which there's some slight levels of places where there's more acceptance for Trump among celebrity culture. But obviously, the room of the Golden Globes, I don't still, I think, is probably not super friendly to Donald Trump.
- [28:45]
Emily
Right. But that's also kind of, to your point, interesting because it serves. This is like the middle of the Venn diagram between business leaders who want to stop alienating Trump voters and Trump himself, and then kind of people on the left who are sick of Trump, exasperated with Trump and hope to just move on from it. And the middle of the Venn diagram is just don't talk about Trump.
- [29:09]
Max Tanney
Yeah, that's right. Right, exactly. You throw out your ma when you're on Howard Stern, and it's like more of a, you know, it's like you can still talk about it. It's still a broad platform. I agree. I do think, in general, there is. There is that feeling. There's a large, you know, portion of people on the left who are so incredibly tired of, you know, of Trump and just. Just generally don't want to think about him and would prefer not to be reminded. Right. And people on the right who feel, you know, that who would be offended by, you know, some. Some, you know, kind of silly 50% funny joke that Nikki Glaser had. I think it made. I think it kind of made sense. And also, like, look, the reality is, is if you're the host, I think especially for her, it's the best gig, you know, she is. She has ever had, I think. And So I think that the, the stakes for her for making a Trump joke, it's like it's got to be good. I think you gotta, you gotta really, it's gotta be universally nailed to get asked back, particularly when Paramount and CBS are the broadcasters of that show now.
- [30:07]
Emily
I mean she even turned down Steve Martin. So that was quite a move for Nicki.
- [30:11]
Max Tanney
That's true. She didn't say what the joke was. I wanted to know. I was curious.
- [30:15]
Emily
Same because if it was a banger, that would be. Maybe that's why she didn't say it because it was a really good show.
- [30:21]
Max Tanney
The Trump Kennedy Center. That feels also like I actually just, I mean, listen and I don't know, I think I, I think people can laugh. That doesn't. The stakes of that are pretty low. I think that people could have enjoyed that one. I personally would love to hear it next year. Maybe be for Mickey, although it won't be as relevant.
- [30:39]
Emily
Okay Max, stick around. I have more questions actually on this topic, but with a different hook. So we'll be back in just one moment. Listeners though you don't need to overhaul your life to start investing, just automate it. With Stash, your new year money goals can quietly run in the background while you focus on everything else. Sounds pretty nice. Stash isn't just another investing app. It's a registered investment advisor that combines automated investing with expert personalized guidance so you don't have to worry about gambling or figuring it out on your own. Stash is simple, smart and stress free. Choose from personalized investments. Let Stash's award winning smart portfolio do the work for you or pick a combo of both. Stash is there to guide you every step of the way. Just $3 per month gets you access to world class financial advice and personalized guidance so you can start investing in your future today. Don't let your money sit around. Put it to work with stash. Go to get.stash.com Emily to see how you can receive $25 towards your first stock purchase and to view important disclosures. That's get.stash.com Emily get.stash.com Emily paid non client endorsement, not representative of all clients and not a guarantee. Investment advisory services offered by Stash Investments, LLC and SEC Registered Investment Advisor. Investing involves risk offer is subject to terms and conditions.
- [32:02]
Ad Read Voice
Cash flow Crunch on Deck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat with flexible draws, transparent pricing and control over repayment. Get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today@ondeck.com funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes. Your business loan may be issued by Ondeck or Celtic Bank. Ondeck does lend in North Dakota. All loans in amount subject to lender approval. Coming off a GLP1 and looking for a weight loss solution that actually lasts this new year Research shows up to 40% of weight lost on GLP1s comes from lean muscle, slowing metabolism and making weight regain almost inevitable. Prolon's five day Fasting mimicking diet offers a drug free way to get and keep results. It activates fasting pathways to trigger fat focused weight loss, protect muscle and rejuvenate cells when paired with proper diet and exercise. No injections, no guesswork, just real results. Get 15% off plus a bonus gift when you subscribe at prolonlife.com PandoraProMo that's prolonlife.com PandoraProMe These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. See site for details.
- [33:17]
Emily
We are back now with Max Tanney, who's the media editor over at Semaphore and he's the co host of Semaphore's Mixed Signals podcast. Max, I want to talk about James Talarico because you made a really interesting point. Talarico, who is running in the primary against Jasmine Crockett in the Texas Senate race, obviously the Democratic primary for John Cornyn's current seat has gotten a lot of attention for a very fascinating race where you kind of have populist substance in a norms packaging with Talarico. And I would argue you don't have to comment on this but like, no, I love this.
- [33:57]
Max Tanney
I love that. That's an amazing, amazing description.
- [34:01]
Emily
But Crockett on the other hand is super interesting and that's why I think this is the most interesting race in the country this midterm season. Crockett is populous packaging but with pretty normie Dem substance inside of it and so it's, it's fascinating to see this play out. He went on Ezra Klein's podcast and you had a really interesting response. Let's first roll the clip. This is S3.
- [34:22]
Ad Read Host
What is to you the rage economy. I just mentioned the the billionaires who own the algorithms and the news networks they have created for profit platforms that with these predatory algorithms that divide us on an hourly daily basis, dividing us by party, by race, by gender by religion. And they elevate the most extreme voices very strategically to provoke our outrage, to provoke our anger, because that leads to more clicks, which leads to more money for them. Because anger sells, hate sells, fear sells. These billionaires and their platforms are engineering our emotions so they can profit off of our panic. They are selling us conflict right into our bloodstream. And they're calling it connection.
