Tomorrow - Episode 15: Brian Stelter and the Future of Josh

Episode Date: July 19, 2015

As the host of Reliable Sources on CNN, former New York Times' media reporter Brian Stelter is one of the smartest and sharpest critics in journalism today. Always looking for a scoop, Brian is the first reporter to sit down with Josh after his departure from Bloomberg. The discussion naturally covers Josh's thoughts on his time at Bloomberg and what he plans for the future, but the two also talk about the past, present, and future of media, analyze the art of editing, and come up with euphemisms for Donald Trump's recent comments about Mexicans. This one is not to be missed! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey and welcome to Tomorrow. I'm your host, Josh Wittepulski. Today on the show we'll discuss the Duggers, Donald Trump, and my future. But first, a word from our sponsor. This episode is brought to you by Canary, a new approach to home security. Canary is a complete home security system packed into a single device. Unlike old systems, Canary is built to learn. Whenever it detects something out of the ordinary in your home, Canary sends alerts with HD

video and audio straight to your phone. That way, you can keep an eye on your kids or your pets when you're stuck at work. Find out the oven was left on before it's too late or stop burglars with a swipe of your finger. Find out the oven was left on before it's too late or stop burglars with a swipe of your finger pick up your canary today when you visit dub dub dub dot meat canary dot com slash to Polskie My guest today is an amazing magnificent wonderful man Brian Stelter He is the host of CNN's Reliable Sources, formerly of the New York Times.

He wrote a book about morning TV called Top of the Morning. Brian, thank you for being here. Thank you. I think that, we'll see what happens. That is my best, that was my best intro ever for anybody. Magnificent, I think you said? Well, no, I mean, just the fact that I didn't screw something up, I felt like I really brought that one home. You did just practice a 30 seconds ago. That's true

Well, you know practice makes perfect any up broadcast is hard It's radio is hard you know the cast are hard. They are very hard You know this because you've gone from writing words that were printed out and mailed to people Sent to people given thrown to people and now it also went all the way But now you are on TV every day? No, once a week. You know, the show is once a week, and then I'm on during the week covering lots of different stories.

You know, today there were lots of different stories going on, whether it was a canceled TV show or, you know, Caitlin Jenner. What got canceled? 19 Kids Encounting, ATLC Show. Okay. That's okay. You can read about it online. Caitlin Jenner gave that big sp.B.s speech this week.

There's been lots and media stories in the news. There's the Ronda Rousey thing. Is that your name? This is kind of an amazing. I haven't actually seen the clip. My understanding is there was an award at the S.B.s for Best Fighter. It's kind of overall. And like May weather was in there and a bunch of other dudes.

And Ronda Rousey, that is her name, right? Yeah, and she you have see fighter. That's right. I know where cuz of her star-turn on tarage the movie Oh, right that shows you how I know my that's the thing where most people know her from Shry not refer to today things that's fine. Okay, we can say that this well I'll say Brian just asked I'll avoid it from now on I was just he just asked me if he should refer to today. And I was, this is, but we're all about transparency that tomorrow podcasts. All of us here.

You can say today, but the people who are listening to this will hear it on Monday. Got it. So who knows what's going to happen between now and Monday? We can do this as if it's Monday. That would be interesting. We could make up stories. I can't believe what Obama said.

Actually, that would be a story probably because every day there's some new thing where it's like, oh my god, Obama said that. He's unplugged lately. That's the new storyline. god, Obama said that. He's unplugged lately. That's the new storyline. Actually, we're doing that for my show this weekend. The idea of Obama unleashed, whether it's him talking to Mark Marren or going to a prison with Vice or talking about Cosby at a presidential press conference.

It's crazy. He does feel free now. It seems like he's wrapping it up and he's, this is the Obama that I feel like we elected. I feel like this is the Obama. I feel like Obama was much freer and much more aggressive in the early days. And even on the campaign trail, I guess he's shifted. There's been some moments, but there was a real period

a few years ago where everybody felt like Obama had kind of blown his opportunity to be this like really electric presidential figure versus the kind of like going with the plan, going with the company plan. And I think he's kind of done in the back end of it has actually done that. Well, if this is President Obama on leash to imagine President Trump on leash. Okay, we're going to get to that.

Wait a second. I want to finish talking about Ronda Rousey. Did you cover this? I did not cover that. You cover this story. She said, um, how does it feel to give you by a woman to may weather? Which so apparently may weather has been, he's been in jail or arrested a few times for domestic violence. I thought it was pretty amazing. This is not important at all to our show. I just wanted to mention the anecdote

or make a note of that. I will Google it. So, so you were at the New York Times. You were writer, covering media. I guess I should say, hold on, be since we this is the week, there's been a lot of news about me in the media. I should talk about it a little bit. What news? Yes, there's been a little bit. Tell us what happened. I'm not that important compared to candidate Trump, really, and the grand scheme of things.

Well, we're talking on your first day after you go by party, aren't we? I did have my going away party last night from I'm leaving Bloomberg. I wrote a Tumblr post. I know the popular thing to do is medium, but I like to go, I like to go, you know, a little bit left to center.

I like to just, you know, I think everybody's doing medium goodbye posts. I'm gonna do my goodbye post on Tumblr, you know? Could make a comeback. Anyhow, so I'm leaving Bloomberg and some, there was some stuff about it. So is this podcast not your full-time job? This is now what I do for a living.

So it's gonna become a daily and we're gonna have to really sell some way more advertisements. Was it surreal to be covered? And cover it? It's always surreal. You must know this having left. I mean, when you left the times.

It's not easy sometimes. When you left the times, you were covered and people talked about it. Well, and then recently now that I'm on TV, I sometimes receive more press attention. Yeah. Sometimes completely normal and comfortable and fair, even if uncomfortable, fair.

But then those other times where you read about yourself and you feel like they're writing about an entirely different person. Yeah. Because it's that different from the truth. It's that far from reality. Give me an example. Can you give me an example?

Something like that. There's that far from reality. Give me an example. Can you give me an example? Something like that. There's not a very good recent one, but you know, it makes me, when I'm covering people, whether they're public figures or private figures, want to be more empathetic. You know, that's a David Carr word, by the way, empathetic. He was always so empathetic in his writing, partly because of his past and his history. I think whenever you're written about, and by the way, I think all reporters should have to go through it. They should have to experience it,

because it makes you as a reporter and a writer more empathetic toward your subjects. It also, I found, and this has happened a couple of times. I mean, there's things flare up here and there, but you learned something new about reporting that you didn't know when you're the subject, and you see what I think is always funny is you see people do moves, do your moves.

