The Ricochet Podcast - World Still Spinning, Hacktivists Hardest Hit

Episode Date: February 6, 2026

Lingering cold has many a podcast host needing a week off, but Rob Long and Steve Hayward reconvene to enjoy some juicy stories and just desserts: The "Democracy Dies in Darkness" crowd got cut up in broad daylight, Jeffrey Epstein's pals are paying their due for dealing with the devil, and a $2 million verdict was awarded to a minor in a suit against the medical professionals who deformed her. 

Give you away. You go ahead. You go right ahead. I'll attempt some kind of segue, and you will pick up on it, I think. That's perfect. Perfect. Welcome, everybody, to the Rickusay podcast. James Lalex is off today.

As is Charlie Cook. It's Steve Hayward, joined by Rob Long. Yeah, what does that mean? So what happens? James Sick, and then you call Charlie and Charlie, so I'm not doing it. And you're like, well, God, look at it again. That's the wrong opening, though, Rob. Sorry.

I'm trying to do a little 15-second one. Oh, sorry. That's all right. Rusty, right? Welcome everybody to the Rurkoshay podcast. It's Steve Hayward sitting in for James Lylex, who is out today, as is Charlie Cook. Joining us is Rob Long. So let's have ourselves a podcast.

Heat this. This is real. Yeah. It's the RICOCHAE podcast number 775. And as James always wants us to remind you, please join RICOA at RICOCHA.com. It's not expensive. Join the most stimulating conversations on the web. James is under the weather. I think Charles is out somewhere.

I'm a little under the weather, so I apologize for my scratchy voice. But we managed to scrounge up Rob Long. Scrounge is right. You know what? You need to work on this. Because like, well, you know, James is sick and Charlie, who knows where Charlie is. So I don't know. We got, we put out an all APB.

We get this clown in. You know, maybe special guest, you could say. Well, I could. You're under the weather. I get it. Well, I mean, I think of it this way, Rob, is, you know, I pick up the news every day. I'm on the road this week, so a little less news. But, you know, the good, the bad, the crazy.

And I often think that, you know, at least Rob Long has a blessed existence in a semi-monastic occupation at the moment. I thought, dude, you probably miss some of this craziness, no? Yeah, I wouldn't call it monastic. You know, we're like there's this sponsored or the seminary was created by a very stern presbyteries, but they weren't that stern. Right, right, right. Yeah, well, Presbyterianism and monasticism don't often go together in the same sentence. But that was our last podcast together. Yeah, we don't have to go back through that. Yeah, right, right, right. So, well, today there is a whole lot in the news.

So, you know, I have been predicting for years, item number one, that eventually what was going to turn back a lot of the really extreme transgender craziness and, I mean, frankly, what I think, mutilating children and young teens, that the trial lawyers, right? we're going to rescue us from this. Because you would have, and we know, we know there's a significant number of people who regretted making a transition and want to detransition. And I thought they're going to sue for malpractice. And one reason I think, just very briefly, is I am familiar. Don't ask me how, because it was a confidential settlement with NDAs. But some years ago, I'm aware of a lawsuit brought against an abortion provider by someone who got an abortion as a teen with the usual no-parent. mental notification because that was always right and and it was a look they did not counsel me of the

psychological risks of having an abortion which yeah you know a lot of young women they regret having done it and sometimes there's trauma involved okay yeah well the abortion providers settled very quickly because they did not want this to be spread around right and and I think most people who think of a suit either against these transgender surgeries or even abortion they don't really want to go trial either because that's painful and difficult. But the object is the lawyers who brought the case was let's make certain abortion providers uninsurable. And so I'm wondering if that's what's going to happen now with the transgender business. Well, it could happen. It also could happen naturally. It's not as if it's not as if this stuff isn't already controversial, even in the context of the

people who've been performing it. You know, the entire clinic, the Tavisot Clinic in Britain, which is one of them, first of all, one of the most famous psychoanalytic institutes in the world, if not the most famous. I think Freud taught there. So this is the most establishment place there is, and they did this kind of therapy and this kind of, and they don't think they did the surgery, but they authorized the surgery on minors and the hormone therapy and all that stuff. And they not only decided to stop doing it, but I think a year later, they closed the entire thing. And it wasn't because of pressure from, you know, some,

I don't know what, you know, social conservative. It was out of this genuine feeling that maybe they haven't been making a mistake. And they were very careful. They didn't say we're against this in general or we don't think that you should be allowed to do this if you feel it's necessary or whatever. I don't know. But they did say that not for kids. Right.

And that, I mean, that doesn't seem like an outrageous. criterion, which is you've got to be 18 or 19. Right, right. Yes. Well, the other aspect of this is I think we now have pretty good data that there's an aspect of social contagion going on here. And it's kind of lumpy, right? It tends to be, why is it so high in Bel Air and Cambridge, Massachusetts, and not in Peoria, right? Right.

