← The 404 Media Podcast
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Hey and welcome to the 404 Media podcast where we bring you unparalleled access to hidden worlds, both online and IRL. 404 Media is a journalist founded company and needs your support. To become a subscriber, go to 404Media Co subscribers get access to bonus segments, bonus episodes and early access to this interview podcast series. Today I'm joined by Marissa Kabus, the independent journalist who runs the Hand basketball. Marissa has gotten scoop after scoop about the federal government, Doge Ice Raids, Jorge Santos, and a lot more. She's a friend of ours and has been super nice to 404 Media, so please check her out. I'm talking to Marissa about how she started the handbasket, what's going on in the federal government now, and why independent journalism is so much nimbler than big media institutions. Here's my interview with Marissa. Hi Marissa.
- [00:56]
B
Hey, how's it going?
- [00:57]
A
Good, good. Thank you so much for doing this. I wanted to first thank you for putting together the independent journalism guide that you published where you so kindly recommended us and so many of our great colleagues across the indie media sphere. That was like an amazing public service. So if you're listening to this, go check that out. But I figured we should feature you. Who put it all together. Marissa, you run the Hand Basket for people who do not know what the Hand Basket is. Can you just tell us a little bit about it and about you and what you focus on?
- [01:33]
B
Sure. So the Hand Basket is an independent media site. It covers mostly politics, but media as well. I like to say our country's crumbling institutions kind of covers it. I have been working as a journalist for over a decade. I had some staff writer jobs back in the day, but mostly I've been a freelancer and I started the hand basket in 2022 just to make sure I always had a place where I could publish my stuff. And it's turned into a full time job and a fairly successful one, which is crazy and cool.
- [02:10]
A
Yeah, it's been amazing to watch you run rings around establishment media, bigger media. We'll get into that eventually. I want to start with this piece you wrote a few months ago, or rather it was the transcript of a speech that you gave at Grinnell College, which I think is in Iowa. I have not been there. But you were asked to talk to journalism students there about independent media, about how you built the Hand Basket. And well, I thought it was an amazing speech. So I wanted to go through a few things in it because I think that we broke into the industry around the same time I went to the University of Maryland and I majored in journalism. I graduated 2010. You graduated around the same time, right down the road. You talk in there a little bit about journalism school at that time. And I remember really like two things. One, I remember sort of having journalism ethics drilled into me and that was, you know, sort of always present both sides of the story. There was a very useful journalism law class where sort of learned about libel and things like that. And then the class that I actually remember the most was a newspaper layout class where we had like graph paper and we're actually cutting column inches to, to lay out a newspaper. And this was in 2010. Websites existed then, like websites existed when we went to school. But you mentioned in your speech that there was like one digital journalism class that you took. I'm curious, like what it felt like to go into an industry that even at that time felt like. It felt like the training I was getting was from like a bygone era. And I'm curious if you felt that at that time and like how that has of informed maybe your career. That's a very big question.
- [04:12]
B
But I don't know if I was aware of it at the time just because it was hard to know what the job market was going to be like and what the industry was going to be like. When I actually got into it. I had a broadcast journalism internship in college at NBC News in D.C. and that was a whole other kind of antiquated experience. I don't know, I just felt like it felt very specific what I was being trained for. It felt like we were being trained for one type of thing and whatever that was wasn't really for me. I didn't feel like I was fitting whatever mold that they were looking for based on kind of the way we were instructed. And so it. I just felt like I was pushed off a cliff basically when I, when I graduated looking for jobs and at websites and trying to figure out what that looked like. We had absolutely no training for that. We had no, you know, I mean, I wrote for my student newspaper and we published it online like me what Internet journalism was. But as far as that being the primary medium for journalism, it was just completely uncharted territory. And so I feel like our cohort, like our group, we kind of had to blaze the trail because the people older than us didn't know any better. They just were trying to figure it out a little bit longer than we were. And I think we were kind of in that sweet spot where we were Young enough to be nimble, and we weren't steeped in the old way of doing things. So that's allowed us to say, like, screw the old rules, let's try something new.