What do you mean? You know, you see people that ask the kind of question that you would ask. Even though you don't want to be asked to get the kind of answer right, to get the kind of answer and you go, I know this move, I know what you're doing. I see how that could work.

It was so strange, I was one of the many people writing about you, departing from Bloomberg. And you know what? Did you write about me? Well, I guess you didn't see my story. I didn't see my story. What happens when you did it? So I wrote this video about you.

I wrote this video about you. That was my. That was yours. Okay, I just missed the byline. That's okay. Most people don't pay attention to byline. Why do you? See us self-important writers,

we think everyone pays attention. The pros, I do want to know what you're thinking of. I'm just reading the CNN story. I thought, whoever wrote this is fucking magnificent. They're really, I remember thinking this guy, whoever this guy or girl can know is so right now. They're ass off.

Anyhow, sorry, you say. Well, here, you know what I would have asked you, if you would return to my messages, was, do you feel like you accomplished anything? You know, I mean, it's really hard to go in from a startup environment to go into a place with a really entrenched culture. Bloomberg's been around for decades.

Yes, yes. And Bloomberg actually more than I think a lot of businesses, I mean, I was at AOL and that had a very entrenched culture. And even Fox had had it has a very entrenched culture is very different than at Bloomberg. But Bloomberg is also, it's Bloomberg. Right, I mean, literally, it's Mike Bloomberg's business. His name is on the door.

It is all about stemming from this one man and this one vision. So it's more than just, this is how we've always done it at IBM. It's like, this is how this guy's always done it, and so that is the whole company. So there is a lot of entrenched, very focused, fixed culture there. But I think we accomplished an enormous amount. I think the only reason that I could have possibly felt comfortable with leaving as early as I have is realizing that we had accomplished many of the big things that I thought were gonna be hardest.

Like a piece like the What is Code piece, I mean, I hate to keep bringing it out, but it's a really good example because everybody's read it. Yeah. A year ago you couldn't have done that. And you just couldn't have done it at Bloomberg, not just because not to say that people wouldn't have wanted to do it and they did do some really cool feature work, you know.

But the sort of collaboration and the tools that you need to do it and the focus having a team on digital really focused and rebuilt and restructured to do that sort of thing. So I feel like I accomplished a lot, but I mean the reality about Bloomberg is that it is the decades old business that it is. And there are certainly places where I think I felt

pretty strongly that I wasn't gonna be able to do. I mean, if you've read the verge and then you read like bloomberg.com. I think you see like, I'm a weird guy. I mean, I am like a strange dude, people who listen to this podcast know probably better than anybody, that I'm a stranger. And like, I wanna cover all that stuff. And I don't know am like a strange dude, people who listen to this podcast know probably better than anybody, than I'm a stranger.

And I wanna cover all that stuff. And I don't know that like a business outlet is ultimately the best place for me to do everything that I wanna do or do. Yeah, and that's what you said in your blog post on Tumblr about us. Yeah. Which I wrote,

which I wasn't planning on writing that day. I actually was in a hotel room in San Francisco and the story leaked. I'd not accurately accurate version of the story kind of leaked out there. And I thought, well, I have to say, I wrote a letter to my team actually, that day, saying a lot of the same stuff

because obviously I wanted to tell them not have it be like in the paper or whatever. But yeah, I wrote that rather quickly. So I went back and read it today, actually, to make sure that it wasn't completely insane. And that does talk a lot about it, but it also talks a lot about my frustration with, and this is not about Bloomberg,

but in the media landscape. Digital media culture. I mean, I found myself agreeing with so much of what you were saying about the sameness that feels like it infects so much of the web brain. I mean, we're in a really weird place, you know, and without, you know, without, you know, accusing publishers or outlets of doing this, you know, I think it's, it's worth saying. And I believe it's really strong. And I feel this as a reader and as a

consumer of this stuff, that we're in a place where I just feel like we have such an elevated sense of how big your audience needs to be and how you have to capture that audience. And so it's the pressure from advertisers in ad supported businesses, the pressure from advertisers coupled with the pressure of like the peer pressure really of building these like mega brands in media

for the entrenched players, it's about keeping their mega brands for the new players. It's like, how can I get to these massive numbers as quickly as possible? And then you've got, like, you can get juice by things like Facebook or Twitter. And suddenly, like, those massive numbers seem like they're yours for the taking. But the reality is that my favorite publications, the things that I've most loved reading, probably don't have the largest audience. They probably are a much more niche,

much smaller specific audience. I think when at the verge as an example, when we started building that, yes, we wanted to build something big. And we said this thing, we always said, did vox, quality at scale. But it was built with the intention of, that I felt, you would get to a place

and you would just say, we're good here. Let's ride this out. Let's develop the sensibility. Let's develop the concepts, the stories. We did a lot of that. I mean, I touched on this a bit in that letter as well, but admittedly, I felt a bit of sort of anxiousness in boredom there too.

But I also think, you know, Vox was getting to a place when I left where it was to start to build to the major, the mass of level. And I think for me that like has a bit of a numbing effect. I think it just doesn't, it's not appealing to me. I don't think I'll be able to, I don't think what I, what I can do best is for every single person, you know.

That sounds maybe elitist or something. I don't mean it to sound that way. I just think I can connect with people in a certain way on certain things and there's a limit to those people and I'm fine with that. I actually think we should be more fine with it in media. Well, is it in a version of trying to be an expert, trying to tailor something, trying to do something really well

as opposed to trying to do everything? Well, and everybody feels like they're doing everything now. That's actually, you know, and I mean Buzzfeed is obviously the easiest example. And that's where you were really getting at in the heart of your book. Yeah, I mean, you know, you look at fusion and you look at, by the way, all great people work in there. Great, they do great, great stories. It's not, yeah, it's not about the individuals.