And it does remind me. What's the Bill Maher joke? Bill Maher said that. He says, like, I got all these friends. Yeah, right. Right. Right. And I mean, I'm sure, yeah, you'll remember that, was it 30 years ago now? You had this outbreak, outbreak, you know, epidemic of anorexia and bulimia among young women, right? And that clearly had a contagion effect. There wasn't some, and there's no epidemic. I mean, that's not caused by a virus or something, right? And but it's just, you know, group think and so forth. On the other hand, I think, you know, the identitarians, as I call them, one more thought about that.

And I bet you may agree with me at this. I do know four or five transgender individuals, men who change teams, as I like to put it, but all in adulthood. Some of them far into adulthood. Yeah, right. And, you know, they all, by the way, most of them are not down with the, you know, I can go in any bathroom I want and sort of aggressiveness of it, right? quite the opposite. And most of them are either conservative or libertarian. And they all say the same thing.

You know, I thought I would be happier as the other thing. And I am. And so I take that and respect it. It's rare, but real. And I think probably one, typical of the identitarian left of taking it too far, they're actually going to make it harder for people who really do have genuine gender dysphoria. Yeah, I think that's probably true. I mean, I find the whole thing so baffling anyway because of the...

I'm trying to be nicer. I wrote a piece for commentary. It's going to be out next week. And I put in a story that's true with a joke at the end. And I'm sure I'm going to get a trouble with a trouble for. You know, like, I have a friend who has been in the fashion, sort of retail fashion business for a long time. He's very well-known guys, written a bunch of books.

And, you know, his joke is he goes, you know, a lot of these, you know, these guys just You know, they think they're going to become women. And it's like, well, wait a minute. Think about this. Like, what is your summer look? You know, it isn't just this thing where you just wake up one day and you get to, you know, and you got to be thinking about these things. But women have been thinking about these things forever.

And I suspect that that is, but, you know, some of the older gentlemen, older meaning, you know, in their in their grown-up phase who've decided to do this. You know, I don't, I'm not sure they, at this point, I don't. I'm sure they trade it up in the looks department, you know? Oh, yeah. And, and I, but again, that is entirely, entirely up to them. And I celebrate the courage it takes to make a change like that. And I hope that they have equal courage if they, if they regret it, that,

um, there's the equal embrace of their changing back. I think that happens to. Um, it doesn't have to, but it can. And in general, I, you know, I think when you're grown up, I mean, fine. And I think there is a certain, and I don't, I'm not, I am not, by no means, am I, questioning the good faith of the people who have, having this done or doing this themselves, which is crucial, they're doing it to themselves, which is fine. But, you know, some of it does feel a little like a very, very rich society.

Sure. And a very, very privileged group. And we all are. I mean, just by being Americans in 2026, we're incredibly rich. Just kind of like, well, I can do this. I can do it. So why not? Well, we've also, I mean, we, something that I think is never made distinct is that it's one thing to just cross dress, right?

I want to wear a dress and call myself a woman. And it's another thing to go all the way. shall we say, right, and have surgeries. You use modern medicine. And it reminds me of the old breakfast joke that the chicken is involved, but the pig is committed. Right. So, you know, the people go all the way, they really can't switch back very easily. I don't think.

I don't, you know, I don't know what. Yeah, and I think we're not being honest to them either. They are not switching to something. They really aren't. It's really just a more, a closer visual approximation of what they want, but they aren't able to do the thing. you know, if you become a woman, you don't have a uterus, you can't have children. You don't have, you don't menstruate. And then there's also the truth part of it is I have a friend of mine who's very done,

she's been doing this kind of research in a long time. And she says, you know, what they don't tell people is that you will not be able to experience sexual pleasure. Right, right. So this, if you're drawn to that, if this is somehow these things, you know, look, we're all kind of wired in some weird way with God knows, I wouldn't want to look under the hood of your head. You wouldn't want to look at a hood of mine. but if that is part of what's happening here, then you're going to be really disappointed.

Yeah. Also, this is when you try to buy shoes, I think. That's not going to be good. Right. Well, one last serious point, and then take a wide-angle lens, look at a broader scene. I do know that apparently one bar to more malpractice is statutes of limitation.

Now, I'm no expert on this, But I do know that when starting 30 years ago you had all the explosion of the scandals of sex abuse by Catholic priests, the Boy Scouts, and so forth, that a lot of states ran out and extended their statute of limitations for those kinds of claims. And we'll have to keep track on whether that happens here. I suspect it might in some states. I agree. I agree. I think also I feel like that I would say to those people on the pro side or on the sort of continuing to. perform these things for minors. It's that if you want to look and see what can happen to a, to maybe the most, the most venerable, strongest institution that earth has ever known,

the Catholic Church. Take a look. And that will happen to the psychiatric or the psychological industry and all those institutions of this keeps going on. Yeah, I think that's right. So more broadly, I think that what I call the identitarians, which is this and the the whole sort of DEI world. It's pretty evident to me they are digging in, thinking if we can survive three more years of Trump, which will seem like 20 years, right? Because you measure Trump and dog years if you're on the left, right? Doesn't it seem every day as a month?

