After Party with Emily Jashinsky – January 15, 2026

Episode: "CBS Challenges, Media Click Myths, w/ Max Tani, PLUS Crockett’s Gift to Opponents, Scott Adams Smear"
Guest: Max Tani (Semaphore Media Editor, Co-host of Mixed Signals)

Episode Overview

Emily Jashinsky hosts an in-depth and lively conversation dissecting the latest in media, politics, and culture—focusing this week on the challenges at CBS News, myths about digital media “clicks,” and two contentious political/media controversies: the framing of Scott Adams’ legacy and the rhetoric of Texas Senate candidates Jasmine Crockett and James Talarico.
Max Tani of Semaphore joins for an extended interview on media business shifts, the evolving digital landscape, and the pitfalls of legacy news adaptation.

Ratings Crisis at CBS: Tony Dokoupil’s Steep Drop

[05:38 – 15:33]

CBS’s Struggles with New Anchor Tony Dokoupil

• Emily opens by describing CBS’s ambitious relaunch of Evening News with Tony Dokoupil, only to see ratings plummet – a 23% year-over-year ratings drop, much steeper than ABC (9%) and NBC.
• Emily:
  “They’ve put a lot of effort … into marketing Dokoupil not just as the face of CBS Evening News, but … as the face of this reformed, relaunched CBS News brand, period.” [06:19]

Causes of the Decline

• Max notes several overlapping factors:
  • General decline in linear/broadcast TV as younger audiences migrate to digital-first platforms:
    “There’s an overall decline in broadcast television as people gravitate towards things like the show and … podcasts … YouTube … TikTok.” [07:39]
  • CBS’s lack of consistency in its anchor chair, compared to long-running anchors at rival networks:
    “TV news viewers like consistency and that’s not something that CBS is doing.” [09:45]
  • Loss of loyal, often left-of-center viewers and inability to attract the right:
    “There [was] a segment of viewers … who … share left of center beliefs … I think they’ve departed.” [10:10]

CBS’s “Viral Moment” Strategy

• Emily explores internal NYT/Bari Weiss reports that CBS staff are instructed to create viral moments every evening.
• Max is skeptical about the practicality:
  “You can’t kind of create them out of thin air like that … especially when you’re doing a five day a week show, an hour-long broadcast.” [11:43]
  “Evening news is a straightforward, generally roundup of the biggest stories ... not necessarily designed to go viral.”
• He acknowledges Tony’s sign-offs and stunts are getting social media attention:
  • Emily: “The moment where he was crying about not getting to grow up in Miami… dramatic sign offs… you just don't see that often in this format.” [13:28]
  • Max: “Tony has done a pretty good job … in creating moments that people wanted to pay attention to, you know, sometimes unintentionally, but I think sometimes intentionally.” [14:00]

Old Audience, New Aspirations

• Max points out CBS’s challenge:
  “The vast majority of viewers are over 54. And my guess is that they're significantly older than that as well.” [14:44]
• Emily and Max agree: building for a digital future, when your current audience is “tremendously old,” is an uphill battle.

Business Model Woes: The Limits of Going Digital

[15:33 – 22:07]

Attempts to Monetize Viral Content

• Emily uses the Trump interview on the CBS YouTube as a case study for the struggle to make digital news profitable:
  “…the Trump interview with Dokoupil on the CBS YouTube page had like 50,000 views in over 20 hours. So it's just how they're making money.” [15:33]
• Max:
  • Traditional TV news business (cable carriage fees + broad advertiser targeting) is crumbling.
  • Digital media requires a targeted, niche approach—yet legacy brands like CBS, NBC, and CNN have not successfully found their new footing.
  • “We live in a fragmented media world now where it's just incredibly hard to run these big broad news organizations… Going broad is just really hard.” [17:41]

Overhead and Layoffs

• Emily and Max discuss how traditional outlets suffer from high legacy costs and slow staff reductions.
  • Emily: “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.” [18:47]
  • Max: “These broadcast news companies … have hundreds, dozens and hundreds of staff. … You can set up a webcam, get some decent lighting, be informed on the subjects, and reach … a decent number of people … for a lot less money.” [19:28]

CBS’s Branding Confusion: “Whiskey Fridays”

[20:49 – 24:30]

Muddled Attempts at Relatability

• Emily highlights CBS’s behind-the-scenes efforts to create a “Whiskey Fridays” segment—complete with faux-bar set design and tests for alcohol sponsors.
  • Emily: “They're trying to make him look more buttoned down. At the same time, they're alluding to Cronkite. It's very muddled, Max.” [21:52]
• Max recalls similar failed attempts in network TV for informal, “authentic” newscasting:
  • “I don't think anybody cares what you're wearing or what you look like. It's a signal you're sending.… they're the lowest rated network show. Like, try something out.” [22:07, 23:23]

