The Daily Beast Podcast - Why Trump Trashes The Media That Made Him Famous

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Joanna Coles unpacks the maddening paradox of Donald Trump: a man who rages against the media while being entirely made by it. Joining her is former CNN senior media reporter Oliver Darcy who lays bare the uncomfortable truths — how Trump lost control of the narrative he once mastered, why media giants like Disney are bending the knee, and the chilling tactics being used behind the scenes to reshape the fourth estate. It’s a gripping look at power, ego, and the fragile state of American media. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

I'm Joanna Coles and this is the Daily Beast podcast. Thank you for your comments on our last guest, James Carville. Many of you agreed with him about the AOC and Bernie Sanders oligarchy tour. I wonder how many of you will agree with today's commentator, Oliver Darcy. He's the founder of the status newsletter, which specialises in media and politics. He is like a hawk with Wi-Fi. He's as transparent as cling film. So silence your push alerts, unless they're from Oliver. And let's get into it. Well, you have a very energetic newsletter, and I want to come to that in a moment. But first, we're going to discuss the media and Donald Trump. Let's get into the central paradox that this is a man who is declaring the media enemy of the people. He's going after the very businesses that own a lot of our legacy media and broadcasting. And yet he is a man who's been utterly created by the media. He is of the media.

has dominated the media for the last 40 years in a way that almost no other person has. Actually, it's hard to think of anybody who's rivaled every single form of it. He's gone from newspapers to magazines, to digital, to television. Explain the paradox. Well, I think it's interesting. I think there's a phenomenon, actually, a people who are catapulted into stardom by the media. I think of Elon Musk a lot in this regard, where he just knew how to play the media for years and years. and they really hyped him. They hyped Tesla, the hype SpaceX. They made Elon Musk, you know, the next Newton of our time. And in the same way, Donald Trump was very hyped by the media, that the tabloids loved him. Obviously, with The Apprentice, he was beamed into every living room in the country. People celebrated Donald Trump and held him up. And right when he waded into politics, I think, obviously, the media became more critical of him. And it's almost like he couldn't figure out how to react. And I think he thought some of his

longstanding relationships with people like Jeff Zucker, who is the former head of CNN, would really benefit him. And I feel like he just broke when the media started being critical of the, frankly, insane things that he was saying in public. That's so interesting. I actually hadn't thought of it like that. And also, at the beginning, he was giving all the stories about himself, right? I mean, he was the one that called the New York Post and said of Marla Maples, as Kurt Anderson said on this podcast three weeks ago, actually. Oh, it was a best sex I ever had. So he was his own source about himself. And then the media turned against him when they saw that he wanted something more serious. He lost control of the narrative. And I think

he felt betrayed by people who he had, I think, considered loyal to him. Because in Elon Musk and Donald Trump terms, loyalty is everything, right? You can do whatever you want. As long as you stay loyal to them, they will be loyal to you. And obviously, that's not the role of the press, particularly when you're running for president in the Oval Office, making decisions that's impacting everyone in the country and across the world. And so I just think he couldn't figure out to handle it. And so he lashes out in public. But then, you know, still in private, he hosts them for meetings. He calls them up on their phones. I think it's actually very underreported the fact that Donald Trump, you know, he calls up reporters on his cell phone. They have a cell phone number. They call him up. And, you know,

that's how, for instance, Ashley Parker and the Atlantic got that Donald Trump interview. They just called him up on, I think, a Saturday, and he answered the phone and he talked to them. And so he still, I think, longs for acceptance by the press. But I think he's very frustrated, not that this obviously excuses any of his behavior, but I think he's very frustrated by the fact that he is no longer the narrative or his own story and he feels betrayed. So he's now trying to control the narrative by controlling the owners of media. We had a story in the Daily Beast about. about Bob Iger, actually, passing down to his head of news that he wanted the view to lay off trashing Trump anymore. Is that business bending the knee, this new phrase that is being bandied around now, because Trump is applying pressure? It's hard to look at it any other way. I think a few things are happening. I think we're in this unprecedented moment where companies