And they're digging in and, you know, they're disguising the DEI stuff on campus. That's what I follow the most closely in. And I don't want to keep beating this dead horse. But the identitarianism business has always been sort of, of the extreme of the idea of liberal autonomy, of self-definition, self-creation, totally unmoored with tradition, history, human nature. And the willfulness of it is what makes them, I think, so angry and aggressive in a lot of domains. And so they're not going to go away easily even after just one or two lawsuits is my expectation.

I think that might be the case. On the other hand, once you've, once you've crack, these things only really work in their sort of mob intimidation. Like if you don't, if you don't do this, we're going to punish you in all these different ways. Once that's broken, it's really hard to scare people again. And you're already seeing it in colleges. Like college is sort of the bellwether, right? This all happened a while ago. People are perfectly happy sitting their kids to a school that doesn't necessarily have the same cachet, the same name as a school as a school might have had 10 or 15 years ago.

Now, I think this is all going to take a long time. Yeah. But I'm not sure it's a slam dunk for the weighted out, the playing possum, waiting it out, waded outers. I mean, look, if we could, if we all survive three more years of Trump, that great. I mean, I'm not sure I'm going to survive it, let alone the left. But my guess is that these things only work if you could point to everyone to say, look, everyone's doing it. And you'll be roundly condemned if you don't. I'm not sure they can do that anymore.

Right. Well, you know, one indicator is always comics, right? And I mean, I get a lot of social media feeds like you do. And, you know, there are always a few comedians who would make fun of this business. But lately, I've been seeing a lot more of them do it, right? Yeah, right. And they bust up the audience. It's pretty clear that the, you know, okay.

And that's significant. Well, in other news that overlaps maybe a little, another batch of Epstein files here the last few days. days. I hope you got to miss that, Robert, did that catch up with you also? No, no, that's like, no one's talking about, of course. I think that's the most amazing thing about being in seminary is that no one is talking about the news at any point. They'll make, you know, some of the people who are on the left, which a lot of, a lot of them will make, you know, they'll make these oblique references in these troubled times. Which sort of we get, we've always been able to say.

But I'm, of course, obsessed with it. And because it's, to me, what I find, I'm such a Pollyanna's de Weirdo. I just assumed that all of this talk about how Epstein's network was so big and you knew everybody and all that stuff. That was like a lot of nonsense. Like really, I don't think that really happens. And then you go on the email list and it's extraordinary how much time. I mean, his full-time job.

Look, my inbox right now is like 20 emails. I'm late on returning. He seems to be doing nothing, but on the phone all day. Like, I mean, that would be my defense where he, where his lawyer, if he were alive and he were facing, you know, more assault charges, I'd say. When did he have time? Ladies and jump in the jury between 11-11 and 1123, when the plaintiffs insist he was attacking her, he was actually sending nine emails like we can see. Like the guys seem to be doing nothing but that. But it is interesting.

It is interesting. Yeah, I mean, I instinctively resist frothy, conspiracy. theories. And I want to really be proven. And on the other hand, I noticed the same thing. How did he make his money when he's spending all his time being social chairman, seemingly 24-7? And it had to cost him a lot of money to do all that, too. So, I mean, a few things have leaked out. I mean, he really drove some hard bargains. He really squeezed some people. He defrauded some people. The New York Times had a pretty good story on a deep dive a couple months ago or a month ago. And it really detailed that he was a sharp dealer. Okay. But it's.

still, I don't know, it still seems so out of proportion. I do kind of wish you would all go away. Although, last thing, maybe you, I don't know if you caught this, I think it was maybe Bill Marr's show last Friday night. I've just read about it, but he said, where does QAnon go to get its apology? I mean, I don't know if you know all the Q&on stories and, you know, they're way out there. I mean, I met someone once who said, this is, you know, eight or nine years ago, right? That, you know, there is this organized pedophile ring. Forget the pizza shop. There's tunnels that start from a mile underneath a Denver airport to go all over the country, and that's where the trafficking is going.

I just, I, you know, I'd rather, how about we talk about chemtrails, something more sensible? It's something that I can see. Right. Right. Well, yeah, I think that, well, I mean, it doesn't seem like it requires much of a conspiracy. It's just rich people. And a guy, what's interesting to me is that he is, Epstein really is a classic character. you've seen in fiction and in plays and stuff,

he's every single person he is emailing with, he despises. He hates everybody. And if the great tragedy of his life, I think for him, was that he committed suicide before he could see the destruction that he created. It isn't as if this guy, there's not one of those emails in which he's genuinely concerned for a friend or anything. I mean, look, even the worst people, you know, even Hitler was nice to his dog, right? This, he seems like all he, a lifetime of resentment and anger.

And he hates these guys more than anything. And I think that drove it. I mean, it's very, it's very, the worst thing about it for me is that there's no index. Like the no one's indexed it so you can search on the web. When, when the North Koreans hacked the Sony emails. Oh, yeah. And then WikiLeaks put it on the web and you could, you could like search for your name. And if you ever, if you had, like I did some stuff at Disney.