It's about the incentives. No, it's right. It's just thinking about myself this week, I, you know, the Emmy Awards, the nominations came out on Thursday. And I, and I think probably dozens of other people wrote a version of the same story, which was Amazon now is getting nominated for Emmys, the place where you buy your, whatever,

you're not getting nominated for Emmys. And on days like that, I always wonder, was that the best use of my time? Right, but also you need those. Also, did we cover the Amazon Emmy story when a transparent one and i'm the golden globe well i'm the golden globe we did the amie story last year on netflix we're gonna do it here for a whole new and the amies last year i don't think they were that last

year but they were this year you know there are days where i might be part of the problem however i also tell myself to you also tell myself that i wrote the you know what what else can you tell yourself? You wrote the best version. You wrote the best, or with the best details, or with the most knowledge. You can, and I can defend those in my mind all day, but it does get, we all can. Realistically though, there is a glut

of that kind of content online. I just think that, I just think that, and who knows if I would ever figure out the answer to the problem, I don't know if I can or would or, and that's what, you know, I don't know if I can or would or, and that's what, you know, I don't know, like, hey, I'll go do this thing over here, or this thing over there, and that'll fix my problem.

You don't know what you're doing next? I have some ideas. I'm nothing set in stone at this point. I am, I have gotten, let me say this, in the last, you know, less than a week, almost a week now, I've gotten some of the most interesting emails I've ever gotten in my entire life. I mean, you know, I have to say,

if I, have you ever been a free agent before? No, actually, this is a big, this is actually something I was just talking to somebody about, you know, I've been in these like monogamous relationships with companies. No, I was at AOL, I went to AOL, I started writing as a part-timer and then gadget, you know, became editor, was there for years. You know, we really, you know, we had a plan when everybody started leaving. We were like, let's go find some place, let's

get together and work together again. That was pretty clear. It was a pretty clear move from out of AOL and into, into SB Nation at the time, which became Vox, which we turned into Vox. Then, you know, at the tail end of Vox, the conversation with Bloomberg came up totally out of the blue, it was not planned. I wasn't actually looking, but Justin and I knew each other from years earlier and sort of spied into,

how can I say no to this, right? This is the first time in almost a decade where I have been able to just see what people might want me to do or want, might want to talk to me about. And it's kind of weird. Scary. It's scary. It is scary because obviously.

So free. No, it's amazing. I mean, I keep talking about how I'm just going to like, I'm going to spend like an entire week's playing video games now. Like, my plan is to, I'm going to have at least one week where I just, only the only thing I do entire week's playing video games now like I'm my plan is to I'm gonna have at least one week where I Just only the only thing I do all day is play video games. Are there any good new games out? I've been playing this new Batman game. Are you Xbox PlayStation?

Well, I have both because I'm a huge nerd. I'm sort of required by law to have every game system I Haven't played the what is the new Batman game? It's called Arkham Knight. Hmm. It's very good Far cry for this is great. It's very good. Far Cry 4. This is great stuff. This is good. Okay, so good timing. There's a few things.

There's some games out there. I'm excited. There's a game coming out called Fallout 4. I don't know if you've heard about it at all. That is what I'm most excited about. It's something to be out to on November. I'd like to think that by November, I will have a new job. If I don't have, let's just say if I am not doing something

in November, I'm moving into my parents' base. It's gonna happen. Fitting, I'll take my Xbox and my PlayStation, and I'll just go down there. Perfect. But, you know, anyhow, what were we talking about? We were talking about you. I was around like, digital media incentives.

Well, you like talking about this, this is your thing. Well, you're all about media. Absolutely, I'm the most meta you can possibly get. Right, I mean, you wrote this. This is your thing. Well, you're all about media. Absolutely. I'm the most meta You can possibly get right. I mean you wrote an entire book about morning shows. Let's just like put that in perspective I mean yeah, and I actually tried to write twice as much and they cut half of it out Are you sure? Oh, yeah, I actually went when I when I signed the deal to do the book It was back in 2012 and then it came out in 2000 actually no let me back up I must have signed the deal in 2011 and I thought how am I possible

Gonna write 80,000 words? That's 79,000 more words than I've ever written before turned out I wrote a hundred and fifty thousand words no problem and no problem was the editing as in everything in life Yeah, the editing is my level or something right now. It is true. It's funny about editing is is I think a lot of people don't realize and it takes a while to especially to if you do it, if you're an editor and you're edited, if you know both of the sides of it. The editing is so invisible. I mean, it's invisible to other people.

Right, it's the most... When they read the piece, they see the piece, they see the byline, they know. But the editor can be so instrumental. I mean, actually having just done this, we just did this 38,000 word piece, the code thing. The editing was amazing.

I mean, business week has incredible editors and we had some digital editors who also worked on it on our side. And it was just, you know, it's a gargantuan effort to pull that together. Totally. So yeah, maybe thousand words. Our hardest part about the book was,

I mean, it was probably the hardest thing I've ever done. And it was really figuring out what to cut was was the difficult part you know for the first time i'm uh... try my hand a little bit editing now at cnn at the times i always reported to the media editor uh... and was never doing any of my own but uh... now uh... we have two couple media reporters at cnn money dot com frank and tom who are wonderful reporters really sharp reporters. And occasionally I'll publish their stories, I'll edit and publish their stories.

And it's to, just for the first time, have a chance to be an editor. It's a whole new experience. It is really, yeah. I think I love it. I'm still trying to figure out my feelings about it, but I think I really love it on those days where I feel like I can help make a story better, but make sure it's still their story. I think that's, as opposed to some, I've had experiences with editors at the times

in the past where stories just get ripped up. Yeah, yeah, and they're just writing through you. They're just like, just do it just like this. Just give them the by-line instead of me. I mean, I, you know, I can't remember the last time I actually edited someone's piece, like I actually sat down and went through it line by line and said, okay, here's what to change.

But I did have have just this week, I always have this feeling like, do I have any good ideas as an editor, because one of the things you also do is an editor a lot of the time as you go, hey, what's, why don't we write about, does anybody doing anything on this thing? Or like, hey, what's up with that guy?

Go talk to him, you know? I had this idea a few, and I'm not trying to take credit for it at all, I just made me feel good because it was, I had an idea a few, and I'm trying to take credit for it at all. I just made me feel good because it was an idea a few months ago or weeks ago about kids' clothes because I have a new daughter. Well, relatively, no, she's a new daughter. 18 months old. I mean, she's sort of a regular person.