- [35:18]
Emily
I loved your response. You said one lingering consequence of the BuzzFeed era is the fact that people still think clicks have enough value for news businesses, that they drive editorial decisions. No one clicks on things anymore. That's kind of the whole problem for digital click media. Tell us more about that, Max.
- [35:38]
Max Tanney
Yeah, you know, I. This is something that I have heard you hear. And you hear this. This isn't a partisan thing. You hear this from people on the right, you hear this from people on the left that there is this idea that media organization, all media organizations, particularly those online, are all, you know, chasing clicks and that's the end all, be all, anything to kind of get the click. And once you're there, it doesn't really matter anymore. And there was a time when that was kind of true face during the mid 2010s when Facebook was the mate was at kind of its peak, the peak of its power. And it wanted people to stay engaged and stay on its platform or keep coming back to Facebook. It was sharing, you know, it was filling your feed full of articles.
- [36:23]
Emily
Upwardly.
- [36:24]
Max Tanney
Yes, upward. Yes. There were all of these publications that were designed mostly on the left, but really across any. Yeah, look, plenty of. Yes, exactly. Yes. These are the corners of my brain are being triggered. Yes, exactly. I remember these very well. But BuzzFeed was obviously the biggest kind of of these where they were just social engineering. They were amazing at figuring out ways to get people to click on articles, you know, with things called like the curiosity gap, where they would get you to pay attention to something, you know, get curious about something enough that you might take the proactive step and click. And they would make money on essentially display ads, you know, on what you see at the top, what you see in the middle and whatnot. And that business really collapsed when Facebook decided to stop putting news in people's feeds as much. You see it a little bit now, but now most. Most people's feeds are back to being kind of. Yeah, that was over the last. That was in 2022. In 2022 is when people really saw a huge shift in drop off. It had been happening. It had been tailing off for a while. But there was a huge del. Deliberate change by Facebook in 2022 to stop sending referral traffic. And that really changed the business models of a lot of these publications. It was also around this time that Google had begun starting to experiment with its AI summaries, which was the other way that people clicked on things. Now obviously you see when you Google search, there's that box at the top which summarizes information for you from articles that they've gleaned from the web. This really changed the business models of these places. It no longer was a great business model for a company like mine, the place that I work, Semaphore, to have a media organization that is built around just scale, like pure. I can get 500,000 people to click on this article and that means that 500,000 people will see this display ad and will sell that that business just doesn't exist anymore. People are getting their information through the algorithmic feeds and they're staying on these algorithms, algorithmic feeds. They're staying in places like YouTube, they're staying in places like TikTok. And so it's, it's, it is shifted, the business models of existing continuing to exist. Media organizations, the ones that have survived, towards audience and a focus on cultivating their audience. I don't think James Tall Eco is totally wrong that the platforms are incentivized to gin up controversy, but I think that it's changed the incentive for media organizations. Controversy is not the number one thing for scale is not the number one thing that you are chasing now what you really want is people, readers, a connection with an audience that you can say, these are my people, they really are engaged and like the stuff that I do. And I can monetize that audience either through subscriptions directly or, you know, like the ads on this show. Right. Like people trust you when you read those ads. Your audience is here for you and.
- [39:31]
Emily
You fucking love Masa chips.
- [39:33]
Max Tanney
Yes. No, this stuff is good. No, this stuff is good for sure. But people trust you for this. People trust you kind of for. Because you've cultivated, you know, an audience that is, is here for the thoughtful interviews and kind of other things like that. That outrage isn't necessarily the number one. You're not ness. You don't necessarily have to chase that because. Because advertisers want your connection with your audience. So that's why I think Talrico is a little bit off or a little bit dated in his assessment.
- [40:04]
Emily
Yeah, see, this is. I'm glad that you pushed back a bit because at the same Time. Obviously there's still some editorial influence over what the algorithms are going to favor. And what the algorithms favor is I just think it's strong opinion and I think that's why this clip kind of went viral because it doesn't have to be be just hate and anger which he name checks there. It can also be things that you strongly agree with or like a condemnation or a full endorsement because for whatever reason that triggers this is the, you know, the brainstem race that triggers us to engage with content. So on some level, I mean is it because a lot of news models now prize. I mean it was happening for a while, but especially now in the sub sec era. Prizes newsletters where you don't have an algorithm even delivering a newsletter to you, even though what you put out on social media, it's probably used in the newsletter in some way. This is kind of what we're talking about with cbs. Like the algorithm does like headlines that get people to engage whether it's on Facebook or whatever acts. But that's just so different. I mean it's just these things are, I don't know, what do you, what do you make of them? I'm stumbling into.