I mean, at Sony in those years. And so I went and looked for my name because I could see what the business affairs people were emailing to each other back and forth about my contract and my this and that. It was really fascinating. But they were kind of like, they weren't really lying. There was one moment where it was like, oh, I got it. I see what you guys are up to. But mostly, you know, people, even in even. males, they're not twirling their mustache, but this guy, and I don't think he is either, but you could tell that there's just, he just, he's a, this is, I think were he alive today, he would not be disappointed at the wholesale reputational destruction that he has created.

Yeah, you know, I had not picked up on that angle of him, Rob, I have to confess that there's a real malice there born of, you know, anger and resentment and whatever. I miss that. But, yeah, I did enjoy, I mean, I have not been combing through these things, but you can't avoid some of it. Boy, Woody Allen sure turns up a lot. Yeah. Emails, right? Yeah.

Wanting Epstein to broker, you know, small bit parts in his movies, and, you know, can I meet all kinds of crazy stuff? Yeah, I mean, I think, but Epstein kind of knew, I mean, like the devil. The devil, the devil always appears to you as a solution. Yeah. Right. Like it's whatever your weakness is is what the devil is going to say. I could take care of that for you.

Right. It's never, it's never something, and it's never even something grand. Like, I can make you king of the world. I mean, that's how we imagine it. But really, when the devil comes to you, he says, look, I know this, this little thing is bothering you. Let me help you. Let me help you finance your movie. And I can sell some, I'll sell some walk on.

So before you know, you'll have all the money you need. Okay. Yeah. That's how it starts. Right. If you believe in the devil, that's obviously. Well, yes, I do. I mean, right.

Well, maybe this is the time to do this. I was going to bring it up later. But, you know, so I'm still out in California for some crazy reason. By the way, here's a new one for you that I was talking about just yesterday, some people here in Texas. A $365 million bike lane, eight miles along the L.A. River, which, as you know, is a storm drain. It's concrete channel, right? It was supposed to be open last year. They haven't started construction, and the construction trust is now estimated to be over a billion dollars all in for eight miles along the L.A. River.

And how is this possible? That's just a measure of the comprehensive failure of California. It's already concrete. What do they have to do? Exactly. I know that's really. How hard is it a bike path on the L.A. River, which is empty 99% of the time, as you know, right? Also going to have to spend a million dollars to pay people to use it. Only California.

Exactly. No one wants to ride there. Oh, my gosh. But that brings me to your, well, your former industry, right? Which I know we've talked about how it's in free fall in California because of high cost and everything else. And the latest idea that apparently Governor Newsom is talking about is, well, we have to come up with some subsidies and tax breaks for the Hollywood industry in California, which is,

you know, do we have to have subsidies to take coals to Newcastle? I mean, it's unbelievable to think that what has been one of the premier industries of California for 100 years was on such hard times that it needs. And I know Georgia and Oklahoma and all these other states, New Mexico, are trying to lure the film industry. But California, you would think would have such an advantage, like Las Vegas has an advantage. I mean, casino gaming is spread all over the country, but Las Vegas still thrives because none of those places can offer what Las Vegas does. And I've always thought Hollywood will always offer what all those other states can't offer even. with bribes. Yeah, I think it's probably true in some respect.

I mean, the problem with it is that we say it's runaway production, they call it in show business, runaway productions, leaving LA. But there was too much production for, you know, the past 15, 20 years. So it's sort of like, you think about them as oil wells, right? You know, you drive through oil towns and like you see these derricks that are not being used or the oil pumps that aren't going up and down, up and down, up and down. And why is that? It's just because of the price of oil, it's not worth it.

those things will start moving when it makes economic sense, right? We just over-invested in show business in TV shows, frankly, mostly. Streaming services now needed 25, 30, 40, 50, 50, 60, 100 originals, right? So they all had to be made. They had to be made somewhere. So if production went down to where it was when I started or midway around there, that would probably be, that's probably the outcome. The problem with the budget is money is fungible.

So if I get the state to pay for something and say, we're not going to pay for the big star salaries, we're only going to pay for this or this or this. Well, guess what's going to happen to the star salaries? They're going to suck up the – because the truth is, no matter what – how you pay for it, the people who are – whose faces are on the screen, really for the – not for the first time, but for the most extreme time ever, they are more important.

It costs $10 million to $20 million. launch a title, whether it's a movie or TV show or anything, into a public consciousness. Every time you don't have to, every million dollars you don't have to spend to try to tell people what the show's about who's in it, it's money in the bank. So you want a recognizable star. You want to build on, that's why they, that's why the reboots that aren't really reboots. That's why all the tie-ins to things. That's why all the stars.

Like you just, I need to, you need to watch the TV show with the actor whose name you know, rather than have me try to introduce you to some name, it gets too risky, even though you and I both would say, well, that's dumb, because look at the biggest hits in cable streaming in the past 10, 15 years, and they've starred nobody's. Right, right. But that's risky, so. Well, a follow-up question.