The Golden Globes, Trump Jokes, & Shifts in Hollywood

[24:30 – 30:38]

Editorial Decisions: Nikki Glaser Cuts Trump Jokes

• Emily and Max discuss Nikki Glaser’s conscious choice to cut Trump jokes from the Golden Globes on CBS—declining even a pitch from Steve Martin.
  • “It just felt … being too trivial. … you just don't say that guy’s name right now. I just want to give it space.” [Quoting Glaser, 25:10]
• Max: “Having read the stuff, I think you could just lose it because the jokes aren't that good. … I'm like, this is weak stuff anyway.” [26:39]

Hollywood’s Trump Fatigue

• They note a “vibe shift” in how mainstream, especially awards show, entertainment treats ex-president Trump:
  • Max: “10 plus years in to the Trump experience … the easy material you could get is long gone.” [26:56]
  • “There's 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 … is probably not super friendly to Donald Trump.” [28:28]
• Emily sums up the new “middle”:
  “The middle of the Venn diagram is just don’t talk about Trump.” [28:45]

Media Click Myths & The Rage Economy: Talarico’s “Outdated” Critique

[33:17 – 45:00]

James Talarico, Populism, and Misreading Digital Incentives

• Emily plays a clip of Texas Senate candidate James Talarico railing against “the rage economy” and algorithms incentivizing outrage for clicks.
  • Talarico: “Because anger sells, hate sells, fear sells… These billionaires and their platforms are engineering our emotions so they can profit off of our panic.” [34:22]
• Max’s viral rebuke:
  “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.” [35:17]

The Real Story: Shifting Business Models

• Max explains the Facebook-driven “click economy” collapsed around 2022, destroying scale-driven news outlets and forcing survivors to focus on cultivating loyal audiences and direct monetization:
  • “That business really collapsed when Facebook decided to stop putting news in people's feeds as much.” [36:22]
  • “Controversy is not the number one thing for scale … now what you really want is people, readers, a connection with an audience…” [38:10]
• Emily: “What the algorithms favor is … strong opinion… it doesn’t have to be just hate or anger … it can also be things you strongly agree with … triggers us to engage.” [40:03]

Algorithmic Incentives & Newsroom Realities

• Max:
  “For media companies … controversy is not always the incentive. … At Business Insider … my goal … was I had to get 1 million page views every month. … now … we have our own audience. … They want to understand how it focuses in the world and how it's changing things in business and politics.” [42:24-43:08]
• The new model: loyal, often newsletter-driven audiences, curated over “addictive” meme/churn.

Social Algorithms and Elon Musk’s “X”

[45:00 – 51:37]

The Meme-ification of Musk’s X (Twitter)

• Emily shares a critique from the far-right outlet “I’m 1776” that Musk’s X failed to foster depth, instead rewarding “mocking and memes.” [45:00]
• Max:
  “He (Musk) doesn’t want links anymore … they want the feed to be a competitor to TikTok …. The only constant … is the fact that Elon has torqued his own engagement towards his own posts and posts that he likes. Dunks and visual memes.” [46:04]
• Both note X’s new algorithm is “more responsive” than ever—sometimes to a fault (feeding back rabbit holes of memes, outrage, or whatever you pause to watch).

Memorable Moment:
Emily: “I clicked on a Sydney Sweeney thing once and now my feed is all Sydney Sweeney. The algorithm knows I’m a 33-year-old man…” [48:55]

• They riff on how easily bots and users can now “game” the system, especially with sensationalist content.

Media Anatomy: Scott Adams Obituary and Framing

[54:25 – 66:40]

The Times and the “Racist” Label

• Emily sharply criticizes the New York Times obituary framing of Dilbert creator Scott Adams:
  • NYT tweet: “‘Scott Adams, whose comic strip Dilbert was a sensation until he made racist comments on his podcast, has died at 68.’”
  • Emily: “I don’t even think (it’s) factually correct from the perspective of the New York Times that … seem(s) to me in the Trump era … he became even more popular…” [54:25]

The “Declasse” Effect on Alternative Media

• Quoting Coleman Hughes’s Free Press obituary, Emily outlines how Adams’ willingness to “steelman” Trump provoked elite backlash, but endeared him to millions abandoned by mainstream news.
• Emily: “There’s such a difference between what they’re told … and what actually happened. … There are a lot of reasons why this happens. … Scott Adams, for example, is just declasse to somebody who's writing an obituary at the New York Times. … To take him seriously would be embarrassing.” [54:25]
• Adams’ “everyman production” + voice to ignored perspective = power and loyalty, even as elite obituary writers used a single controversial moment to define him.