like Disney, like Paramount, they're no longer very strong. We're as strong as they once were. And so they need to make some deals and they need federal government approval for their businesses. And then even the strong people like Jeff Bezos, they still want to make deals. And then you have, so you have that economic, that business erosion, their businesses are eroding and they're weaker than they normally would have been maybe 15, 20 years ago. And then you also have at the same time, Donald Trump, you know, pushing all the pain points, putting unprecedented pressure on their businesses, on these people. And you're seeing, I think, some weakness be exposed. And is it unprecedented? Because powerful people, rich people have always owned media, haven't they?

And they've usually owned media to get what they want politically. I'm thinking in particular of Rupert Murdoch, who upturned politics in Britain by breaking certain unions and by having an enormous outsized political impact. So is this actually new? Or is Donald Trump using social media and amplifying his message in a more threatening way because he has the tools now? I mean, before it was going on behind closed doors. I don't think it was going on to this extent. I think, you know, there's always, obviously the president of the United States calls up Bob Eiger, regardless of who it is, I think that Bob Eager listens to that phone call and assesses, you know, what he should do.

I think that there's a very menacing nature of this current administration, even worse than the first administration, where you have loyalists like Brennan Cart the FCC who just can't be shamed. They don't play by the same rules. They don't care if I write something critical of them. you write something critical of them, they actually bask in the negative attention. And he's now threatening to take away broadcasting license. And he's holding up, for instance, the Skydance Paramount deal. And, you know, he won't say it. He'll say that it's separate from Donald Trump's 60 Minutes lawsuit, but it's pretty clear to everyone that those two are connected.

And I think that factor, that aspect of this is really, I mean, unprecedented, at least in modern American politics, where typically you don't see a president wield the powers of the federal government in this. way. And Donald Trump is happy to do it, doesn't care about doing it, and is very overt. You know, yesterday he threatened Brian Roberts and said he thinks they should be investigated. And by the way, his FCC chairman is investigating all these companies that he says should be investigated. The only one, curiously, that is avoided any sort of scrutiny is Rupert Murdoch. And I think we all know why. And I wouldn't even put it past them at some point if Rupert bothers Trump the way he did after the 2020 election. I wouldn't put it past this FCC then to suddenly be stuck on Rupert You saw Donald Trump Truth Social last week that Keith Poole, who's the editor of the New York Post,

should actually be transferred by Rupert Murdoch to the Wall Street Journal because he no longer likes the journal's op-ed pages, which are very critical of him, despite the fact that Keith Poole wouldn't actually be responsible for them, were he to move? But it is extraordinary that sense of him really getting into the weeds to antagonise people. Now, there's also the perception that businessmen are bending the knee and are not being robust enough in supporting journalism. What are you hearing about that? And then we should discuss Wendy McMahon, who is head of CBS News, resigning over the fact she felt she wasn't being sufficiently supported by Paramount or CBS slash Paramount. I don't even think it's a perception anymore. I think that the

business class is almost embracing the fact that, yeah, they are bending the need of Donald Trump. I mean, they're going to Mara Lago. They're tweeting in public. You know, Jeff Bezos is saying he's optimistic about Donald Trump's second term, despite all the, all the extremists that have been pointed to his cabinet in key positions and the chaos that Donald Trump is, is raining across the country. They're not, they're being pretty open about it. They obviously want Donald Trump's approval for various different reasons. You know, Patrick Sun Chiang at the Los Angeles Times, which he owns. He wants his drugs approved by the FDA, so he's kissing up to RFK and Donald Trump. And Jeff Bezos wants those blue origin contracts. And so he's doing what he can to be in Donald Trump's