I distinctly remember you here on Rickettsay, I'm going to say five, six years ago at the height of COVID, looking ahead to after COVID. And you made a comment about how, ah, there's the pipelines drying up, And so right now, all the Hollywood production companies are greenlighting anything that walks through the door, something like that. And, you know, I watch some of these streaming shows now or I'll dial them up. And I have two thoughts. One is the production values are really, really good.

And the acting is kind of average to mediocre, and the plots aren't very good. It's just not very good. And I sometimes wonder if the high production values now are actually an impediment to people enjoying a show. Because I look at the old reruns of 70s sitcom, so taxy or whatever. And I always thought, you know, they're kind of grainy compared to what we have today. Sometimes the laugh track is too much. The lines are clunky, but it worked, right? It's like a couple old coat.

And some of these shows now try too hard, it seems to me, and I don't know what this is going to go. Well, I mean, look, it's going to have to go with less, right? That's usually the solution is that you, when a bubble burst, everybody has to figure out what they really want to do in their lives. And some people are, you know, look, there is no way around it. if there are going to be fewer people working in show business in a year than there are now. And everybody's waiting for the other person to leave first. Right. And it's not how that works.

Like you got to like if you could leave you. I would say this to anybody. If you haven't worked in six months to nine months in any capacity in show business and you can leave, leave. Yeah. Your life will be immeasurably, immeasurably healthier. But no one's listening to me when I say that. I know, right. Well, they will as soon as you become father, Rob. Yeah, they're able to order them. Yeah, exactly.

Right. So, you know, I was in Washington, D.C. a week ago today, and it was two degrees. Which, you know, I mean, I lived in Washington for 15 years, and I don't ever remember being that cold. And it's been that cold for a while. And I think it's still cold up where you are. I know I've had some people freeze to death. What's the answer for this? I mean, do we just need thicker blankets? What do we need to do? Well, I mean, look, there's no answer to being cold. I mean, we're cold. I mean, I remember it was people talking about this.

We've never had a snowstorm like this. Like, well, we had one in 2017 and in 2018. We have them at every, you know, five, six, seven years. I'm not making an argument about climate change for or against, but this is not, this does not seem unprecedented to me. I remember when I was producing a show that was, we were shooting out on Long Island, and there was two weeks there where I had to wake up because I was running the show, super, early to hear whether because the unions require certain, you know, closures and insurance requires certain standards for closures.

And then the lawyer, the studio lawyer who would decide whether you, you know, they were not, the studio would not want to be liable for any accidents to close. That studio lawyer was conveniently located in Los Angeles. So I'd have to wake that guy up at three in the morning, which he hated. I was like, but yes, you're going to be up at three in the morning. And he had to make the decision whether we as a studio, we as a studio could open. And that's because the snow is so terrible. And it's not that bad.

It wasn't that bad this year. So it's cold and then suddenly it's warm. You know, then you've got a 32 degree day and then you've got an 11 degree day. And it's called winter. Yeah, right. And then comes summer and it's all climate change all the time. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah, it's summer's like, oh, my God, it's ever been this hot. Right. Yeah, yes, it has, actually a year ago. A little bit the last time it was hot. Right. Yeah. And then the other question is, even if you've got the right accoutrements for coping with the weather,

what do you do for your long-term future, which is a different kind of fabric? Well, I hope that that is not a segue, because if it is... That's a terrible one, I know. Oh, my gosh. On a scale of one of Lilacs, that's like a three. But, okay, he's sick. So, like, you wouldn't want to show him up. Right. That's actually fine because, you know, as you know, it's like last year it was winter and last year was summer.

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Price is subject to underwriting health questions, Fabric.com. And we thank Fabric for sponsoring this, the Rickashay podcast, as James always likes to add. Well, all right, let's turn to another, I guess, collapsing industry, collapsing media property in the Washington Post, right? And I'm sorry James is not here today. I bet he has some mixed feelings about this as an old ink-stained wretch, and I sympathize with that.

My first job out of college a long time ago was doing local news reporting for a suburban daily that no longer exists. And I realized then it was an unpromising professional field. I had no idea to be so bad. But the Post, what to say about this? First of all, I knew the progression. I think you know these numbers. So, Mariana Huffington sold the Huffington Post, was it 20 some years ago for, as I recall, $300 million. I don't even know the Huffington Post still exists. Yeah, I think it's a bucket shop now, but I think it is. Yeah, and then so then, you know, a few years later, Jeff Bezos buys the Washington Post for $250 million.

You know, this legendary publication with a, you know, a seemingly usable built-in market. And that's couch cushioned change for him, of course. and that's what's annoying so many people who are laid off this week, who seem to think they're entitled to endless subsidies from him. So a couple of points. One is, you know, the New York Times is thriving financially. I mean, they're making lots of money, and, you know, the Post was losing $100 million a year. The difference there, I think you probably know, and listeners may know,

is it's not from ads and news coverage. It's from all the collateral things they did. They figured out early on the crossword puzzle. They bought Whartle. They do games. They bought a couple of proprietary. What's it called the – there's a sports site they bought that people – Yeah.