Memorable Quote:
“It’s selection bias to frame his obituary that way … proves his point correct: this is a man who had decades of work behind him … and just this one moment was used … to define him.” [54:25]

Jasmine Crockett, “Texas is Racist” Clip, and Democratic Primary Intrigue

[66:46 – 70:50]

Political Fallout from a Viral Soundbite

• Emily spotlights a new viral RNC-circulated clip of Congressional candidate Jasmine Crockett:
  • Crockett: “Texas is racist.” [66:49]
• Emily discusses the vulnerability this creates for Crockett in a Texas-wide race, and contrasts her “populist packaging/normie substance” with opponent James Talarico’s style/substance inversion.
  • “Imagine Jasmine Crockett winning the primary and being confronted constantly with a clip of her saying, quote, Texas is racist, as she tries to win the votes of people in Texas.” [66:51]
  • “Talarico … will refer to as Timo Richie Cunningham … will be using and saying, ‘I think the people of Texas are great.’” [67:45]

Talarico’s “God is Non-Binary” and Christian Progressive Positioning

• Emily notes Talarico’s public theology (as highlighted in his Ezra Klein interview) and the range of critiques from both left and right about whether his positioning can win in Texas:
  • “He says, you know, religions of love point to the same truth. The Bible never mentions abortion. And it goes on …” [70:25]
  • This is “the most interesting race in the entire country.” [70:50]

Surveillance, Crime, and Policy: Wegmans’ Facial Recognition

[70:50 – End]

Biometric Surveillance at Grocery Stores

• Wegmans, a northeastern grocery chain, has begun using facial recognition, iris, and voice print technology in "problem" locations—a local controversy with national and civil liberties implications.

Big Picture: Immigration, Crime & Security Theater

• Emily connects biometric surveillance to the larger U.S. conversation about public safety and backlash to mass immigration:
  • “When you have lapses in the basic functions of government, like controlling the border and controlling even petty crime, it ... creates this political support structure for it [surveillance], and motivates politicians and corporations to do it.” [80:00]
  • Recognition that when disorder prevails, the path to greater security—theater—is cleared for both the public and private sector.

Memorable Quote:
“…it’s such a visceral example of your local grocery store doing biometric surveillance on people coming in to pick up a gallon of milk ... because obviously New York City has failed to perform some of the basic functions of a government …” [80:15]

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On CBS’s woes:
  • Max: “TV news viewers like consistency and that’s not something CBS is doing.” [09:45]
• On “rage clicks”:
  • Max: “No one clicks on things anymore. That’s kind of the whole problem for digital click media.” [35:17]
• Algorithm “preference”:
  • Emily: "The algorithm knows I'm a 33-year-old man … my feed is all Sydney Sweeney." [48:55]
• On Scott Adams and media bias:
  • Emily: “There’s such a difference between what they’re told … and what actually happened.” [54:25]
• On surveillance:
  • Emily: “...it makes them feel like they’ll be able to track potential criminals more easily, can lose less money to theft ... is it justified by the threat of theft? Absolutely not." [79:15]

Key Timestamps

• [05:38] — Max Tani joins, CBS News’s rating crisis
• [10:25] — Broadcast/digital demographics dilemma
• [13:28] — Dramatic sign-off moments, viral tactics
• [17:41] — Fragmented media & business model crisis
• [19:28] — Overhead, layoffs, efficiency of digital creators
• [20:49] — “Whiskey Fridays” and branding confusion
• [24:30] — Golden Globes, Trump jokes, Nikki Glaser’s calculus
• [33:17] — Talarico’s “rage clicks” and digital incentive myths
• [43:08] — Old model (pageviews) vs. today’s audience connection
• [45:00] — Musk’s X: algorithm, memes, and right-wing disillusionment
• [54:25] — Scott Adams obituary smear dissected
• [66:46] — Jasmine Crockett’s “Texas is racist” and implications
• [70:50] — Talarico’s theology, battle for Democratic primary
• [70:50–end] — Biometrics at Wegmans, surveillance, and civil liberties

Takeaways

• Legacy News’ Existential Problem: CBS’s rating woes typify the struggles of old media to balance digital strategies with an aging audience and heavy legacy costs.
• Clickbait is Dead, Loyalty is King: The Facebook-driven “click economy” is gone; media now must cultivate direct, trusting relationships with passionate audiences.
• Social Algorithms Still Incentivize Outrage: While news outlets abandon click-farm models, algorithms on X, TikTok, et al. still amplify sensational, divisive content—sometimes to right-wing dismay.
• Culture Dangerously Flattens Complexity: Controversial figures like Scott Adams can be reduced, posthumously, to a single moment—highlighting persistent selection bias and the alienation driving alternative media loyalty.
• Political Campaigning in Soundbite Age: Viral clips (“Texas is racist”) remain potent ammunition in modern campaigns.
• Rise of Surveillance: Biometric monitoring at grocery stores (and debates about ICE) illustrate how governance failures lead to creeping “security theater”—at the cost of privacy and civil liberties.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the messy evolution of media, the feedback loops of digital culture, and the high-stakes, often weird intersections of business, politics, and public trust.