- [05:55]
A
Yeah. So you have this part of the speech where you explain that you had an interview with the executive editor of the New Yorker to be her assistant. You know, New Yorker, amazing magazine. They have had it figured out for a long time, I think, at least, like, they're doing great work. But you talk about going in for that interview, and here's what you wrote you said. I was taken aback when the executive editor asked me, how do you think we can monetize our website? I really wanted to say, how the fuck should I know? And also, why are you asking me? In retrospect, it should have been a glaring red flag that the adults in charge had no idea what they were doing and that it would be up to me and my peers to figure it out. But that's something I wouldn't realize until much later on, after years of expecting someone else to fix it, until I realized I was the adult. And that, that really stuck out to me because, one, you have figured it out, like, from a business perspective, from a how to do journalism perspective, from sort of a jack of all trades perspective. That was something that was drilled into me in college. They're like, oh, you might need to learn how to take a photo, or you might need to learn how to, like, edit audio, although they didn't teach us. But it really does feel like, with something like the hand basket, like, you are doing everything. We talk a lot of 404 media, like, oh, we're doing everything. We're only four people. You're only one person, and you're doing a lot of stuff. But I guess that was a very roundabout way of asking, like, you have figured out how to both run a business and get scoops and publish and be your own editor, sort of like legal department type thing. Is this something that you've picked up gradually, or is it something that you really feel like you were thrown into the fire and have had to figure it out?
- [07:45]
B
Yeah, I would say probably the latter. I've really just had to figure it out. And yes, like, it is. I am on my own. It's just my operation. But I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that there are a lot of people kind of behind the scenes that have been so helpful to me and I have so many journalism friends. We've all gone through 800 layoffs, like we've all been in the trenches together. And, you know, I have all these friends who I can bounce ideas off of and do headline, you know, headline help. Like, I'll just, you know, frantically start texting them. And it's like, I can hear it right now. And I've had friends edit stuff for me a little bit longer, stuff that I feel like could use an extra set of eyes. So I'm incredibly fortunate in that I'm not a complete island. But at the same time, it's just been a game of trusting my instincts. It's kind of crazy. There have been times where I'm like, I need advice about something, but I don't really know if there's anyone who can give me advice on this very specific situation. Kind of like when I had the big scoop at the beginning of this year, I didn't know what to do, and I was freaking out. And, yes, there are some kind of basic ethical things that you could consider, but with social media, with the current administration, with the way that outlets are structured now, there wasn't actually any blueprint for how to handle it. I kind of just had to figure it out, and that's terrifying.
- [09:14]
A
I want to talk about how you handled that scoop. You got a lot of scoops, but I think that the one that you're talking about is the OMB memo. So, at the end of January, soon after Trump took over, the White House's Office of Management and Budget sent out this memo to all federal agencies saying that they were going to freeze all grants and loans across the entire government. And you got that first, and you posted it on Blue Sky. I'm curious why you posted it on Blue sky rather than, like, quickly writing up an article for the hand basket. I know you eventually did write it on. On the hand basket, but was it. Was it a sense of, like, I need to get this out, like, as soon as possible, or. Or what was sort of your thinking at the time?
- [10:01]
B
Yeah, part of it was the immediacy I didn't want to get, and I knew I had something enormous. I didn't know. I don't know if I knew quite how enormous it was in the moment, but I just knew that I really wanted to get it out quickly. And I'm not a breaking news reporter, so my forte is not writing things up really quickly. Like, I'm actually terrible at that, and people who are good at that. I'm very envious. And so part of it was that, and then part of it was a confidence thing. I think I Felt like if I published it on Blue sky and I felt really good about it, I knew I had the story right. But if for some reason it wasn't, it's a lot easier to delete a social media post than it is to delete an entire post on your website. Like, that feels more permanent, I guess. And I felt like that was going more out on a limb. And in retrospect, it really isn't any different. But like you were saying, like, I had to kind of figure it out as I was going. And so I wanted to wait. I waited until a big outlet confirmed it before I actually wrote it up, because I was still kind of stuck in that old mindset of, like, it's not really news until the Washington Post says it's news. And now my mindset's completely changed, but that's where I was coming from at that moment.