They paid extra for. So, you know, they figured out the digital media world that cross-subsidizes the old-fashioned news. Although I think they've shrunk that a little bit. I think they have, yeah. But I remember years ago, people were talking – a very famous venture capitalist had a thing he had on Twitter. He called the New York Times Death Watch. Ah.

And we're going to watch it, watch the New York Times die. Of course, they are. They're awesome-eyed and slow. and you look at what they've done and they have whether they've announced it or not I mean obviously the York Times for to you me as we are enraged at their headlines and their editorializing on the front page all that stuff right but still what they realized was like a long hard mirror look at the mirror they said what are we really we are a service business and they used to have if you want to go see a movie or you wanted to go to a play or you wanted to go to a restaurant or you want to live your life

The New York Times you looked at because it gave you all that information. The theater section told you what was playing in the movie theaters and all that stuff. And they doubled down on those things. Now, they weren't, nobody checks the newspaper to see where the movies are. But their food section is terrific. And I do, look, I do wordle. I do the crossword every day. And I do the crossword.

I get a paper delivered, which is a sign of geriatric, you know, right? mental decline, but I still do it. And the humility it takes to see what you really are, not what you've become thanks to the internet, what you always were. These newspapers were always that. They just got a little too big for their britches over the past 20, 30 years when we were flooded with journalism, students, and all sorts of nonsense that they went to school to study journalism, all this BS that they swallowed and preened around with themselves, which was

ridiculous, right? now they're faced with okay what why do I read this every day and there are reasons why people do you just have to give them those reasons and instead I mean I remember I mean this is a this is a dumb I'm not talking out of school this was so long ago having dinner um back when I used to hang around with Rupert Murdoch having dinner with Rupert Murdoch and peter Robinson and we were with Rupert in L.A and uh we were sort of talking about what you know What would you do if you were Rupert Murrow, right? And he goes, I don't know.

I said, well, would you ever buy the L.A. Times? And he said, no. And I said, well, don't you? And I tried to explain to him what I thought L.A. was. Like L.A. is this big, sprawling, Baroque city. It's all his movie stars and like sex scandals and creepy weird murders and gangline. I was like amazing. So this is a tabloid city.

It's got no tabloid. And he kind of looked at it and it's like, huh. But he said, well, you know, even the New York Post doesn't make that much money and it's hard. Well, guess what he's doing? Yep. Yep. I'm going to come to that. There's a tabloid in California.

The California Post, I think it's called basically the New York Post for California, which is like very East Coast centered, which is like, well, New York City, it's one tabloid. And all of California gets another, but it might work. But that's what people want. Page six. Right. You know, the recipes, puzzle, sports scores. You know, your time's about wirecutter, which is a terrific consumer products review site.

What do they want? They want service. And then, you know, let's be honest. It's great that you have a Beirut Bureau. Right. Nobody's like, that's not what's driving me. no one's ever picked up the newspaper because they've said i wonder what you know what about what it's happening in singapore it's like why were there all those sirens down the street

why why why were the cops surrounding that house that i drove home on the way over work that's what they want to know what's going on yeah stuff right i think the california post already has a staff of 80 in their you know adding more you know all different kinds of positions their offices in um Century City. Yeah. Which I think makes sense. I mean, downtown LA, as you know, is all bankers and lawyers and it's kind of boring. Yeah.

The other side of town is where the action is. Also, they already own the space. Correct. Yeah, so it's like, I'm not spending any money. We've got no fancy offices for you people. You're going to be in the offices that we already have. I think it's true. I also, I mean, I also, I remember, okay, years ago, I was talking to a

New York, L.A. Times reporter. She was pretty high up there. And I was saying, look, I've lived in L. I lived in LA for 20 years at that's at that point. I believe for 20 years. And you're always driving everywhere. So I've seen the whole city. I have no idea where anything is.

Like, L.A. is one of those places where I would say to people, where was Roddy King beaten by the police? And they always think South Central. No, no, it was way out in the Far Valley, Pekoyama, way, way out there, practically on the other side of like, almost in Seymie alley, actually. Almost Ventura County, right. Yeah, right.

Yeah. Nobody knows where anything is. I said every LA Times article, first of all I said, cover more murders, cover more crime. If it bleeds, it leads, do that stuff. But also, you used to have a graphic inset on every article of where this took place. And she said, oh, well, we're not interested in doing that. So, okay. Yeah.