- [41:18]
Max Tanney
I know. I think you're, I think you're, I think you're onto something. I think that there are two I, I when I looked at what Talarico and there are some people who disagreed with me online and I, and I don't think that they're necessarily wrong. I think that the, it is true that the algorithms in places like in places like Instagram reels in places like you in places like TikTok in particular are really, really good at figuring out the kind of stuff that you, you are interested in. They're, I mean they're amazing at it. And the reason, and some of the things that flourish in those spaces are confrontational videos, crazy moments, you know, the kind of things that transfix us, you know, for better or for worse. I think that, that I do think that their model is, their model is the tech companies models are, you know, keeping you on the platform for as long as possible so they can monetize and they'll do that in whatever way they can. And part of that is they read and they say if you like outrage, if you like right wing outrage, let's feed you, you know, some crazy, you know, crazy, you know, I don't know, woke gone too far kind of content type of thing. If you are a left wing person who wants to be outraged, they'll show you, you know, Ice violent videos all day, you know, whatever like that is there. There's certainly plenty of truth to that. I just think that for media companies, you know, for people who are, are in the business of news, that is not always the incentive. Now as much as, like, I'll give an example. My first job, my first full time job over 10 years ago was I was working at Business Insider. I was a politics reporter. And I had to get my, my goal, the goal that was set for me was I had to get 1 million page views every month. That's a lot of pages. That's a shit ton. Yes. Yeah, 1 million pages a month. And that's what everybody, everybody.
- [43:09]
Emily
Business Insider was very good at, that Facebook model.
- [43:12]
Max Tanney
They were, yes, that was exactly. And that was, that was their business. And, and part of that was like, okay, this, this is gonna piss some people off. We'll get this headline. You know, whatever. Trump said this and that, that kind of stuff would, that, that met the goals that we needed because we were trying to reach this huge scale for advertisers. Now, you know, at the company that I work for, it's, it's aimed at, it's, we, we have our own audience. And our audience basically is looking for thoughtful information. You know, obviously they want new information that they didn't have other places. But that audience doesn't care about the most. Our audience doesn't care about the most outraged, you know, outrageous moment that's kind of happened in XYZ Place. They want to understand how it focuses in the world and how it's changing things in business and in politics. And so our model is, because Facebook and these big platforms moved away from sending traffic, online traffic to news organizations like ours. We're like, the response from the places that I've worked are, okay, we are going to focus on the people who are interested in consuming our content and creating the content we want to create. And I think that that's actually been a good, that has been kind of good. And so that's why we have newsletters and people who want to subscribe directly to us are finding us directly, and we are just, you know, giving it to them in their inbox and whatnot. I, I, it's sad because we can't reach as many people as I reached in that era, necessarily. I'm not reaching, I'm not getting 1 million page views a month. Far from it. But I am more satisfied that I don't have to have the most controversial view or take or, oh my God, somebody said something crazy. So You'll. I'll get you to trick you into clicking. I think that world is kind of hopefully. I think, think falling is, is hopefully kind of going away with some nuance, obviously.
- [45:01]
Emily
Yeah, no, that's very interesting. I wanted to get, before you leave, your take on this. I, I saw Freddie Sayers, my old boss at Unheard, pointing to this moment from a Chris Ruffo interview with the founder of I'm 1776, which I think it's, it's not pejorative to say is a far right type publication who said today X is essentially a big attempt to get Musk the repost most. There was an opportunity to build a natural elite, rewarding depth philosophy, high cultural analysis and so forth. Instead, the platform rewarded mocking and memes. So just wanted to get your take max on that. Interesting line from somebody on the right. Kind of disappointed by the way Musk is using the algorithm as I think anybody would expect, basically an oligarchic tech baron to use it. Not even out of step with his competitors really. But how have you seen Musk's X shape or influence conservative media?
- [46:04]
Ad Read Host
It's.
- [46:05]
Max Tanney
That's a really interesting question. And I do think that we don't know all of the effects at this point of all the changes that Elon has made to the platform, beyond the obvious, right, which is he doesn't want links anymore on there to anything. He wants images. They want their, their torture really heavily towards images and video. They want to be a competitor to TikTok. They, they want the feed to be a competitor essentially to TikTok, which is why you see a lot more videos, videos on there and you see kind of algorithms, tweaks towards, towards sensationalism. My view on this stuff is that they are changing. They, they are making changes to X on a regular basis in a way that is much more perceptible than the changes that you see at TikTok and at Instagram. They Instagram and TikTok make these changes slowly over time in ways that are kind of difficult to perceive. And then one day you're just like, huh, when did my Instagram just become all videos from other people who. I don't follow. And now the message thing moved around. I didn't. What, when did that happen with Elon? Elon is regularly tweaking Elon and the people who work at X are regularly tweaking the algorithm in ways that are, that are, that are, that are perceptible to people. Right? Like in the lead up to the 2024 election, there was a lot of content that was, that was focused on really sensational political topics and at times that's ebbed and flowed. It's a very, it's, it's very confusing. The only constant of course obviously is, is to, to your boss's, you know, to, to, to your boss's whole point is the fact that Elon's, Elon has torqued his own engagement towards his own post posts and posts that he likes. Right. Dunks and visual, visual memes. I, I, you know, I don't know. I'm still a power user though. I'm on there every day. It doesn't change anything for me.
- [47:57]
Emily
I know, I know. I mean this has been, listen, as somebody on the right, it's been a frustration that I've had with the Elon cheerleading for a long time, which is that his algorithm is as bad for people's mental health and for like the broader discourse as bad if not worse than other algorithms. And so of course that's going to trickle into conservative media in a way that's not particularly constructive. And I don't know that I have like some big. I haven't sensed that conservative media has been obsessed with an Elon retweet except for maybe the first couple of months that he took over X. But other than that it doesn't seem to me like there's an intentional effort to just gun for the retweet. But maybe I'm missing something. I don't know. Have you seen that? I don't.