- [11:22]
A
Yeah, I do remember some of my first scoops and even learning, like, what a scoop is. Like, oh, this is information that other people don't have, that I have. And then you sort of have to. You have to publish it and you have to. You have to be right. It's like, very early in my career, you know, I've. I've made, like, small mistakes. Thankfully, I've never made, like, a massive mistake. But I think that any time that you have, like, a big scoop like this, when it has to do with a big company or has to do with the federal government, there is almost this moment where we work in Google Docs, but it's like we're working in Google Docs, we're loading into the cms and then your hand hovers over the publish button, and it's like, before you click that button, it's not public knowledge. And then after you click that button, it goes out there and people begin to react to it immediately. Can you talk a little bit about what it feels like to publish a big story? Especially kind of like in this administration where, yes, like, you're doing very impactful work and people are going to read it and share it and that sort of thing, but also you don't know how they're going to react. You don't know sort of like what the fallout of any given, like, big article is going to be. I'm sure that there's a bit of a mix of, like, adrenaline and fear is the wrong word, but, like, unease that that comes with doing some of the work that you do.
- [13:03]
B
Yeah, I. I have a lawyer that I can run things by. I mean, I definitely don't have one on staff or anything because I don't have staff. And so if there are ever real concerns, I try to. I mean, I try to be as buttoned up as possible, but there's. It doesn't matter how buttoned up you are, like, there. If someone wants to sue you and someone has it out for you, it doesn't really matter how much you've done before, they can still try and go after you. And so that, that moment of hovering over the publish button is so real. Like, I have so many times where I'm just like, do I need to give it another read? And it's like, no, you read it 700 times. Like, you're good, you're good. But there's always that little bit of nagging in the back of my head, like, well, maybe you missed something. And of course, usually it's just like a stupid typo. And then I get like 700 messages about the dumbest typo. But if that's the worst of it, then that's fine. But yeah, it's been a real confidence building exercise this year to just say, no one else. Like, why does anyone else know better than you do? That was sort of the thing that I had to get over at first. It was, why me? And now it's like, why not me? I am well sourced. I trust my sources, people trust me. I've built a body of work that is trustworthy. There's just as much of a chance that I'm getting a big story as the New York Times or AP or Reuters getting it, but I still struggle with that a little bit.
- [14:35]
A
Yeah, I mean, I guess I feel like we have largely built our audience the same way that you have built your audience, which is behind the backs of some pretty big scoops that other outlets have not been able to get. And I don't work at other outlets. I don't know if, you know, maybe they were working on some of the pieces that we were working on and we were able to get them out faster. Or maybe they had no idea just because our sourcing was better because people trusted us more. One thing that we found at the beginning of this administration, and it sort of continues to go, is that we had a lot of government sources sort of in the early days of Doge, and they were saying, we want to talk to you. We don't want to talk to the New York Times, we don't want to talk to the Washington Post. Were you hearing the same thing? And why do you think people were talking to you instead of these, like big bastions of, of journalism. Maybe this is an easy question, but I think it's still like, notable to talk about.
- [15:39]
B
Yeah, yeah, definitely. No, there's, at the beginning especially, there were a lot of people being like, why would they talk to you? No offense, but why? And I think it was because a lot of, at least for me, and I wonder if you had the same experience. A lot of the people who were speaking to me were not used to speaking to media. It was their first time being a government informant or leaking information. They were not the people running the agencies. A lot of times they were the people kind of in, in the middle or even towards the lower end of things who knew what was going on. But they, they weren't executives, they weren't thinking about, you know, optics and they weren't in meetings with, with these high level cabinet people. Like they were just regular people trying to do their jobs and not able to do them because of this insane government. And so I think it was just the feeling of like wanting to speak to another person and not to a corporate entity, you know, saying, I spoke to Marissa and not I spoke to the New York Times. Like those are two very different things. I also think it's just less daunting. I think if you're not used to speaking to media. This idea of just, oh, you know, there's just this girl, she's a reporter and she's going to listen and take me seriously is a lot less intimidating than like reaching out to the biggest media outlet in the world.
- [17:02]
A
Yeah, I think that's right. We had a very similar experience sort of mixed with. We are a tech publication, we had tech expertise. And so having Elon Musk come into the federal government and try to like AI ify everything, I feel like sort of led people to speak to us because they felt like we understood what we were talking about. Whereas like, I, I think that probably a lot of the reporters for national media outlets who cover politics or who cover government agencies didn't necessarily have like that tech background expertise. And, and I know you weren't doing a lot of tech reporting, but I think that's, that's part of it. They were like, you're not going to mess up the details of why this matters or like why replacing all of the contract like, like review process with it with a large language model is going to be a really bad thing. And I think that you, you do a lot of the same where you understand how these agencies work. And that's not to say that you know, other reporters don't understand how they work, but I have worked at other outlets and I have friends who've worked at other outlets. And it feels like often during the editing process at some of these outlets, a lot of the like bite to the stories gets edited out or the potential harm that's going to be done is minimized because some, sometimes it hasn't happened yet. So it's like sort of speculative. And that's something that you also talk about in, in your speech where you talk about having sort of like a point of view and moral clarity, which is different from being like an opinion writer. Totally different. We're both journalists, we both do like fact based reporting. But you're coming at it with a perspective. And I think that, that I think readers like that, but I also think sources like that.