Yeah, I mean, I grew up with the LA Times and actually knew the Chandler family slightly when they still owned it. And, you know, it was a real paper back then, right? Yeah. And including with foreign bureaus, because that was the flush. days for newspapers. On the other hand, you talk about giving people what they want. One of the numbers that came out this week about the post is they laid off 16 of their 19 climate change reporters. Now, it doesn't matter what you think about the whole climate change issue. The point is, is that we know repeated surveys, Pew, Gallup, everybody else. That issue is a snoozer

for the overwhelming number of Americans. Even it turns out environmentalists rank climate change below local things like air pollution, trees, and parks and air quality and stuff. Rotter, exactly. They prioritize the local. And so, I mean, the only reason they hired that is because, you know, the people who thought they were smarter than the rest of us said, oh, we need to just jam people with climate change coverage instead of covering murders and, you know, the fun stuff. Well, I'll tell you, I mean, we talked about this a little time the last time we talked,

but, you know, look, I spent all my day thinking about, you know, lofty big things, Steve. You know, I'm not like you down there in the gutter of politics and policy. I'm, you know, elevated here. But, and I sometimes I do wonder, and I know most of the ricochet listeners will roll their eyes at this because they've made up their mind about me years ago. But I'm like, you know, I don't want to get too soft here. Like, I don't want to become, you know, some kind of woke, whatever. And so I was driving to the library the other day. And usually I walk, but it was too cold.

So I'm driving. And I have too many books and I'm too old to carry them. And I heard an NPR report about a health care, some health care initiative, health care agency, and not federal, but it's a nonprofit about climate change. And that, of course, as you know, I don't know if you knew this, Steve, but the climate change has a bigger effect on women and minorities than anybody else. Your climate change is different from somebody else's climate change. And I was never thinking like, what?

That's bananas. And as I pulled into library, the interviewer said, well, you know, some people are going to hear that. And I'm not saying I agree with them. But someone can hear that. I wonder how exactly that affects, doesn't affect all of us equally? And the person had to stop. I had to stop park and I was there. But I had to listen to this answer.

And the answer was this weirdly contorted thing that maybe if, you know, climate change has happened and you are displaced due to climate change, which, of course, we've seen already. And I was like, wait, where? I don't remember seeing that, but, you know, this woman insisted that there have been great migrations because of climate change, that those women may enter to a new place that doesn't have the same health access that they enjoyed from where they can. Like, that is the most bizarre use case I've ever heard of.

But so I felt better about myself. Okay, well, if I can recognize that, I know I'm still kind of sound philosophically. But again, it is one of those things where, of course, now how many reporters are covering that beat? And if you're covering that beat, then you have to be looking for a reason to be covering that beat. So it's going to be everything. And then when no one wants to read it, you get mad at Jeff Bezos. Yeah, there's been a real Gresham's law, you know, bad money drives out good of environmental reporting generally. But, I mean, there are a few mainstream reporters

whose work on climate I have respected over the years like Andy Revkin of the New York Times. But he left the New York Times a decade ago. And partly it was he did not always tow the party line 100%. And he's a big believer. I mean, he's not a skeptic. And that's what happens. And you're left with a lot of hacks who do these crazy things.

I mean, you know, you talk about life-imitating art. You must know the old joke. It was back to the 80s about how the major papers would cover the end of the world coming tomorrow. You know, right. You know, the USA today says, world to end tomorrow, but we're grinning and bearing it. The Wall Street Journal, World to End Tomorrow, Markets to Close early, see page A9 for details. The New York Times would be World to End Tomorrow, women and minorities hardest hit.

Right. And then the Washington Post, who we're talking about now, would have said, world to end tomorrow, Reagan policies blamed. Yeah, right? And now that's what we're reading. It's unbelievable, right? Yeah. And it's like it's a funny thing because you ask yourself, I mean, wouldn't you, if you're running a business, wouldn't, I mean, any business, don't you look at the people in that same sector who are doing well and steal their ideas and do those things?

That is how you do it. That is like, I don't know. You don't have to get a business. I didn't go to business school. Even I know that's how you do it. And you try to make French fries as the way that McDonald's makes French fries because people seem to like the McDonald's French fries. So don't overthink it. grow a brain. The Washington Post,

the only had only had, really had the only three newspapers in New York, in the country that had circulation and kind of the heft. And that was the LA Times, the Washington Post, and the New York Times. And of those three, only one really exists, and one is thriving. And the solution

would be, just do that. Right. Right. Well, the Murdoch example again. So the Wall Street Journal has been profitable forever. but it gives, it fills them a big important niche with financial reporting, right? Yeah, exactly. And part of that service, of course, is the editorial page.

They've always said, back to the Robert Bartley days, it's the only editorial page in America that sells subscriptions, which is right. And then Fox News, of course, was a stroke of genius, hugely profitable. Yeah. So, you know, I'd always heard a New York Post ran in the red, and you think it's profitable. I don't know, maybe it is. Oh, no, I don't think it's profitable, but I mean, I'm sure that New York, oh, no, no, the New York Post does run in the red, but a little bit.

But it's enough that, you know, dad likes it. Right. Yeah. When dad goes, it'll probably go. Yeah. Could be. That's right. Well, we'll see.

And meanwhile, I'm very curious about Scott Jennings on CNN, which, you know, CNN's ratings are terrible. Yeah. But I'll bet if we actually got the, you know, hour by hour numbers, maybe they're out there and I just haven't looked. But I'll bet Scott Jennings is attracting some viewers. yours say oh finally there's somebody on CNN who's different from all the other cloned uh lefties um so i don't know i think i think that like that could be i mean the solution is is never not been to

in my opinion the solution has never not been to like have a bunch of voices if you're going to have voices have a bunch of them that's how cnn was to begin with they they had conservatives liberals yelling at each other it was crossfire was um they decided not to do that for a while and they, you know, but look, cable news rankings came out today. Right. Number one show is the five. Yeah.