- [48:35]
Max Tanney
It's a good question. Yeah, I, I haven't really, I'm not, I, I haven't seen those changes as much the, the perceptible changes that I have have seen is there. I find that the algorithm is really. Response is much more responsive than it used to be towards whatever you like and engage with on a, on a day to day basis. You know, when I am viewing, if I decide I'm interested for one moment in. I'm trying to think of what the last thing was that, that shocked me. I think like, you know, I don't know. I clicked on like I clicked on a Sydney Sweeney thing once and I was like okay, now my feed is all said. The algorithm knows I'm a 33 year old man, you know, and I, and now I'm seeing an unbelievable amount of C stuff.
- [49:23]
Emily
Did you see the Fuentes study? Because that happened for me with Fuentes when, yeah, Fuentes was like front center in the discourse. I was stopping and watching a lot more videos.
- [49:33]
Max Tanney
I get A lot of Fuentes stuff too.
- [49:35]
Emily
Yeah, yeah. And I don't know know if you saw, I forget the firm that did it, but they went and did a research paper and looked into, they, they essentially sourced a lot of the virality to what appeared to be bots with Fuentes. And that just shows whether or not it's true. It, it just, I mean, I think it's an example of how there's the potential for bots to try to follow the algorithm as closely as possible and, and tweak people's feeds that way.
- [50:00]
Max Tanney
Totally. And I mean, I do think in general, my main, my, my other main, main complaint about Elon's Twitter is there just are, there are just so many people who have successfully figured out ways to game the algorithm in ways that were much more difficult before. You just see a lot more stuff on there that's. I'm interested in the NBA. I watched a lot of professional basketball and I am seeing just garbage, you know, on a day to day basis. I'm seeing rumors from people that I don't want to see. I'm just like, is this real? I don't really know. And you know, and that's like, some of that is okay. But I do think in general, you know, he, the guardrails are really off and the algorithm is really torqued towards. It's like. So, you know, you mentioned to somebody at a party like, yeah, I'm interested in this thing, and they're just like, oh, yeah, no, now I'll talk to you about it for 20 minutes or something.
- [50:49]
Emily
This is the basketball guy. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- [50:51]
Max Tanney
Yeah, this guy loves basketball. Yeah, that's kind of.
- [50:53]
Emily
He has no other interests. Yeah, exactly.
- [50:56]
Max Tanney
I'm like, I kind of do, but that did happen with me with, with Fuentes a while back, you know, especially maybe a month or two ago when all the, you know, the. Candace Tucker Fuente, all of that stuff was happening. I was, I was, I was locked in.
- [51:10]
Emily
Yeah, it was like every time I opened, I was watching Fuentes. Yes. I actually think that might be an interesting story, Max, if you were like, with the basketball commentary, it's just an easier, less, I don't know, less complicated, less divisive way to see what's happening in politics. Like, it's a kind of an interesting explanation as to what's happened to, like journalism. If it's 100 basketball stories.
- [51:36]
Max Tanney
Exactly, exactly.
- [51:37]
Emily
Well, Max Tanny is of course, media editor over at Semaphore and the co host of the Mixed Signals podcast. Thank you so much. For joining us. Max.
- [51:46]
Max Tanney
Thanks for having me. It was really fun.
- [51:48]
Emily
Of course.
- [51:49]
Max Tanney
All right. Right.
- [51:50]
Emily
We will be back in just a moment. But first it's open enrollment. It is the time when those health insurance companies hope you will signed up blindly for your overpriced premiums and confuse all and and sign up also for the confusing fine print. I can speak from personal experience and say they are definitely hoping you do that. Do not fall for it. Take control of your healthcare with crowd health the alternative for people who make their own decisions. Stop playing the insurance games game. Crowd health is a community where members fund each other's medical bills directly. No middlemen, no networks, no nonsense. Traditional insurance has left me and I'm sure many of you feeling trapped and obviously overcharged. But crowd health is different. For under 100amonth you get access to bill negotiators, low cost prescriptions, lab testing tools and a database of vetted doctors. If something major happens, you pay the first $500. Then the crowd steps in to help with the rest. This open enrollment Take your power back. Join Crowd Health to get started today for 99 for your first three months using code afterparty@joincrowdhealth.com that's joincrowdhealth.com code afterparty crowd health is not insurance. Opt out. Take your power back. This is how we win.
- [53:07]
Ad Read Voice
Join CrowdHealth.com cash flow crunch on Deck's small business line of credit gives your business immediate access to funds up to $200,000 right when you need it. Cover seasonal dips, manage payroll, restock inventory or tackle unexpected expenses without missing a beat. With flexible draws, transparent pricing and control over repayment. Get funded quickly and confidently. Apply today@ondeck.com funds could be available as soon as tomorrow. Depending on certain loan attributes. Your business loan may be issued by Ondeck or Celtic Bank. Ondac does not lend in North Dakota. All loans an amount subject to lender approval. Coming off a GLP1 and looking for a weight loss solution that actually lasts this new year, Research shows up to 40% of weight lost on GLP1s comes from lean muscle, slowing metabolism and making weight regain almost inevitable. Prolon's five day Fasting Mimicking diet offers a drug free way to get and keep results. It activates fasting pathways to trigger fat, focused weight loss, protect muscle and rejuvenate cells when paired with proper diet and exercise. No injection, no guesswork, just real results. Get 15% off plus a bonus gift when you subscribe at prolonlife.com PandoraProMo that's prolonlife.com PandoraProMe These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. See site for details.