- [18:57]
B
Yeah, I think it helps make them feel heard and feel like you're accurately conveying what they're feeling. Because if you tell someone a really emotional story and they kind of dispassionately relay it, I imagine that feels like it falls flat a little bit. But we're dealing with highly emotional subjects and immigration and people's money and staying fed and benefiting from federal programs that we pay into. You know, all these things that are pretty life or death. And to the way that a lot of these bigger outlets approach it is just, it falls flat for the source and also for the reader because it doesn't really convey the gravity of the situation. And you know, I think I, I've noticed an evolution in my writing over the last year. Like, I think as far as being Boise or whatever you want to call it, like, I think I've pulled back a little bit just because I think the facts do speak for themselves. But you know, they're just, I think little flourishes that make the difference. And I'm not trying to say like, for example, the boats that have been bombed in the, in the Caribbean and the way that a lot of outlets will say, like, well, legal sources say that this is probably has no legal basis or something. Instead of just saying this is illegal, like there's. If no one can tell you it's legal, it's illegal. And so you can't be afraid to say what is plainly clear. And so for both of us, we lack those institutional guardrails saying like, well, you can't really say it in quite that way because we might get in trouble, know there's less fear.
- [20:36]
A
Yeah, I think, I think that's another really important point and it's one that I brought up before where on one level, it's like we don't have the resources of a New York Times. Not even close. We don't have the lawyers of a New York Times, although we also have a lawyer, but they have like a whole army of lawyers. But at the same time, we. I feel like we have an advantage, which I'll like, knock on wood here, but a lot of what we're seeing from the administration in particular is them going after household name journalistic institutions, going after CNN, going after 60 Minutes, going after the New York Times. And as we see a lot of these cases just get thrown out, or in some cases, the media outlets just pay the money. What's becoming clear is that they don't actually care about winning in court. They care about the headline and the, you know, Trump being able to say it at a speech or something. And I'm having a hard time imagining Trump at a rally being like 404 Media Fake News or the hand basket fake news. It just doesn't. The, the sort of calculus there doesn't super make sense. And so I feel like we have a little bit of an advantage because we are being taken seriously by our readers and our work is having impact. But at the time, same, same time, we don't have these decades of baggage that some of these other places have.
- [22:01]
B
Yeah, yeah, you're absolutely right. I was so nervous earlier this year about potential legal problems and just putting a target on my back with the administration, but I think it's right that they. It's such a Trumpian view of the world. Right? Like, he's stuck in 1985. He's like, oh, CNN, whatever, like NBC News. He just cares about the brand names and embarrassing them. And we're such small fish in comparison. And also, like, if they sued us, they wouldn't get a lot of money. Like, it would be. It would just be kind of like a useless exercise for them. So, yeah, I think you're right in that we are somewhat protected in that way, which is a luxury that I think that we've been taking advantage of. And that's why we've been able to get these really great scoops. And you guys have been absolutely killing it. And it's just, it's cool to have, you know, people alongside you doing, doing the same sort of work and, and seeing like, there, there's a lot of us and there could be even more of us.
- [23:06]
A
Yeah, I think that's right. You know, we were obviously inspired by defector and a lot of the other Independent media outlets that have, have started this or started doing similar things and a lot of them do really great reporting. But I do feel I'm just. I'll just talk like broadly about like random substacks. It's like so, so many people like started substacks, many of them journalists, many of them just like tech bros or whatever. And I feel like there's a little bit of a, like, stigma about Substack in particular. Not the company, we don't need to get into that. But just the idea that people are doing roundups of news or they're giving you their takes or they're just like writing whatever. And I feel like something that you have been really able to do is show like, no, I can do like real journalism, real scoops, real stories. That's like what we are trying to do as well and what many of our colleagues are doing. But I do feel like it's almost a new wave of people who are more reporting focused in this independent space. And that gives me a lot of hope. And I do think that there's room for others to do the same thing.