Number two shows that is Jesse Waters. Number three shows Gutfeld, and I know Gutfeld, right? I'm sure right now he's trying to convince them to say that he's actually number two, not number three, that Jesse Waters. Brett Baer. Right. Sean Hannity.

Laura Ingram. America Reports. That's number seven. And I think, I'm just trying to like that. That's what they call the box news every, that's their every weekday news. That's their standard news. Will Kane and Martha McCallum. Yeah.

So what do they know that you don't? Yeah. Right. The solution is so obvious, right? But they'll never do it. Right. Oh, one more entertainment question, and then we're ready to get out. I've got an exit question for you, but one more entertainment question.

I've been following the fight who's going to acquire. Is it Warner Brothers? Netflix is going to buy it, and Paramount's parachuted in, said, no, we want to buy it. And I don't know, I'm a cynic and thought maybe Paramount was just trying to make Netflix have to pay more and have to pay cash just to punish them. It seems like a bad idea to me, but what do I know? It's a bad idea for either one of them. I think it's the worst idea for Netflix. Yeah. I think that strategy could have been correct, but it flipped.

Paramounts always wanted to buy it. I think Netflix came in and offered. Nobody should buy it. These things are too big. They need to be smaller. The system works better when it's atomized. And unfortunately, everyone's going to have to learn that by losing a whole lot of money. The solution isn't to have the government step in, which is I think they want antitrust to come in, which is stupid. in the same way the government shouldn't be subsidizing production at all. The California taxpayer shouldn't be subsidizing the cost of a making of a movie. All those things have to be worked out the proper way, which is with a lot of pain and screaming. But that's the only way to solve certain problems.

Right, right. All right. Exit question, not exactly personal, but it's a new semester, new year. What are you reading either for class or on your own, just for your own education? What's got your attention right now? I don't do any reading that isn't related to my – because that's just not having time. You know time. Yeah.

I'm behind on the reading I have to do. But I am reading – the only two things I am reading that are interesting that are kind of – they're not directly assigned. One is I'm finally getting through Dominion, Tom Holland's fantastic book about sort of like a kind of a swooping up and down look at the history of Christianity, which is great. And juicy and he's a wonderful writer, so it's great. And I'm reading this Yale historian named Carlos Eyre who wrote a wonderful book called Reformation which is 900 billion thousand pages long but he's a wonderful writer.

So it's not dry history, it's great. But the one I'm reading right now is called They Flew. And it's a story of, he takes an historian's look at the accounts of the saints. And he says if you have, you know, for our history, historical accuracy criteria. It's, you know, multiple accounts that are spread out. And then multiple unique accounts, like, no one would make this up unless it was true. And it's hard to say, it's hard to understand how a bunch of people in different places at different times who didn't know each other would have the same account of some bananas things, some saint did, like fly.

Right. And he's like, well, you just have to be. He doesn't go as far. I mean, I'm not finished it yet, but he's a wonderful writer, so it's a great. And I actually think that that is something on the horizon, the new kind of area of theological, historical inquiry, which is okay, well, what if the world is a lot weirder than we think it is? And whether we agree it is, it's a fascinating thought experiment. So I recommend that book. Yeah.

I think Peter Robbins. Robinson brought up that title. Some weeks ago, I think it's the episode when we had Charles Murray on to talk about his taking religion seriously book, if I recall that. I've got the Tom Holland book on my ridiculously long reading pile or tall reading pile that I never quite get through. But yeah, it looks really good. It's good.

It's juicy. And it's like you can kind of flip through it. I mean, I don't, you know, I don't want to say that. I mean, there are sections that you're like, I want to read, you know, the Benedictine rule section. Yeah. I have a, I actually got to put the list together of books that are like that where you could just turn to almost any page. And the writing is so good and so well-constructed that you just enjoy it, even if you haven't done all the stuff before it. And, you know, that's very few books. But I have a few that most of them are older. People don't write in that

style anymore. Holland is an exception. But, well, all right. Listeners, as the old Car Talk guys have said, you've just wasted another perfectly good hour listing to me and Rob. Yeah, my God, yeah. This is fine. We should just more often. Of course. Obviously, I want James to get well. Yeah, right. I wouldn't want him to be, you know, but it's kind of fun.

Right. Oh, and Charlie Cook has had an on-fire Twitter game this week. He's got a good Twitter game anyway, but he's really been firing left and right on all cylinders. In any case, this podcast was brought to you by Fabric. Please support them for supporting us. And join Rickashay to become a member of the best site for Civil Center Right conversation. As always, please take a minute to leave a five-star review on. Apple Podcasts. Your reviews bring us more listeners, and that helps to keep the show growing

and helps to keep us amused as well. So we'll see you in the comments, everyone. Great to see you, Rob. Hope to see you again soon. See you soon. Rickshaw, join the conversation.