- [54:25]
Emily
Two more stories for everyone. Tonight I want to talk about. Actually, I think we're going to do three more stories. We can do it, right? Hang in there with me. I wanted to do one of those fun media anatomies where we anatomize a media story and in this case it's going to be about Scott Adams. Take a look at this. Here's the New York Times tweet of its own obituary about the death of Scott Adams. Breaking news. Scott Adams, whose comic strip strip Dilbert was a sensation until he made a racist comments on his podcast, has died at 68. 8. Until he made racist comments on his podcast, has died at 60. 8. Personally, I wasn't somebody who was a regular listener to Scott Adams for no reason other than I just had never tried his podcast out. I know many people in my life who have absolutely loved Scott Adams and have gleaned so much from the years over Scott Adams. Scott Adams obviously meant a lot to very many people and one of them was actually Coleman Hughes over at the Free Press who wrote a really interesting piece looking at coverage from the New York Times, but also more broadly. The headline here is Scott Adams made me a better Thinker. And Coleman's description or Coleman's explanation for why Scott Adams helped his thought process is basically that Adams was steel manning Trump's, or let's just say comments that Trump made, like Build the Wall, for example, that the media would freak out about, but had a strategy behind them, a marketing genius behind them, and meant something different to Trump voters, even Trump curious voters than they did to kind of your average Trump, your average media critic or your average journalist. So Coleman wrote, unsurprisingly, given that he was a political analyst who actually understood the appeal of Trump. Adams was a harsh critic of legacy media and the feeling was mutual. His obituaries have inevitably been filled with some of his most inflammatory takes. In particular, his advice that white people, people, quote, get the hell away from black people. Coleman says out of context. And Coleman is black. Of course, it sounded quite racist, but in context, Adams was arguing that people should avoid living and working in environments where they're, where they will be prejudged as, quote, oppressors. As Adams clarified when I asked him, Coleman says about this comment in a podcast two years ago, quote, it wouldn't make sense ever in my opinion to discriminate against any individual for race or religion or gender or any of that. And yet the New York Times just report on its own obituary via this tweet, is that Scott Adams was a sensation until he made racist comments on his podcast. This is, I don't even think factually correct from the perspective of the New York Times that would defend. Seems to me that in the Trump era, of course Scott Adams, who was known for Dilbert, actually became even more popular as people regularly saw the human side of him and as he dabbled in very, a very interesting brand of political analysis that was also, by the way, stripped down. I always found that to be one of the most interesting things about S.C. adams, which, you know, I said I wasn't, you know, someone who was, who was listening to Scott Adams regularly, but whenever I caught a Scott Adams clip, that was one of the things that always struck me about it is that the, the dissonance between, you know, the level of production and the quality of the content was befuddling to. I imagine people in legacy media, although they probably just miss, dismissed the quality of the content. But to me, I always thought that contrast was really interesting because it showed where the media was going and that Adams was talking like into a webcam and making this really high level political analysis that wildly, wildly over performs a James Carville on cnn, right? Like yes, Adams was favorable to Trump, obviously Adams was favorable to Trump, but at the same time he was providing a pretty valuable bit of analysis and perspective when these cable networks, the dinosaur networks, weren't platforming, to borrow their own word, people with a perspective that could actually reflect and represent the perspective that a lot of people were bringing with them into the voting booths, frankly. And, and that's why people were turning to Scott Adams and I think it's why people are turning away increasingly from the corporate press. It's because there's such a difference between what they're told. We've all had this experience and it happened to a lot of people during COVID in particular, we've all had this experience of being told that something that just happened is, you know, you fill in the adjective horrible, awful, racist, bigoted, and then you go and look at what it is and you watch it in full and in context and you can't believe the difference between the coverage and the reality. And there are a lot of reasons why this happens. I mean, sometimes people are outright lying, but a lot of the explanation for it is that Scott Adams, for example, is just declasse to somebody who's writing an obituary at the New York Times. This Trump era, Scott Adams is just declasse. To take him seriously as Coleman Hughes did, to take him seriously would be embarrassing. Take him seriously maybe as a, as an influence, right. But don't take him seriously as an intellect or an analyst, because nobody they know listens to Scott Adams and takes him seriously or feels heard, represented by the analysis of Scott Adams. Even though Scott Adams is kind of putting on a silver silver platter what people were asking for throughout the 2016 election, the first Trump administration. And honestly, ever since, it's putting it on a silver, the silver platter. Here is the explanation of what's happening, and it's from Scott Adams was erudite, from somebody who was known to figures in the media. And yet even Scott Adams couldn't, couldn't make these genuinely interesting and insightful pieces of analysis about Donald Trump without being totally, totally ignored or in other cases, just smeared by the press. And I say the word parasocial, not in a pejorative sense, but I think Scott Adams, because he had such a low production, and again, I don't say that in a pejorative sense either at all, but because he was just kind of talking into a webcam. I think people felt so intimately connected to Scott Adams. It was also like I was saying, that he seemed to give a voice to a lot of average Americans who weren't finding their perspective represented on those very high production, glossy TV shows, on cable news and in the pages of places like the New York Times. But they felt like also Adams was just kind of in their daily routine. It's part of their routine. And that's so important. And on top of that, you have those two things