- [24:15]
B
Yeah, I realized very early on that scoops were currency in this space if you wanted to grow. Because yeah, sometimes I'll write more column y type stuff and opinion type stuff, but I don't know if that's necessarily my forte. There are some people who are just really good at having a take and it's fairly obvious, but the way they write it for some reason catches fire. Like, that's never been me. And so I've spent the last years trying to figure out how to differentiate myself. And even as early as 2023, like early 2023, I was covering the George Santos beat and getting scoops on on that. And that was helping me break through initially. Like, that was when the hand basket first kind of got on the map, you know, Like, I went on cable news for the first time and like had a chiron that said the hand basket. I'm like, this is so weird.
- [25:05]
A
And cable news is also crazy to go on. I've only done it like once or twice. And you feel like you're like in a vortex or something. Like, it's otherworldly. At least my experience. I like, I don't remember anything that I said. It's so bright. It was so scary.
- [25:20]
B
You black out. Yeah, it's so true. You're like, just need to get through this five minutes. But it's like so fast too. And it's like you spend hours reporting a story on cable news like that. But yeah, no, I saw how I had these moments of growth with scoops around that story and then a few other things a bit later the following year. And so I knew that if I wanted to grow, I had to keep getting scoops. But I just didn't really plan for it to be about the federal government. That's just sort of how it ended up happening. But it's true that the normal kind of substack personal site type thing is opinion and it's like selling yourself as like a news brand almost. And I feel like I have managed to do something that's a little bit, I don't know, more substantial than that.
- [26:14]
A
Yeah.
- [26:28]
C
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- [26:56]
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- [27:37]
A
You also mentioned in the speech about one of your first scoops, which was about this case that happened in 2023 in Kansas. And the long and short of it is that like local news had reported about, I don't remember the entire the entirety of the story. Oh, the reporter got their electronic seized basically while reporting on police there. And you called the newspaper and you figured out that they had their electronics seized by police. Which I do remember that story as well. And that was a very horrifying thing for police press freedom in the United States. But I really liked. It's just like, oh, I picked up the phone and I got information and that's how I got a scoop. That's how we can all have our scoops too. It's just like, oh, something's happening. Like let's call people and see what they know or like let's send a Freedom of Information act request or let's send an email. And that's not to call to say that other. Like lots of people get Scoops, not calling people lazy, but often that is kind of all there is to it is like, hello, I'm interested in this. Can you tell me more? And if you get the right person on the phone, then you have a great story. Like, you don't make it so complicated, I guess, is what I'm saying. That's what I like.
- [28:51]
B
Yeah, it's really not that complicated. Some of the scoops I've gotten are really complicated and involve documents and kind of backdoor things and. And off the record and whatever. But sometimes it's literally just as simple as giving someone a call. And that was another one of those moments where people are like, where did this come from? How did she get this story? Like, this makes no sense. And it was actually quite simple and straightforward and anyone else could have gotten it. And also, like, I had this conversation with the owner of this small newspaper that had been raided by the police in Kansas, and I was just really interested. And I think he was like, you couldn't believe how interested I was. Some random person across the country. And I don't know. I'm fascinated by things happening outside of my bubble, and I don't treat them as oddities. I think it's like, I knew that what happened there was really important. It was going to have repercussions across the whole country and ended up being a huge national and international story. And so it's just sort of having that. That feel for things and being able to predict what is going to be an important story.
- [30:04]
A
Yes, sorry. Many scoops are very complicated, but sometimes it just takes that, like, intellectual curiosity or just like, aha, like, there must be more going on here. Like, let me try to figure it out aspect, right?
- [30:17]
B
Well, because you just look at it and you're like, why would the police raid this tiny newspaper? That doesn't make sense. What could they have possibly been doing? And then it turns out the newspaper was investigating the chief of police. And it's like, okay, that that makes sense. But also, no one knew that, and the cops didn't say that in their documents to get permission to actually go on the raid. And so it's like, yeah, you're right, it's the curiosity. And I think that's what makes a good reporter.
- [30:45]
A
So we're recording this at the end of December. It has been a very long year.
- [30:50]
B
I can't believe we made it. I can't believe.