good graces. Mark Zuckerberg and Sam Altman, they want the laws and rules around AI to be a little more lax. And so I think they're doing what they can on that front. I mean, everyone has interest from the federal government, particularly if you're a billionaire. I don't think that's probably possible not to have some sort of interest from them. And they're doing what they can to make Donald Trump like them. The most fascinating thing is that it doesn't appear to make Donald Trump like them because Donald Trump seems completely unpredictable and rolling from moment to moment. So you saw at the inauguration, the dais of all these businessmen. We did a chart of the amount of money they've lost since the inauguration. And also the fact that it didn't stop Mark Zuckerberg's anti-trust trial,

or the government's antitrust trial against Facebook meta going ahead. Yeah. I think John Oliver put it well. He said that Donald Trump's kind of like a crazy monkey with a gun and he don't know what the crazy monkey with the gun's going to do. I just think I just think he's going to start shooting, right? Possibly. Yeah. I mean, and it's very unpredictable. I think, for that very reason that it's a bad move for these billionaires to, at long term at least, particularly for the reputations. And we all know that billionaires, if they value anything, it's the reputations, to be so overtly kissing the ring, particularly like Mark Zuckerberg, who has gone beyond kissing the ring with all the things that he has done to concede to Donald Trump

and to move in his direction, I guess they're lobbyists or whoever's hired is telling them this is the right move. For them, I think they're also looking at their businesses too, and the news part is so small, so small in terms of like the business, you know, the bottom line. And I think it's easy to then say like it's great. We love journalism, but like we can cut some, you know, we can be a little softer here. Right. Although it has an outsized impact on their reputation to your point, right? And I think I know several billionaires who've chosen not to engage with Trump just by saying would love to meet you.

Thank you for the invitation. Scheduling conflict right now will come back to you in the hope. that he just forgets and it just gets pushed down the line. So there is something about people that decide to engage and decide to show up and be in the photos. Yeah, I think that, for instance, like Sundar at Google has had a much lower profile and you don't see him really doing the same things that like Zuckerberg and Bezos are doing. Even Tim Cook, who is very, he's been very savvy, I think, at navigating the Trump dynamics. But even those two, they're still quietly or are making signals that move them in the more, you know, they cut their DEI programs, for instance, at Google, or they scaled them back, they ran away from them. I think they don't want the fight. I think that's, I think they don't want the fight. I think they don't want the fight. That's a very good point. Let's come back to Wendy McMahon, actually. What did you think of her resignation? I think that certainly Wendy wasn't a perfect president of CBS News. I think her move to remove Nora O'Donnell as anchor of CBS Evening News, for instance, and put those two new hosts in, you know, that dramatically.

because the amorous people are. Yeah, it hurt the ratings quite a bit, and that's not great. And there's some other things that she did that could have been done better. But by and large, I think that it's pretty obvious that if she went along with the censorship campaign of 60 Minutes and was in the Sherry camp in that regard and was playing with the Skydance folks coming in, I think she'd still have a job. And I think that was obviously the elephant in the room. And I think it's actually terrible that some people are really trying to muddy the waters here and pretend that there was all these other things. Again, you can, if any, any head of any news organization, you can go down the list of things they haven't done perfectly. And Wendy certainly made mistakes,

but she was forced out, make no mistake, because she refused to soften the coverage of 60 minutes against Donald Trump. And if you watch 60 minutes as past season, you've seen very aggressive, rightfully aggressive coverage of what Donald Trump is doing in Washington. And that made it very uncomfortable, I think, for Sherry Redstone, who wants her Paramount Deal approved, and he was trying to settle a lawsuit, the lawsuit against 60 minutes with Donald Trump right now. And when 60 minutes week after week is hitting Trump in his administration, that doesn't make Sherry's life easier. And so, you know, I've reported, and others have reported that Sherry was asking, you know, basically, can we soften the coverage? Do we have to air these stories right now? And they even went