right. You have this, this kind of simple production, everyman simple production, and this total, this, this content that makes people who are being ignored feel heard. And that confluence of things, I think really, really, really gave give Scott Adams his power. So it's certainly unfortunate, certainly unfortunate that, you know, this is how the New York Times. I'll put this up on the screen. This is how the New York Times justifies the point it made in that tweet I showed earlier. I'll put that up. Adams, whose comic strip Dilbert was a sensation to him in racist comments on his podcast. This is how they would justify it. They would say the blowback came swiftly. Many major newspapers, including the Post, Boston Globe, Globe, LA Times, New York Times dropped Dilbert. So did the USA Today Network, which at the time had more than 200 newspapers. Let me Go back and get the year here. Yep, 2023. February 2023. So almost exactly two years ago, soon after Andrews McNeil Universal, which was by then syndicating Dilbert to about 1400 newspapers, cut its ties to Mr. Adams. So did the business imprint of Penguin Random House, one of the world's largest publishers, which dropped plans to release his semi humorous advice book, reframe your brain. Mr. Adams self published it later that year. Mr. Adams defended himself on a subsequent podcast, saying that he was not a racist and that had been using hyperbole when he called blacks, quote, a hate group. And he acknowledged those comments had damaged his career. Quote, most of my income will be gone by next week, he said. My reputation for the rest of my life is destroyed. You can't come back from this. Am I right? And I would just like to say, as we are now looking at the obituaries covering the death of Scott Adams, his quote, proved to be prescient that his reputation for the rest of his life was destroyed. But in the pages of places like the New York Times and in the coverage, like his elite reputation was destroyed from the rest of. But for the rest of his life. But of course, he remained this powerful warm figure for many people on the right who understood the full context of the point. He rather inelegantly, obviously from his own admission made in that broadcast or in that podcast, in that video. So it's a, it's a, it's a prescient and almost a chilling thing to read him. Having said at the time, of course, there are many, many ways the New York Times could have chosen to summarize the life of Scott Adams and to summarize its own obituary instead of framing it primarily, primarily as a political question and pretty heavily implying that he was disgraced for, quote, racist comments. They put that not in quotes, they put that in their own words, racist comments. And so, yes, it's, it's sort of true in a sense, but also it's selection bias to frame his obituary that way proves his point correct, that this is a man who had decades of work behind him, years of podcasting and talking to his audience, and just this one moment was used in his obituaries to define him in elite publications. So just, just wanted to touch on that quickly. Quickly. I also wanted to touch on this clip that the Republican National Committee, the rnc, is circulating of Jasmine Crockett recently. It's, it has to be a recent clip of Jasmine Crockett because of course, in it she references the, in the same address which we believe was to a church. She references the assassination of Charlie Kirk. But in this clip in particular, Jasmine Crockett, who is running against someone we mentioned earlier in the show, James Talarico for John in the primary for John on Cornyn's Senate seat in Texas. Let's go ahead and just take a look at the clip because she described Texas in a way that may be a little problematic. Now, some people get a little funny when you start talking about race, but this is real.
- [66:40]
Ad Read Voice
There was a Trump appointed justice. I testified because I had already sued.
- [66:46]
Emily
The state of Texas. Because Texas is racist.
- [66:50]
Max Tanney
Yeah.
- [66:52]
Emily
Texas is racist. Imagine Jasmine Crockett winning the primary and being confronted constantly with a clip of her saying, quote, texas, Texas is racist, as she tries to win the votes of people in Texas. In Texas. Now, she will probably explain that and say she met the current government of Texas Republicans in Texas. And of course, every state is, quote, racist in the sense that racism will unfortunately always be with us. Our goal as a species is to minimize it to the, the level that we possibly can. And that is a noble goal and it is a goal that we should keep with us every step of the way. But if that's what Jasmine Crockett means, that there's still racism in Texas, I think think pretty much everyone will agree with her. But to define Texas just as categorically racist is a moment in Jasmine Crockett's primary that I have to imagine. Talarico, James Talarico we talked about earlier in the show sometimes will refer to as Timo Richie Cunningham will be using and saying, listen, and you know, Bernie Sanders and AOC have done this effectively as well. You say it. Listen, listen. I think the American people are fundamentally good. I think the people of Texas are great. In fact, we played that clip of Talarico earlier in the show talking to Ezra Klein where he was discussing how it's the billionaires. Clearly, politically, what he's doing there is scapegoating the billionaires. He's saying the billionaires who run these algorithms are exploiting us by fomenting outrage. Which some truth to that. Of course, some truth to that. But you can see politically how, how the move for Democrats is to scapegoat someone other than the voters. It's actually fairly clever to say, no, it's just those awful billionaires who, who want to bring out the worst in us. But we're actually good people politically. A much stronger move than just Texas is racist as you try to win the votes of people in Texas. So I'm going to be continuing to cover this race really closely. I've said, said this before. I think it is the single most interesting race in the country in 2026 because it pits two very. It's like this weird cross categorization here. You have Crockett, who sounds like a populist, but in substance is a centrist. And you have Talarico, who sounds like a. Let's say he sounds more like a centrist, right? Like he doesn't have the populist. He's not trying to throw off norms in the way that he talks about politics. So Crockett is anti norms in style, but pro norms and substance. And Talarico is, is pro norms and style and anti norms and substance. Right. He wants to take on the billionaires and the millionaires. And he has this slightly more populist economic outlook. So Crockett has, has that, that part in. She's