- [30:53]
A
Don't say that yet. But we're almost there. We're almost there. Again, you have had so many great scoops this year, a lot of them were in January, February, March, sort of like while the government was being remade in the image of Elon Musk and Donald Trump and the Heritage foundation, et cetera. What is the vibe of your sources who are still in the federal government after a year of this?
- [31:24]
B
They seem tired. They seem really tired. I think they are worn down a little bit, like these crazy things can continue to happen. So it's not like everything popped off earlier this year and then just settled. It's more just like this is becoming the new status quo and they're getting used to having completely unqualified people at the helm of their agencies, and they're just having to keep going and quietly, I guess, resist or fight back in the small ways that they can. Because these people, it's their jobs. They worked their careers for these jobs. They also need these jobs to support themselves and other dependents. And so I think it's a lot of just like, well, here we go again. Like, oh, another thing, like what, you know, what are, what are we going to do? And I think maybe a sense of like, something's got to give, like, what's going to, you know, whether that's the midterms next year, I'm, you know, I don't, I don't really necessarily buy that. Seems like things are starting to break a little bit. Trump is underwater in a lot of places, and so I think they're trying to cling to that, but mostly just keeping their heads down and doing their jobs and really, really screwed up circumstances.
- [32:48]
A
Yeah. One thing that I've noticed, and, you know, this is partially because we have started covering other things more often just because there's so much going on. We've covered so much of the ICE raids and mass deportation efforts and surveillance companies and things like that, but I'm not hearing from as many government employees anymore. And a lot of the people that I used to talk to, that I was talking to at the beginning of the year, have moved on. Whether they were part of some bigger layoff, whether they took a buyout, whether they have decided they've had enough. I feel like a lot of the people who were speaking out about this administration are gone. Do you get that same sense?
- [33:36]
B
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, the, the volume is just far lower than it was earlier this year. And during the government shutdown, I was, I, I guess for some reason I didn't make the one to one connection. I'm like, it's so quiet, like nothing is going on. I was like, oh, my God. Is this the end of it for me? Are my best stories behind me? What's going to happen if no one's sharing anything? And then I'm like, oh, duh, the government shut down. So that any of the sources that I had left were mostly not in the office during the month of October and bleeding into November. And once the government came back, it definitely was a huge difference. I saw a lot of people kind of come back to life. But, yeah, I mean, that's the thing. We had all these sources at the beginning of the year, but a lot of them are gone. And so it's like, how do you cover a government that has dwindled in size and that a lot of the people who remain are loyalists or people who are not trying to rock the boat? So that makes the job even more difficult.
- [34:43]
A
Yeah, I was going to ask about the shutdown because there were a few people that I talked to during the shutdown where they're like, I have something to tell you, but I can't give you details on it for an unknown period of time because I'm just like, not going to go back to the office and who Lord knows how long. I think that people know this, but that was a very difficult time period for people who weren't working because they were furloughed during. During that period. But, yeah, it was very quiet. And a lot of the people that was. That I was talking to were like, I think something is going to happen when I go back, but I'm not sure when we're going back. And I'm not sure what that thing is.
- [35:24]
B
Yeah, I found that that hard to cover because it's like, how do you cover that absence of information? And it was an unprecedented shutdown. We never had one that's lasted that long. So I guess we all had to get through it.
- [35:39]
A
Yep. I want to end on something that is fun for me at least, which are some of your beefs, which are collectively also my beefs, which is like getting a scoop and then having it taken by a bigger outlet with no link. This is something that happens to journalists, broadly speaking, all the time, but it's something that happens to independent journalists and local news reporters, like, more than anyone else, I think. Yeah. And I used to get very mad about it. I still get very mad about it, actually. But I think that I used to beef about it too hard, and people were like, wow, this guy's really an asshole. And I was like, well, don't steal my shit then. But you've had stories where that you have broken that. The Washington Post, New York Times, other outlets have written up as though they have discovered this information for the first time. And what I really appreciated was you stood up for yourself. And I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about that, whether that just felt like the right thing to do for you at the time and, like, what that experience was like.