We were all shopping for clothes and clothes are in toys and they're all like, the blue transformer stuff for the boys or like the dragons or whatever. And then the girl stuff has like a pony. I mean, so crazy gender specific. And for like, you know, for an advanced individual like myself who doesn't believe in gender stereotypes and norms, that's my sarcastic way of sounding cool

and socially, you know, open, which I am. But it was just like, I was like, does it, is it making like more gender neutral clothing for children? Like, well, isn't this gonna be something that we're gonna have to be much more aware of in the future? Did you find out, are you assigning that story right now? No, I assigned the story a great writer of ours, Kim Besson wrote it and a great editor of ours,

Katie Drummond edited it and it's, yeah, it's, and we did a video where we talked to kids about clothes, anyhow, but it did really well and people really liked it and got a great response. And all I, all the point of this was to say, I mean, I didn't do any of the work except like, hey, what's going on with kids clothes? Which seems stupid, but it's got turned

into a really interesting story and it made me feel like my instinct is still pretty good. And that, as an editor, your editorial instincts are kind of everything. If you don't have, basically if you don't have good ideas, you can't help people come up with better ideas. You have to find another job. It gets to your point in your blog post about the sameness,

this sense that everything's the same online, that everyone's writing the same stories. To the extent that editors can say to writers all across the web, go find something new. It's so much more satisfying to write something, write a new sentence that hasn't been written than to rewrite someone else's. That's J School 101, but it's so hard to sometimes live up to that basic value.

It's also an angle. I mean, you find the thing about stories that you feel like you're in the Echocamber. It's like, oh yeah, I read this here, here, and here, but it's exactly, it's like, what's the question that nobody's asking? What's the, what's the way into this that nobody's looked at? Those to me are like often the most exciting kind of stories, but anyhow, so yes, I left

Bloomberg. You left the New York Times to go to CNN. Now, what was that, how did that happen? That, well, it's a lot like what happened with you when you went uh... over to bloomberg in that i wasn't looking for any job uh... i never imagined being in television or on television but i've been covering television for ten years and uh... when cnn called in the summer 2013

it was an itch i had to scratch and see what would happen i suppose it's sort of a weird way to put it but it works so we i've got essentially how we hurts uh... left cnn uh... i guess a week or two earlier, went over to Fox news, hosting the media show there. So CNN had really, this is actually kind of amazing in retrospect, open tryouts on the air. So originally I came in for an off air tryout. I guess I passed it because then I had an on air actually, yeah, because you were actually, you did some sort of guest host. Yeah, guest host. Yeah, guest host. And one second time then a third time who lost. You know, there were a lot of other reporters that were guest hosting. David Valkenflick. Frank says

no, Patrick Gavin. You have done Avlon. Wow. There were a lot of there were others as well. I can go keep going down. Some great names in there. I think I think all of them have been guests on reliable sources now, you know, in the past year and half. You get a weird vibe though. And they're on like this, I could have been sitting in the big chair. Not at all.

Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. Not at all. I feel like, you know, getting your face. Well, they're the best guests because they know television. Right. Because they know the show.

I mean, one of the things you quickly learn in television is you want to have people on television that know how to be on television. But, you know, this guest hosting, it went on for a few months and then toward the end of 2013, they offered the job. It was very hard to think about leaving the times, because I wasn't interested in leaving, and I learned everything I basically know about journalism from the times,

but ended up being a no-brainer, frankly, because I've had a chance to learn television skills, learn video skills, and expand what I think of as a media reporting beat. Yeah, and you're also editing, I mean. Yeah, I mean, I think I kind of as a media reporting beat. And you're also editing. I mean, I think I kind of have a three-part job, like a three-legged stool. Part one is reliable sources on Sundays, 11 a.m. Eastern on CNN.

And then part two is writing stories all week long on the website. Sometimes three or four stories a day. And then the third part is going on TV and talking about those stories. So I think about writing the stories, gives me something to talk about on TV. And then at the end of the week, we sum it all up on reliable sources. And when it works, it works so well. It's kind of handy. I mean, honestly, that's a, I actually never perceived it as well connected, as you just described it. It doesn't work every day. But when it works, it doesn't look like that. But I just, you know, I mean, now you, now you, when you put it that way, it makes a lot of sense.

Well, here's an example. A 19 kids and counting, a reality show on TLC was canceled. And it got canceled. The announcement happened at 10.05 AM, and we confirmed it at 10.10, and we put it online at 10.15, and we were on TV at 10.20. And on those days, that's, to me, that's magic. Is that a big deal?

The cancellation of the show, it was a big deal in kind of certain circles, right? It was a big deal among fans of the show, you know, heartland fans of the show it was a big deal in kind of certain circles right it was a it was a big deal uh... among fans of the show you know heartland fans of the show but it's a kind of thing that was sort of so niche you either you either love the duggers and love the show or you didn't care at all the the duggers show the duggers show uh... okay so this is how i'm sorry i'm very out of touch

nirika you're shaking your head in there do you know that you watch it yet you like the dot it's not the most popular show in New York City. Right. I was more of a red state show. Fox News had the only interview with the victims of Josh Dugger who was accused of trial molestation when he was a teenager. And so the show, there was really no way

to keep it on the air once this controversy happened. It kind of a story that's getting out of very easily. It was not a surprise when they canceled it. But my point is that connection of TV in the web, there's still, in some cases, and I know this from covering television, there's still, at some of the networks, a big difference between what's going on on the website

and what's going on on the TV side. And to the extent that we can be pushing those two sides together, it makes a lot of sense, and it works really well. It makes this to me, I feel this is very true. Actually, let's take a quick break, and then I'm going to get back to this because I think I'm going to start talking. I'm just going to ramble.

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be able to see people robbing you and hopefully stop them. You can check in on family or pets and you can feel safe when you're not at home because you'll be able to see your home from another place. Be one of the first to get Smart Home Security by your canary now when you visit www.meatcanary.com slash to Polsky. So we're back with Brian Stelter. So we were just talking about the sort of marriage of,

like if you've got a T, like CNN's got a TV network, multiple TV network multiple TV networks right I mean they have a bunch of subchamps CNN to does that exist is that a L.M. and CNN international right there you go and then and then the web obviously and CNN is huge on the web yeah I mean a big I mean what are the I mean realize until I got there how big some of the comics go to CNN dot com I mean how many how many people every month oh no that's a tough one. It's like 100 million unique scotas. Let's go with that. I don't know. Let's go with that.