up to, can we not air the season finale of 60 minutes? And they floated a, you know, airing some other prime time special. I think they were going to suggest the sports event, right, rather than the season finale of 60 Minutes, which is the most watched news program in the country. It's obviously the crown jewel of American broadcast journalism. And not airing the finale, you know, I don't think any news chief who's acting in an ethical way would go along with that. And obviously, Wendy did not go along with it and made her disagreements known. And I think that was really the final straw for them, where they did not feel like she was being a team player. Unfortunately, the sport they wanted to play or the way they wanted to play the sport

was not, you know, did not go along with how a news chief would be expected to run a news division. And so I'm very interested, for instance, now in how Tom Sibrowsky, who's in there, who's a pretty well-respected news executive. An ex-ABC recently shook over the role. Yes, he was in San Francisco, a bureau chief there now has come to CBS News to take over as president. I'm curious how he's going to navigate these waters. He's kind of probably, he's really in the thick of it now. Poor man. What a time to take over, although very invigorating time to take over, too, if you decide to stand up for news. Although very, and he has the benefit of 60 Minutes. It did air the season finale, so they're off for the summer and theoretically this lawsuit and all of this drama will be put behind him or behind the company soon. And I think 60 Minutes is really one of these biggest problem because, you know, on the CBS, you know, CBS mornings, that's not really what was underdard.

Donald Trump's skin. It was Sherry's biggest problem. Yes. Yes. And I think that 60 minutes was was really the thing they got under Donald Trump's skin, which was really bothering him, not really the coverage across the board elsewhere. And I'd even wonder, too, you know, CBS Evening News, the ratings decreased and they received a lot of criticism for the new format, but the new format seems something like that Sherry would have liked because it's not focused as much on Donald Trump and Washington politics. It did try to broaden the aperture. And as a result, the rating, the rate I think fell because people didn't feel like they could get the news from the CBS evening news anymore. And so anyway, I think a lot of this is all of Sherry's mess and Wendy, who didn't go along

with the 60 Minutes part of it, ended up losing her job. So let's talk about you. The world is blitzed. Every morning it's blitzed with newsletters. Why did you decide to leave reliable sources, which you've been running and felt like a must read at CNN, to start your own thing, which has, in fact, to be fair, become another must read. Well, thank you. I felt an entrepreneurial... I'm an expensive must read.

I don't, I would say, is it expensive? $400 a year. No, no, no, no, it's $150 a year. If you want to be part of the Founders Club, that has a little more money, but it's $150 a year. Oh, I thought it was $400 a year. No, no, no, no. We're not that crazy. I think I've only been sent an expensive one, Oliver.

I think your algorithm is targeting me. I don't even know if we have. We're not rich enough to have algorithms targeting people yet, but eventually that would be nice. No, it's 1495 a year, 1495 a month. It comes down to less than a cup of coffee a week. So I think we're pretty reasonable on the prices. And I had an entrepreneurial itch to start something my own. I like being able to control the brand.

And I think there's some freeing nature of not being inside a corporate newsroom. You know, one of the things, for instance, is when we're talking about what happening now is like, you know, if I want to call Elon Musk a right-wing conspiracy theorist, which he is, I'm free to do that, you know, and we can make these decisions on her own. There are no corporate lawyers telling us what to do or, and not to say that that was, you know, the CNN experience, but I think any corporate newsroom, there are, they are inherently more cautious about the stuff and they are more risk-averse and we're a little more nimble at status and we don't, we don't shy away from covering uncomfortable issues or saying the thing that everyone's texting out loud,

we try to be a voice that confronts power in a real way. Well, it's become irresistible reading, I think, and we're always flying back and forth with, did you read this in Darcy, as we call you, not status, which as I know the official name of the newsletter. You started with a very good scoop about Olivia Nutsi and RFK Jr. And their virtual relationship, as it seems to be. What has happened to Olivia? That's a good question. You know, I think I read somewhere that she was still working on a book or, you know, they had a book deal, Ryan Lissa and Olivia Nudsi.