- [36:51]
B
I think I didn't really think about it too much. I was just mad, which is not the best way to act, necessarily. I have these moments where I get really mad and be really public about it and post about it on Bluesky and just feel like I was being really petty. And then I would have a moment where I'm like, am I going too hard on this? Is this a bad look for me? And honestly, I've gotten so much support from it. People love it. People love seeing you stand up for yourself. And I think it's just very revealing about the old way that media works and how things are changing, and maybe they're not accepting of it. And so I've never regretted standing up for myself. There was a situation a few months back where the Washington Post had essentially taken a story from me, and then they added in a little acknowledgment, many paragraphs down after I had said something, and I was like, no, that's not good enough. The story was inaccurate. The correct telling the story was that I broke the story because that was kind of part of the whole thing. I was like, you need to issue a correction. You can't just update the link and not acknowledge it. And to their credit, they issued a full correction saying that their original framing of it was wrong. And that was very gratifying because it was like, okay, I'm not overreacting. I actually knew what was going on and made them see it. But I do think also from their end, they're seeing there's a lot more pressure for them to. To act right in these situations. And it's not cute for them to steal from independent journalists. Like, the New York Times did this for ever. Like, they sold people stuff forever. Every journalist has a story of it. And they never responded to emails where people were like, can you please give me credit? But now they are much more likely to do that. And they've been crediting me for the most part on stories of late. So it's just things are changing.
- [38:56]
A
Why do you think this happened, though? Like, why do you. Why do you think it happened so systemically for so long?
- [39:03]
B
I think that it was really hard to have a Voice that was outside an institution. Like, say you worked at the AP and the Times stole a story from you. You can't go off the rails because you're reflecting on the AP and they have certain rules, and they. They may get mad at you and retaliate against you for getting pissed at the New York Times. Everyone was so constrained by the people that they work for. But when you work for yourself, you get to make the rules on your own, for better or worse. And so if something pisses you off and you want to tell someone that you're pissed off, you can just do it. And I think that's, like. It seems so novel and shocking, but it's actually like, just personal agency and standing up for yourself. Like, pretty basic things.
- [39:52]
A
Yeah, it is funny. You are just like, I. I was just mad. That's. That's what I did many times. I've done that many times where I'm like, oh, they didn't. They didn't link. Like, you know, just like, dash off a tweet or a blue sky post or. Or whatever. And that often works. And I. It's not ever that I regretted it. It's that sometimes I would be like, oh, I didn't expect this to get so much attention. Like, I didn't expect this to get so much attention. I really just wanted, like, a link, you know, I. Their email is not readily available or something like this slash. Like, I was mad. So I posted something when I was mad. And I think that as we've gotten more followers and things like that, I'm. I'm realizing that blue sky pulse that I make without thinking through, I'm like, oh, I should have thought about that for, like, 0.001 more seconds, because now people are not even mad at me. But sometimes people are like, oh, this guy, like, cooks like Bolognese with Coors light instead of chicken stock. Like, what. Why does he live like this? Or, like, why does he care about the Orioles so much? Or something like that. And I'm curious, like, as someone with a very big blue sky following, but also, you know, you're breaking stories all the time. Like, do you try to have fun on there as well? Or are you just, like, this is, like, for my. For my job mostly?
- [41:21]
B
No, it's such a mixture. It's. I mean, it's a really bizarre stew of things over there on my page because I'm talking about very serious things. And then that same day, I'm talking about, like, last night I was posting about the Sound of Music because I was watching the Sound of Music and having an amazing time and just appreciating the beauty and the art of this 70 year old movie. But it's not weird to people because I've set that expectation that I'm going to talk about personal stuff and then random stuff and stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with the work that I do. But then maybe a minute later something comes in and we're going to have to switch gears and people seem to be into that.
- [42:04]
A
I appreciate that. I like it when people have a personality online. I think that my tastes are people don't like them and they're like how do you live like this? You're gross. Marisa, thank you so much for coming on. You can find Marisa Kabus work on thehandbasket co. Please subscribe to her. She is doing incredible, incredible work and has been really nice to us and was really nice to join us. So thank you so much.
- [42:31]
B
Marissa thank you.
- [42:34]
A
Thanks so much for listening and thanks again to Marisa Kabis for joining us. You can find the handbasket at thehandbasket. Co. I'm Jason Kebler. This episode was edited and produced by Alyssa Midcalf in partnership with Kaleidoscope. If you like the show, please consider sharing it with a friend and giving us a five star review. It helps us so much. These episodes are also on YouTube. Happy holidays and thank you for your support this year. We'll be back with another episode very soon.
- [43:09]
E
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