It's in that top tier, right? It's in that top tier. I know, I know, I know, I know. I'm not supposed to. 200 or something. So it's got to be somewhere around there. At any rate, it's got a huge presence on the web. For storytelling, for proper art,

now listen, I don't agree with everything that CNN does. They have their moments. Sure, you're aware of it. I'm sure everyone has their moments. I'm sure you're good. I'm sure everyone has their moments. I'm sure everyone has their moments. Oh well, CNN's trying to do a lot. Let's just say that.

I mean, CNN's trying to cover everything. Now that I'm on the inside, I'm amazed by the operation, by the breadth and the width of it. No, it's huge. It's so much as being produced every day. And how many, there aren't that many massive internet. I'm actually one of the things about Bloomberg

that I thought was very attractive at the beginning, and is still attractive about the company that I mentioned. My thing is that you've got like a TV network, you've got all these magazines, you've got thousands of journalists, I mean CNN is like that in the sense that it can cover any story anywhere in the world.

That's right, when I wanted to go to the Supreme Court to cover the area case last year, it was pretty easy because we have a person who takes care of those sorts of things. Those sorts of resources, you might take for granted, but I haven't, because I'm new, I still feel like I'm new there, so I'm still learning how it all works. No, it's crazy, but we were talking about the kind of marriage of you've got this TV network, you've got the web, and shouldn't they connect up?

I mean, to me, this is something that I think is so basic, if you don't understand this for a media business, if you're a journalistic enterprise that has both, let's say, a magazine and the web, or TV and the web, or all three of those things, where I just came from, if you're not finding ways to make those synchronized or be truly synchronized that they feed each other, then I don't know how you can survive.

Because it's not like the web is this, the web 10 years ago was like this weird step child. It was like, oh, the web, like, throws some crappy ads on there and, you know, maybe a few teens are looking at it or something. I mean, really, even a decade ago, iPhones didn't exist. I mean, I talk about this all the time on this podcast, but it's just so crazy to think about. There were no iPhones 10 years ago, okay? So the way we read, the way we think, the way we communicate, all of that was totally different. And news was a big part of it. We got our news in totally different ways. People were still voracious readers of magazines

and newspapers, I mean, not as much as it was starting to sort of move in the wrong direction, but at any rate. But now the times has to be a website that just happens to have a newspaper. Basically, CNN increasingly is a website that happens to have a TV network. I have to be careful when you say that,

because obviously most of the revenue for CNN comes from television. Right. Most of the revenue for the time still comes from print. Right. So these businesses are crucial and the so-called old media businesses are actually remarkably vibrant in many ways.

You know what? Some people look at the ratings for cable news and they say, well, people aren't watching cable news. I look at the ratings and I think, I'm amazed by how many people are watching cable news. How many people are watching cable news Well in any given time you got several million that are watching Fox MSNBC CNNs, you know, I'll combine Yeah, that comes up over time to tens of millions of the course of weeks and months, right?

But but the reason I say that is because you know, and I say this as humbly as possible Please do walking through airports walking down the street walking into bars a Surprising number of people are starting to recognize me. It's been 18 months or so, maybe 20 months at CNN. Over time, that happens more and more and more. I think what I've heard from others is that, when you're on cable, you're actually recognized more

than you've run a network. And the reason is, because of that cumulative effect, is because you're on all the time, so you're being seen by people, a wide variety of people all the time. So even though there's this perception that television in general has an eroding audience, I don't know how true that, how fair that really is.

I'm amazed by the success and the strength of the kind of old-fashioned television media. I think that what's changing, what will at some point change, I don't think we've hit that moment yet. I mean, there's no question that TV, and frankly, look, how much do you love watching TV, how much do I love watching TV? I love good TV, right?

I think it's tremendous. I think TV now, I mean, everybody says, it's the golden age of television, but I actually think that is true. I think we have so much good that is on. And it's a storytelling format that is just being cracked open. I think that this kind of like this idea of a 12 hour narrative.

You know, I mean, we, you know, a film quality 12 hour narrative. We just started doing that like with the sopranos. I mean, it hasn't been that long, right? You've been doing that sort of thing. So I think- The best analogy I've heard about TV is that, yes, it might be an iceberg, but it may be slowly melting. If it's melting, it's slowly melting.

I don't think it's melting. And the perception that it's, that it's, quickly melting, it's just false. I think, I don't think of it as melting. I think that the, well, if it's melting, it's slowly melting. And the perception that it's, quickly melting, it's just false. I think, I don't think of it as melting. I think that the, well, if it's melting, it's what's gonna happen, it's gonna melt and then re-freeze very quickly into some other form. That's a good one, yes.

That's because I think that we're really, video, fundamentally, we're visual creatures. We are very, video's only growing. And the thing that has been the problem is, as attention and eyes shift to other screens, you have to just figure out, well, what do you do? If they're looking at another screen instead of watching TV, do we just put TV there?

Our mistake, I think, everybody's been kind of like, well, you just put TV over on that screen. I think that we're still trying to figure out. And this is the thing that everybody is waiting for Apple, this for years now, we've been waiting for Apple's gonna crack at the way they crack music. As if TV and music have the same problems. Yeah, when you say crack, crack, what?

Like what is the problem? People love TV and they actually have no very few problems with the way they get it. I mean, some of the people are so upset about changing channels in their cable box that they're all, there are more, there are way more cord cutters because we have way more options of getting them,

the TV they wanna watch on their schedule and in their format But I just think the idea that that apparatus can is gonna go away anytime in the near future is totally crazy And when it does go away it'll be replaced by something that it does look and work in many ways A lot like it. Well television unlike music and newspapers these executives are doing a much better job of Getting ahead of the future as opposed to falling behind it. And they make credit newspapers and music experience with that. Yeah, I mean, there definitely is, there's some learning there, I think.