Ryan Liza was her fiancé at the time. Yes, Ryan Liza was her fiance at the time. And he was the chief Washington correspondent, I believe, of Politico. And they were sort of a power couple in Washington. You know, she was the Washington correspondent for New York Magazine. And he was the chief Washington correspondent for Politico and writing playbook, which is obviously the must read in D.C. And they had a book deal to cover the 2024 campaign. and they clearly had a falling out after we had reported that Olivia was engaged in this romantic digital affair of sorts with RFK. And I think they obviously had a falling up before then because I think Ryan had caught wind of it. But I'm not entirely, the book deal, I guess Ryan's no longer attached to it, but Olivia is. But I don't know what she's doing. I'm very curious when she's going to resurface and who would be intrigued in hiring her. She lost her job from New York Magazine after what felt like a long investigation. and he then left Politico.

So they both ended up losing out over it. Oliver, can you just hold on one second? Let's take some more messages from our sponsors. A big thank you to our sponsors. I was going to ask you, so RFK Jr has said that he wants to remove farmer ads from television, which will have an outsized impact on the news. Do you think that's politically driven?

Is it because he genuinely thinks people shouldn't be looking at farmer ads? And what impact, if they get it done, will it have on television news? I'm actually meaning to do a story on this because I think it would be devastating for particularly cable news, which, you know, if you turn on cable news, it doesn't matter what channel, it's all pharma ads. It's all farmed. It's humor. It's bladder leakage. It's strange drugs.

AC1, what is that? Yeah, the illnesses you didn't even know about. Yeah, I don't even know what the stuff is. I think I need the drug. Yeah, that jingle music that plays that you want to get out of your head once you've heard it. And people in soft focus looking like they'll leave. living perfect lives now. And, but that's what, that's what powers these news organizations these days.

And short of like, you know, on a big night, they might have some bigger blue chip advertisers like Mercedes-Benz. But primarily, you know, if you turn on the dayside programming, that's where you're going to see. And so I think it's probably killing two birds with one stone for them. I think it's, they certainly love weakening news organizations. There's no, there's no secret about that. And also, I think RFK doesn't like Big Pharma.

I think he's been very outspoken about that. So this is kind of the perfect thing for him to do. And I do think that it does worry these news organizations on cable news, particularly, because they rely on those dollars. And is there anyone else who would step up or that just becomes a vacuum of funding? It would be problematic. And I think the other problematic thing is, you know, in this information environment, a lot of brands are very politics-averse. So they don't want to be advertising against news because they, you know, don't feel like that's where they should be putting their brands. and Google and Facebook or Meta, they have a duopoly in this country. Maybe that will be broken up by the government.

We know that they're going after Google and Meta. But that's where people spend their dollars. Right. 74% of all digital ad spending goes to Google or matter. Yeah, and YouTube. And YouTube's another big one. Well, I guess that's a Google thing. But I guess that is digital spending, but I think like everyone else increasingly

as like a television-oriented spending as well because that's where people are watching YouTube. And so those where the dollars are going. And advertisers get, I think, they go to them for, you know, they get a lot more out of it. They can target very, you know, they can really target people in this different way than television. And they don't have to be associated with news and they don't like news. I think that's why, for instance, you know, you're seeing CNN try playing in other verticals and launching like CNN weather. It's not that there's like a hole in the weather market, right? Like if you pull out your phone and go to the app store right now and type in weather, there are plenty of weather apps.

It's not like this is like some sort of void that they're seeking to fill. I think that they probably want verticals. The advertisers feel comfortable putting their brand against. And so weather is like the most apolitical thing. You say that although Donald Trump is perfectly capable of politicizing the weather. And so did Marjorie Taylor Green, right? She said they were shooting down clouds. Well, do you remember Sharpie Gate?

That was another good example of Donald Trump. But generally speaking, generally speaking, checking the weather is an apolitical act. And so I think that's why news brands are moving in that direction, even the New York Times. You know, half of their stuff is cooking and product reviews. And games. Exactly. People don't want to be advertisers particularly. They look for these safe refuges from the news.