just given, with, with that quote, she's just given Talarico something of a political gift. And so I'll certainly be watching closely to see how Talarico handles that. Also, of course, watching closely to see how Talarico handles questions about faith. Because, man, I just saw this was quite a, this is quite a moment in his interview with Ezra Klein who was asking him about his, his faith. We've covered it a bit on this show in the past. How he gets held up as almost like an evangelical whisperer. Let me put this up on the screen. This is from my friend Nathan Brand, who's a Republican consultant. He says the New York Times as her Klein brings on a quote, Christian voice today. Democrat James, quote, God is non binary Talarico. That is, by the way, something thing that, that is an argument that Talarico, who I believe went to seminary and holds himself up as a kind of authority on Christianity, gets asked these questions non stop. Is really held up as somebody who can represent a left wing Christian. That is something that he said. And Nate points out his views fall way outside of widely held Christian orthodoxy and points to a few examples. This is true. I mean, he basically says Buddhism and Hinduism reveal the same truths as Christianity. And I verified that. I read the, the part of the transcript where he was talking about that he says, you know, religions of love point to the same truth. The Bible never mentions abortion. And it goes on and on and on. So one of the many reasons this is a very interesting race because this is a primary where the general election one of those many primaries where the general election could be really affected and the Republican I think probably comes into it with something of an advantage. Of course, in a red state disadvantage, Trump's not on the top of the ticket. But you then have Democrats who have come from this direction trying to out. Woke. Woke is not the right word. Out. It's not the right word because none of it makes sense anymore, right? Like, none of it works anymore. There is no quote, woke. But trying to. On the one hand, Talarico is trying to make himself. He's trying to kind of soften the edges of cultural progressivism and frame it as a. Something that can be appealing and defended by Christians. And then you have Jasmine Crockett who's just like, screw it, norms are dead. I'm gonna, gonna start talking about my colleagues bodies and calling all the voters in the state that I'm running racist. So I'm telling you, this is the most interesting race in the entire country. You can expect to see more coverage of it for us from us. Before we go, I wanted to mention something very interesting going on with the Wegmans grocery store chain. Have you seen this? We can put the article up on the screen. Here's just the, the headline as you can see it. Wegmans declines to confirm use of facial recognition technology at Alexandria store. This has been a real story for Wegmans over the last, I think, week or so. I'm looking at a Fox News headline right now. Popular grocery store chain uses biometric surveillance on shoppers, Raising privacy concerns. So the headline you just saw was local news here in the D.C. area saying Wegmans was. Wasn't confirming whether it was using it at that store. But this is actually something that's happening in New York City. Someone walked into their local Wegmans and it said, biometric identifier. Information collected at this location on a sign posted to the door. And here's what we hear from Wegmans. They confirmed that it was collecting those readings to Fox Digital that, quote, the safety of our customers and employees is a top priority. Like many retailers, we use cameras to help identify individuals who pose a risk to our people, customers or operation. In a small fraction of our stores that exhibit an elevated risk, we have deployed cameras equipped with facial recognition technology. They said they retain those images for, quote, as long as necessary for security purposes before. For. Before getting rid of them. And for security reasons, they don't disclose the exact retention period, but say it quotes align. Aligns with industry standards. Aligns with industry standards. We don't know how many Wegmans are using this biometric surveillance. When you go to the grocery store when you go to the grocery store. So they say also that this could include facial recognition, eye scans and voice prints, according to the sign that was posted at the New York City Wegmans. And this is going to sound like a crazy connection, but I actually think it fits into this broader conversation that people are having about ICE right now. We covered on the show not long ago how in the UK labor leaders like Keir Starmer have pitched digital ID as a way to deal with the strains that mass immigration has placed on society in the uk meaning that as it's harder to, to track who's in the country and is, is there lawfully or is criminal, whatever that is, if you have digital id, boy, it makes it so easy for the government to just keep track and crack down on any non citizens taking advantage of welcoming UK society. Why I say that is there's a super interesting back and forth between Joe Rogan and Rand Paul over ice, and they seem to be in kind of disagreement, some tension, as Rand Paul was talking about protesters who seem to be militarized and Rogan was comparing ICE to the Gestapo. Rogan, who supported Trump, by the way, and was pretty in favor of Trump's immigration crackdown, although has spoken out a couple of times against, you know, deportations of non criminals and what they've seen or what those deportations have, have looked like just in the last year. But this is a really important point that I think gets lost in the big conversation here, which is when you have a Democratic Party that supports for years and defends a Biden administration policy that in a matter of a few years brought in at minimum 8,8 million. The population of multiple states combined. 