I mean, it's, but yeah, I mean, I think that, there's gonna be a technology shift. It's not gonna be the kind of epic, you know, G Wiz, oh my God, how do we never saw this coming moment where like the iPhone changed things? Or in music that that illegal You know down in sharing change things. And by the way, let's pretend for a minute that the average number average viewership of television drops from right now

It's four and a half hours per day per American Which is a heck of a lot of TV and the older you are the more hours you walked per day Let's pretend that drops from four and a half to three and a half hours Yeah, that would be a stunning and climactic and extraordinary and page one worthy story. If television viewership dropped by 25%, however, if we go from watching 20 hours of kind of crappy or kind of mundane television sort of, whatever's on, lowest common denominator. 19 and counting. Exactly.

We're toured. If we go toward that kind of epic storytelling, that really impressive rich. It's actually a good thing. Well, we were talking about. Actually, it might be an improvement. No, it isn't. I actually think, I don't know what you're taking.

We were talking about reality TV show. I think reality TV is mostly unwatchable. I mean, really, truly terrible. Well, the data shows that it's sort of fading away a little bit. Right. It's having a hard time, as opposed to all of the wonderful creativity going on in scripted TV. Whether it's on Netflix, Amazon, HBO, or Nintendo.

Well, and that to me is the breakthrough here. I think the big aha moment is actually not about, well, Apple solve watching TV, will it make it easier to find shows? What the big aha moment has been is that Netflix can come out of nowhere. Amazon can come basically out of nowhere. And they can put shows, they can make shows that maybe would never have lived in a network that could never have survived in a network environment. Transparent would have been very hard. Transparent, even for, I think transparent has been edgy even for HBO.

Right. It was a very different show with a very different message. And probably a lot of people might have looked at those scripts, they looked at the pilot and said, yeah, I don't think this is gonna get the audience we want. But you know, on Amazon or on Netflix or Hulu in some cases, can do things that we haven't been able to do elsewhere. And I think that is gonna unlock a whole new world

of storytelling. I think you're right. I mean, the higher quality stuff is. And increasingly, we will perceive Amazon and Netflix to be networks, not linear networks, but live programming, but networks in the sense of their collection of great shows that they all love. Well, that's where it all comes from.

So, in time, HBO and Showtime move more toward them. I interviewed the CEO of Showtime this week, and the incoming CEO, David Nevin, and he was talking about how now, you know, for two weeks he's been selling Showtime via the internet. It's a profound change, because before you had to buy Showtime via your cable operator, via Comcast, your time owner, cable cable now you can buy it via Hulu.

He said he wakes up every morning now and gets a report about how many people signed up the night before. Yeah. As opposed to having to wait in the past, he had to wait a month to find out. Well, the metric says he's not crazy. Yeah. I mean, Mielsen is totally insane and almost useless the way I see. I mean, what's so crazy?

Now he knows in real time. Right. And that is, you know, he's thrilled. You know, it's, it's might be scary, but it's such an improvement. Yeah. No, it's so crazy? Now he knows in real time. Right. And that is, you know, Welcome to the internet. He's thrilled, you know, it's, it's might be scary, but it's such an improvement. Yeah, no, it's, it's a huge change. And I think that's the, where the, where the, the true kind of explosion that in change happens is when you've got like all these new content creators

married to a platform that actually makes it easy to get in between all of those things. Right. Actually sit there and say, you know, what are my options and I'm going to go to it? I mean, the reality is the Apple TV is not that bad. A lot of these boxes, they're really not that bad for getting more content that you want. Yeah, I mean, I think if we looked back five years ago and we had said, okay, in 2015, how many American households will pay for cable?

We would have thought a lot more people would have cut the cord. The number back then was about 100 million right now, or maybe at 99. I mean, it's stunning. Is that the actual number? You know, I'm fudging it a little bit. We have not seen a dramatic amount of cord cutting in this country. We have seen young people choose not to sign up yet, or delay signing up, or sign up for smaller packages.

But the predictions about cordkering to me, the headline is how little that's happened. I think, I think, now what we've done is we've added Netflix. We've added Amazon, we've added in Holy, we're paying for more stuff than ever. That is true. And if you cut cables,

because you're in a poor economic condition. I will say actually, I, right, I mean, I have, I subscribe to Hulu and to Netflix and I'm a prime subscriber. I mean, listen, I have, I subscribe to Hulu and to Netflix and I'm a prime subscriber. I mean, I'm paying for every single. No time Warner cable? Oh, no, I have Fios, I have Verizon Fios, which is great. Thanks Verizon, not a sponsor, but they're very good at making the internet go fast at my

house. I was dying, actually, one of the reasons I think they're going to be a future sponsor. I love that. I love that. No, but I mean, it was actually, I was so psyched when I found out at our new house that we could get fios because listen time Warner. I'm sorry. Your service is very bad. Okay. The reality is. Reminder that my wife works for time. Okay. Well, we're saying in the New York one is the thing that we most miss about our cable to be perfectly honest with the morning traffic out around New York. One's good. I do. This is true. We really mourn the loss of New York one.

Okay. And that is not just like, can you come back any day or your wife's ass? Okay. I'm saying that it is a legitimate problem in our home. Laura used to put on New York one and just all day long it would be on on TV. She used to fall asleep to New York one.

That's how we get that four and a half hours per day number. It is kind of a nice move. They just put it as the first channel on the cable block. You literally, literally it's like, you turn on your TV and if you're lazy, which we are, it just stays on. I wish, and that was the first channel on the cable block. But the quality can't be matched.

We have some, Fios has some weird, like there's some weird Fios wanna be, I think, at least in our neighborhood. Oh right, there's a pretend New York one on Fios. Yeah, it's not, you know what actually happened this week? Well, New York too, you know what I mean? It happened this week that to me was kind of a big marker of the future.

When I wake up in the morning, we have Time Warner Cable because my wife works there and she's on the traffic in the morning. So I usually watch on my phone. I usually watch her reports on my phone instead of turning on the big TV, which in and of itself is a harbinger sort of the future. She goes up in the helicopter, right?

She used to. And now she's in the studio. I'm just a little better. I'm just a little better. I'm just a little better. But this week, Time Warner Cable's app now works over cellular. You think why is that a big deal? Well, before I had to be on Wi-Fi.

Which meant I mostly had to be home. The idea that I can now be in the cab watching her or watching pretty much anything else on my phone. It's just another one of those steps toward mobile first. Yeah, I can't believe it. Not just for websites. I can't believe it. I can't believe it would have forced you to watch it on WiFi.