And so back to your original question about cable news, it's going to be problematic, I think, if these big formats go away because they're one of the few that are happy to advertise on cable news against that demographic. Okay. So you've gone out on your own. Yes. Status newsletter. No big pharma ads. No big pharma ads. How many subscribers do you have? Well, total subscribers, free and paid, we have passed 80,000. Congratulations. And we haven't revealed how many paid there are, but several thousand. And we're doing quite well, I'd say. We're only nine months old. So, um, just hired another member of your team. Yes. We, um, how many are the old people? It's a we now. It's a real we, not a royal we, but like a we. So there are two of you? There's two of us. Right. There's two of us. There's two of us. There's two of us. There's two of us.

There's two of us. We hope to bring on more in the future. We're growing responsibly. And honestly, frankly, in this economic climate, you have to be a little bit careful. But John Passantino from CNN, he was my editor there. He was the one editing reliable sources when I was there. He's brilliant, I'd say. He's very on the news. And we share a lot of the same ethos. And so I was happy to bring him on board earlier this year. Otherwise, are you working 24-7 at this point, which is, I guess, what all startup founders do. But given that it was just you, for the first, what, eight months? Yes. Were you just working all hours, God sends? Yeah, I mean, it's always intense. I'd say, you know, there's a lot of things that I had to do, and it was especially the first I'd say three months were very chaotic as you're trying to kind of like, I almost feel like a rocket ship

trying to leave the atmosphere and there's a lot of like resistance and it's difficult. You're trying to get escape velocity. Yeah, and there's like, and you're in the cockpit and like there's a lot of red buttons flashing and you're trying to figure out which one, you triage, like which one needs to be addressed first. And email is actually a lot more complicated than people think. There's like deliverability issues and a whole bunch of stuff that I want more the audience with. But now I think we're cruising the seatbelt signs turned off. And we're not exactly where we want to be.

We want to keep going up. But it's much more comfortable. That said, you know, I think we're both working from the moment we get up to the moment we go to bed and there's no real break. But I will say as well that when I was at CNN running reliable sources, I felt like I was working at a startup inside CNN without startup benefits. And so now what's great is that the more work I put into this, the more John and I get out of it. And that's one of the more rewarding things about owning your own company. You get very excited about the growth, and it motivates you to work those long hours when you're exhausted. So what's the eventual outcome for you?

I think a lot of people say that they want to hold power to account or that they want to give you the inside story that no one is telling. I think that's super cliche. I think that we actually aim to do that. And I think if you read our writing and you read our reporting, you see that we, A, take you inside the room as much as we can, every single night as much as we can. It's not some, you know, empty slogan. It's a real thing that we aim to do. And we also aim to speak truth to power and not shy away from sensitive egos or powerful people. I get phone calls from their spokespeople or them directly. And, you know, I hear them out. But, you know, I hear them out. But. I tell them all, like, we're not, we're, this is, this is not a safe zone. If you want a safe space, this isn't the newsletter for you. I got into journalism because I think it's important for society. And especially right now with what's happening, I think people need to hold power to account. And I also think it's kind of fun, you know, like a needling billionaires can be a little bit fun, right? It can be fun. It can be fun. It can also be hard work. So many people have started their own brands on substack.

there is only with the best will in the world a limited amount of attention one has for these things. Sure. So what is the future for creators and news influencers, especially on substack and beehive, I mean, in terms of actually making a living? I do agree. And I also worry, and I've spoken out about this a little bit, that there are these glowing profiles of people who are doing well on these platforms. and it makes it seem as if it's for everyone and easy to do and like it's a get rich quick scheme. And that's certainly not the case. Like I think if you talk to anyone who's successful on these platforms, they will tell you they are working 100 plus hours a week. They only think about this. They don't think they can take vacation.