8 million new people, most of whom were non citizens. Non citizens either waiting asylum hearings, hiding out in sanctuary cities and the like. When that happens, in a short period of time, of course, the next democratically elected president, United States is likely to have a mandate to find people who are non citizens, whether or not they've committed a crime. Beyond immigration, public support for deportation of people who aren't just the violent criminals has been fairly steady. It's declined a bit and it probably will decline even further now. I mean, support for the abolish ICE movement is reaching 50% levels, according to polling in the last couple of days. All that is to say, this happened during Trump's first administration as well. It's why the Biden administration let so many people into the country. They felt that public opinion was a permission slip to go pedal to the metal on A very, very progressive borderline open borders policy. And so when that happened, how? Seriously, I don't think the Trump administration, DHS under Kristi Noem or ICE have been perfect by any means. But how do people seriously propose keeping American citizens safe and in a just set of circumstances in their own towns and communities when because of that 8 million number, that's a low estimate. There are literally hundreds of criminals, actual criminals. I mean, Bill Malugian posted a list, we talked about it on Monday's episode of convicted criminals in Minnesota that DHS has identified in these operations convicted criminals, violent criminals. Criminals. There are violent convicted criminals, not even people who have just been charged. And it's debatable whether they did the thing. Also people, by the way, who are non citizens, who have drug offenses, who have weapons offenses, who have committed robbery. There are around the country right now thousands and thousands of migrants in communities, non citizens who should be deported because they're a threat. They've put the American citizen in an unjust circumstance. And so everybody in the country apart from the far, far, far, far left, they don't want their own child to be a Lake and Riley. Right. So what that has created is an actual need for ICE to grow in size and scope, which people who are concerned about civil liberties. That in and of itself not good. Not good. But you obviously need more people when you have a massive influx. Matt, you talk about 8 million people at minimum, which amounts to a significant, a not insignificant chunk of that population, whether you think it's higher or lower than native born citizens, and that's in dispute. But whether you think that you still have statistically thousands of people around the country who are endangering American citizens, who pay taxes and have a right to be protected by their government. So this is the circumstance and obviously nobody wants that to be allowed to continue. No want, nobody wants that to linger slowly into the future. And nobody wants the only other option to be a pathway to citizenship or to allow people to hang out in sanctuary cities like Minneapolis where they don't cooperate with ice. So the connection here is that mass immigration policies, in the same way that mass immigration policies have become in some sense a pretext, unfortunately, for example, I don't support armed agents of the state walking around in masks. Masks. I think that's bad. It's happening because we have millions of migrants around the country and thousands of whom are non citizens. I'm sorry, thousands of whom are non citizen convicted criminals who I think we all agree we will prevent what happened to Lake and Riley by Deporting those people or putting those people in prison. And so that's, that was a response and it's a political response. There's no question about it. It's a response that Republicans have supported. And you can understand why ICE agents would feel unsafe right now. We've seen plenty of examples of ICE agents being targeted. And whether you think that's right or wrong, we've seen it happening. So this is the response. And again, I would never argue that it's been perfect. I have plenty of civil liberties concerns when it comes to ice, but it's the big picture question to me is you need to, in cities like New York, where you have problems with Wegmans, clearly has problems with, with theft and there have been in recent years, when you have that happening, what does that do? It creates a support, a built in support structure politically for people to violate civil liberties and to do this. Like you pit, it's security, theater, safety theater. Right. Like it makes them feel like they'll be able to track potential criminals more easily, can lose less money to theft and so is it justified by the threat of theft? Absolutely not. Would the threat of theft actually be minimized if laws were truly enforced in a sane, fair, just way? If the rule of law were upheld across the board? And of course I would include white collar criminals in that too. You bet your ass. But the point, what I'm saying here is when you have lapses in the basic functions of government, like controlling the border and controlling even petty crime, it will become licensed like it was in the UK and like it has been with, you know, ICE agents roaming the country with guns and masks. It becomes licensed for it creates a support structure. Right? Like the public wants to feel safe. Many members of the public want to feel safe, safe more than they care about this encroachment on their civil liberties here and there. Not everyone, but some people do. So it creates this political support structure for it and it motivates politicians and corporations to do it. So that is a little bit of a plea to people on the left and also some people on the right to consider, you know, what's, what's the, the kind of big picture here about the surveillance state and, and what's at work actually again, like in the big picture macro sense. But I just couldn't let that go without talking about it because I keep seeing it coming up and it's such a visceral example of your local grocery store doing biometric surveillance on people who are coming in to pick up a gallon of milk. Or their food for the family for the week, and they have to submit to biometric surveillance to do it. Because obviously New York City has failed to perform some of the basic functions of a government and nobody wants. Well, at least I shouldn't say nobody. But people who care about civil liberties don't want any police force, whether it's ICE or your local police department to be compared to act in any way that could get them compared to the Gestapo and to be petty tyrants or real tyrants. Nobody who cares about civil liberties liberties wants that. But people who care about civil liberties should also want the government to perform the basic functions, not the excessive functions, but the basic functions of the job. Well, all right. On that note, please help us out subscribe on the YouTube channel. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to email me emilyvelmaycaratmedia.com if you want to submit questions for happy hour that drops on Fridays at 5pm on your podcast feeds only. I record it around Thursday at 5pm so for this week, get your questions in soon. If you want me to take a look at them, you can also follow us on Afterparty Emily and send me a question on Instagram There. We'll take a look at them. Got lots and lots of great guests coming up, so make sure to be with us live on Mondays and Wednesdays 10pm on YouTube. See you soon everyone.