Yeah, for a while was WiFi, you know, old fashioned. It's not so. But this idea that we're going to get to the point where television is going to be in our pockets the whole time. Whether it's AT&T or Verizon, selling me a bundle like Comcast does, or whether it's Apple does, rupt in the marketplace. This idea that television is going to be with us all day on our phones, that's probably the next wave of disruption.

Yeah. Well, I mean, we have to, I think we we have to solve that but it has to get much easier to watch. I think that's one of the bandwidth is a big issue because the reality is you may be in like an LTE that's great like great LTE but a lot of places are not in it. Right on 8th Avenue I'm okay but otherwise yeah. Yeah yeah it's crazy. I mean every time I go to LA I feel like my LTE just gets terrible.

Well there's also other effects of a mobile first environment for TV. I mean right now CNN, CNN will alert you to breaking news that's going on, but it would be better if it could alert you to say, open up the app and start watching live. Right now, that's possible, but it's not as easy as it could be someday. You think about those environments where,

I hope they're listening right now. It's just that, this is the most, I mean, who's gonna have a better opinion about it than you? Well, I'm just, you know, me for that matter. Well, I'm just thinking, well, I'm in Bloomberg, and look at what the redesign did, putting that TV box in the corner of the screen at all times, to emphasize the live broadcast.

Great point about the redesign, thank you. It was actually, I mean, digital video was way, way up. I mean, our video views. But you know, one of the things about that was building a website that's based around the idea that, and seeing end of this, in fact, I cited this in many meetings where I said, content, people don't think about, we can part mentalize content as editors

and product people, we go, this is a text post, this is a feature story, this is a photo essay, this is a video, but in the real world, people just want, they want to be given the best story and every format is equal, and so I basically, every format want to be given the best story and every format is equal. And so every format needs to be equal. So video is treated very equal across all of the stuff that we're doing. A story may be a video as much as it could be a text story. And so that actually helped a lot too. But you know, we used to have the auto-plane thing.

I actually think in the old design that was there, maybe in a similar spot, I can't remember exactly. But what changed is when you relaunch something, when you really disrupt what it was before, when you change the total look and feel of it, people start noticing things they never noticed before. Even internally at Bloomberg, people were like, a lot of people who worked, even in the news department, were like, oh, so we of people who worked even in the news department.

We're like, oh, so we're doing breaking news on the web now. And I was like, no, we're always doing breaking news on the web. But for some reason, however it looked to you before, whatever was happening, just didn't you didn't perceive it that way. Right. And so it's interesting what people start to notice when you change things. Wow. Even if they're the same thing.

Yeah. But the big box in the middle of the page is also new. That was another one, a big video. But yes, of course, you want to put TV, well Bloomberg wants to put TV, and if you have it, you want to put it front-side or for web custom, or whatever. I mean, it was redesigning though.

You know, is it kind of think about conventional wisdom right now in the industry? Isn't it all about going to other sites, going to Facebook, going to Twitter? Isn't it all about, yeah, it is, and it is. I mean, the reality is, isn't it all about, yeah it is, and it is. I mean the reality is, do people use front pages of news sites the way they use them a few years ago, not really? Are people getting a lot of their news and their feed on Facebook or Twitter? Absolutely. But does that mean that there is no use for the homepage? I don't think that's...

You still can't build a house a lot of front door. Yeah, and I think that there is a part of it that's about branding. But there is also a part of it that's about, I mean, it's hard to unify, I mean, in newsroom to get a newsroom to really be chugging and really be unified, they have to understand, like, what are we making every day? What is our purpose? Like, where does that stuff live? And what are our priorities? Exactly.

And actually, I think, you know, listen, there's still a huge amount of front door traffic to Bloomberg. There's a huge amount of front, I would imagine CNN has a massive amount of front door traffic. I mean, for me, being on the front page in the New York Times, now the equivalent is being on the home page on CNN. And I don't care, and I don't care how much you read on Twitter. And I'm a media dude, and I'm on Twitter all day long. But I still go on days when there's heavy news.

I still go to a lot of front pages. And look at just say what's going on, like who's got to take on this? What are people doing over here? You can't listen. Those things are all going to be part, I think that Facebook and Twitter are all going to be part of the, they're in the arsenal. I'm not fully convinced that everything just shifts over

to either it's in your feed or you don't see it. You know. Well, we still have hundreds of millions of people listening to the radio every month. I mean, radio was supposed to be replaced by TV. And TV was supposed to be replaced by the internet. And the lesson we know by now is nothing really goes away. Everything just gets added to.

Yeah, I mean, the homepage is being added to. That's actually really true. I mean, when we started the verge, I remember people, people are like, well, you know, who are you competing with? Or, you know, who do you want to, who do you want to drown when you launch it? And it was like, listen, here's what's going to happen. We're going to launch something new. People are going to read, they're going to read Gismoto and they're going to read this thing. They're going to read Gokker and what, you know, I mean, like people don't just suddenly shift. Right. The only place they actually shift and they really do shift is technology. And this is the thing I found to be very true in that.

do shift is technology. And this is the thing I found to be very true in that people are very quick to let go of something they've used or something better comes along. Don't advise us, you mean? Yeah, it's not the same thing with content. People always want more content. I think I hate to work content, by the way, but for lack of a better way to say, let's try to come up with a better word. I know what would be a better word for content. I don't have one though. For content. Will we just make a whole new word up? Just like, what's the Swedish word for content, Magnus? Can you tell us? Do you know what content, is there a Swedish word for content?

That, oh, they'd say content. I take back my idea, content's the best word for that. What about story? Do you have a Swedish word for a story? What's that? Okay, you'll come back to us with that. stuff from the booth great stuff from Magnus as usual anyhow What the hell's I saying? Content. Yeah, it's great stuff. I love it big fan of content. Oh the people voraciously won't come

Yeah, people want people want me more and actually and you know I think it's brilliant and wonderful about Twitter and Facebook and why I think like as models I think it's brilliant and wonderful about Twitter and Facebook. And why I think as models, these things should never be, no one should ever try to replicate them for a homepage or a website. Like whenever, I think there's a lot of the new ideas, you're like, well, people love feeds.