They are like, it consumes your life. And so I don't think that lifestyle is for everyone. And even if you do that, there's still no guarantee that you're going to be successful. You also have to be very good to get people coming back week off. a week, right? Because even if you think about columnists that you follow, say in the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal or whatever, they're still surrounded by other things. So to actually go and seek someone out regularly or to click on them when they come into your inbox feels like an extra layer of work. I do think that, yeah, you have to have a lot of things going for you.

And I think for us, scoops are really what keep people coming. That's what gets attention. You can't read it anywhere else. Look, like, I worry too that people who are just wanting to, to do general analysis or politics analysis. There's a lot of that that's out there for free. I can get my phone out right now and I can swipe through like reels. I can go on X. I don't go on X, but you could go on X and see a lot of stuff. There's blue sky. There's threads. There's social. Whatever. There's free websites. Like, there's a lot of free general political analysis and things like that. I think that what keeps people who come back to status primarily is because we break news. And we tell you the inside story that you're not going to read in the New York Times and the Wall

Street Journal or whatever. What are the scoops you're most proud of? We reference the Olivia Nutsi's story right in your first week with a virtual relationship with RFK Jr. What are other stories? Give me your top three stories that you were just so excited to run. Well, that's always tricky because, you know, there's there's a lot I'm proud of. You know, I was, I think that we've been on the 60 Minutes story for some time. And, you know, we had reported back that Jeff Schell, the incoming president of Paramount, had told Wendy McMahon and Bill, and Bill Owens that they needed to basically be on board with a settlement with Donald Trump. And I think that was some of the early reporting on that.

And they're both gone. Yeah, now they're both gone. Yeah. Also left the executive. You know, and we were able to break that story. We broke stories like on the CNN lineup and Jim Acosta leaving CNN. He's now got his own substack. He's got his own substack now.

It's very difficult, Joanna, to think off the cuff on stories we broke. Because I honestly, if you asked me Oliver, what did you write last week? I would tell you, I really need to think about that. Right. You've got no short-term memory left because you're working so hard. No, and, you know, I write a story and then I, it's, you know, the one thing about writing a newsletter, I think there's, you know, a lot of journalists and newsrooms, and I used to be one of these people, you know, you write a big story and then you kind of coast off of that story for a few days and kind of bask in that and see, there's none of that here because we, I do a story and then the next morning or even that night, I'm thinking, what are we going to do tomorrow? Like, because you have to have something new. Well, and the shelf life of a story now is very fast, too, right? I mean, it used to be that you could write a story. story and people would follow it and then the story itself would develop. But now it's just everything is moving so fast. Everything moves very fast. And that's what actually makes it

very difficult if you're trying to attract subscribers, I'd say, because it's a very slow burn. I think people don't understand this about the subscription game. It's a challenging business. There's a lot of subscription dollars you're competing against. I've U.S. is competing against Netflix and Disney Plus and Hulu and all those guys because like people have X amount of money. Yeah, and you're 1299 a month. And they're thinking, well, am I getting the same very? value as I am with Netflix where I can watch every program in the world. Or that's what it feels like. Yeah. And I actually, and I wish too that I hope that consumers realize they should be paying for journalism as well. I think that that's still... You've done a terrible job educating people. We would

never take a drug for free. Why would we take information, which is our mental nutrition and not expect people to pay for it, especially given the work it takes? And, you know, a lot of people tell me, they say, I get a lot of this email. Like, you know, why isn't it free? Why don't you give out you know, month free and then I'll see if I want to do it. And I'm like, well, you don't walk into a restaurant and say, let me, let me try your steak and your dessert and give me some wine and I'll decide if I want to pay for it later. Like, that's generally not what happens. If you give it for free, people just read it, they scroll by it and that's it. Well, and it's what big tech taught people to do, right? Which is take all of this stuff for free and you won't have to pay because you're the

product. Generally speaking, if you want to use the product, you have to pay for it up front. And that's the way it works. Well said. And a lot of people who claim to be supporting journalism, too, they get upset about paywalls and things like that. And look, I get it. Everyone has certain subscription dollars. And I totally understand. I'm empathetic to that. But like, at the same time, if you don't think twice of buying a cocktail at the bar or a beer or a coffee, you know, that's basic. We're less than a cocktail a month. Okay. The media is also, I think, probably done a terrible job in reminding people why fact-based journalism is so important and why it's valuable and why it can't be produced for free. And actually, if you're getting information for free, it's probably not very good quality.

Okay, so if you're a journalist out there and you're thinking about either leaving your legacy media brand or you think you're about to be laid off or you're someone doing something completely different but you want to start your own newsletter, what are the first couple of things? that you would say to people, perhaps to warn them off, because you don't want the competition. No, I'm teasing. But because this is more difficult than people think. One of the big surprises. I get a bunch of calls every single week now from people who are pondering doing something similar. And I'm honest with the people who I think will do well and who, you know, won't do well. I don't want someone to go independent.

And then I have misled them into thinking this is some sort of, you know, gold mine and it's easy. And it just, we're just everyone's running to the bank. Like, that's not the, that's not the lifestyle that we're living. And again, ask anyone who's doing well independently. This is all they think about. They're consumed by their business. So I tell them that it's an all-consuming thing. It's not like subscriptions don't, they don't happen overnight.

You know, it's a very slow walk-up a mountain. You need to constantly be producing content that is exclusive to your platform, that people feel like they can only get from you. There's a lot of media newsletters out there. You know, you have to be providing content or stories that people don't feel like they're getting anywhere else. And you have to do that on a regular basis, like as many times a week as possible. And then you also have to, there's a bunch of stuff. You have to have a good looking product.

I'd say that aesthetics matter quite a bit. We try to make our website and our newsletter look like a white glove premium product, something that you want to open and look at. By the way, if anyone from Google or Outlook is listening, support more fonts. You guys only split like 10 fonts. It's terrible. That's my pet peeve. So I tell them all this stuff. I mean, I think it's very serious to think about this. And then how much money do you need to live? Because there are a lot of benefits you get at a corporation that you probably don't think about. That's very expensive. Healthcare being one of them. But also, you get vacation time. You might get some other benefits that that you want. And then also how much money you're going to need to do other things to pay for? So do you need defamation insurance? Well, how much is that going to be $10,000 a year? Like that's a cost you should. factor in, you know, do you need get images? You have to think about all this stuff when you're launching. And I just think it's so important to stress. It's not this like overnight thing where you're going to be living large and like like you might like some of these profiles I think might

lead people to believe. Well, Oliver Darcy, I will say I read your status newsletter every day. It's full of information. I think if you're in the media, you're covering politics, probably essential reading. So congratulations. I wasn't sure it was going to be an absolute out-and-out success when you left CNN. I thought, gosh, that's a big risk, but I think you've pulled it off. So many congratulations. And thank you for coming in to talk to us. Thank you so much.

And if people are interested, status. dot news is where you can find us. And also, they should be subscribing to the Daily Beast.com. Just go to the Daily Beast.com and subscribe to. We should do a dual thing where you get two for the price of one. Or two for the price of three. That will be better. That will be a better.

We'll get someone else to give their product for free. Excellent. Super interesting to watch your growth. both and to hear your point of view. Well, thank you so much. It was really fun being here. And I'm curious, maybe a year from now, we'll come back and see where we are. Well, we're going to have you back before a year. Before a year, Oliver. Okay.

Before a year, Oliver. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you. I love Oliver's analysis of Donald Trump as someone who strode like a colossus through the various changes of media. So from newspaper to television, to digital, to his own platform with truth social. And he's someone that the media made. helps them make him. And of course, loved hearing about Oliver's entrepreneurial journey and taking the risk of leaving a big comfortable media company like CNN to go out on his own. If you enjoyed

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