Like streams. Just do a stream, just do a feed or whatever. I, to me, it's like your Twitter feed and your Facebook feed is so good because you have spent years figuring out what you want to see and what you don't want to see. No one does that on a website. No one wants to do that. Every, remember there was this kind of wave of all you personalize your homepage,

when it was a personalized homepage. Good point. If you can personalize it for them, and be really smart about it, if you use machine learning to give them more of what they want and less of what they don't want, totally brilliant idea. But no one wants to sit only the nerdy as people, and I might do this, but only the nerdy will go like, show me more of this show me less of that Yeah, call me old school. I still want one homepage for everybody that tells me the editors

Say this is this is what's important right now say if I come here and I expect a certain if I understand I'm going to expect a certain level of storytelling you tell me what you think is important I think it's important in news I think that's one of the most important things that we can do. And this actually is a nice segue into Donald Trump. Donald Trump. Yeah. What's going on, Donald Trump? I can't understand this.

I mean, Donald Trump is, okay, let me ask start by asking you this. As if I'm the expert about that. Well, but you cover media. No, I've been doing a lot of news. And he's certainly a media figure. Do you think Donald Trump can be elected president of the United States? Pass. You can't answer that question.

Are you not allowed to? Are you ethically forbidden from answering that? Do you think you'll not get a Donald Trump interview if you answer that question? You know, so far he has turned me down. Okay, here's your chance. It does seem like he says yes to everybody. I was lucky. I had one of his senior advisors on the show last week and the week before that I

had his top lawyer. So he does send out his surrogates, which is great. You think he's electable? Oh, I'm sorry. I was trying to dodge a question. Yeah. I was trying to not work. I'm not hearing. I don't know if I'm hearing this or not. I think I what I'm hearing is you do believe he could be president. Well, he is, he is ahead in some GOP primary polls.

So by definition, he could be president. An openly racist. Who's saying he's openly racist? Oh, I mean, I think you only need to listen to Donald Trump's comments on these are the words of an unemployed person. I'm recently unemployed. Do you not to Donald Trump's comments on these are the words of a truly unemployed person. I'm recently unemployed.

Do you not find this? Do you not find Donald Trump to sound openly racist and his remarks on Mexicans? I've been using words like offensive. Okay. Offensive. You wouldn't call it, you wouldn't categorize them as racist or xenophobic. I would say what he said was racially tinged. That's of CNN shit right there.

You heard it. That's it. shit right there. You heard it. That's it. See it in the house. But you said electable. He is winning. He's leading in GOP polls. Now maybe he won't be in a month or two or three or four or five. Yeah.

But he's leading in the polls. By definition, he's electable. He's leading in polls. So anyhow, we can... Now why is he leading in polls? Well, we might say that's because... Why is he leading in polls? This is the Trump show that we're all watching the trump show right getting back to

television and content he is producing a huge amount of content for all of us right and the entertaining highly entertaining highly provocative you know you can go down the list of words yeah you might say informative you might say different from well you might like to meet those different from every other candidate out there. Yeah. It's more openly racist than every other candidate. I know you know it's more racially tingeed. His comments are actually offensive and offensive in other

candidates. See offensive is is demonstrable. Yeah. Because he offended a lot of people for sure. And protests for me. Although can I say how strange or not strange about notable is that he made his comments about mexican immigrants at his uh... launch speech yeah it wasn't for two weeks until you know vision dropped him yeah that this all started for so that's a week to let a lot of paperwork maybe they did i don't know i don't imagine when when you know vision drops trump from something there a lot of lawyers involved

i will they would be they yes they did look at the contracts but it's it's interesting me how there was a delayed reaction to trump he gave that our long campaign launch speech that nobody a lot of lawyers involved. Well, they would do. They did. They did. They looked at the contracts. But it's interesting to me how there was this delayed reaction to Trump. He gave that hour-long campaign launch speech that nobody, everybody was sort of, I don't think it was that delayed. I mean, I guess because I work, you know, have been working next to a team of politics reporters, I mean, they're just saying. Well, there wasn't a corporate reaction.

Let's put this back. There was no, you know, it was univision and then NBC and May season all of the rest. And so there was a delayed reaction on the it was univision and then NBC and Macy's and all of the rest and so there was a Delay to reaction on the on the kind of corporate side of it. But you know, we're thinking about Trump from the perspective of why is the press covering him so much? Well, he's the most available. He's the most accessible. He's giving so many interviews. He's willing to call in. How did Trump do it? Well, he just made himself available to the press and it's obviously the United States. I don't think it's how it works.'s not just that but that is a factor if you

think about what if jab bush was given interviews every day what if rick perry what if ted crew is well what if ram paul here's what they're not here he is here's one thing i'll say about those guys and i think this is it kind of it speaks to it's just making your own cultural by the way do you know what i'm talking about don't have a great story good um the the jab bush has a lot more to lose than Trump does by saying the wrong thing. Of course.

Right? Because I think that's the interesting. At the end of the day, Trump, when he's not elected president of the United States, if he's not elected, we heard of him here first. No, no, if he's not. We don't know. He's apparently very electable. But anyway, so what I'm hearing from you, um, leading leading the polls, only he's not, we don't know. It's apparently very electable, but away. So what I'm hearing from you, leading the polls,

only offensive, only a little bit offensive. And if listen, every presidential candidate's gonna offend somebody, right? I think I've been offended by every living president that I've been on. I mean, I don't mean they'll actually go out of their way, but everybody's always gonna hear something they don't want to hear. Right.

Like all Mexicans are rapists. You know, everybody's gonna hear that. It just go well, I'm just offensive. Anyhow, so Donald Trump, when he's, when if he doesn't win the, if he doesn't become president of the United States, of America, he will still be a billionaire. He will still have a tremendous amount of power

in the media, in entertainment, in whatever kind of weird land deals he's doing. You know, I assume he's buying and selling huge pieces of land on a daily basis. But jet bush, you know, what's he going to do? This is politics is his life. That's actually his career politicians. Yeah, all these guys, all these guys are career politicians. They are, you know, they're looking at setting up a law firm after this thing doesn't

work. Right. Or thinking about television commentator DL or a book to all the rest right you're absolutely right that's right he is one of a kind and he's like perro but can afford to risk it but more than a way that nobody else can't yeah uh... but that's i do think there's something to the idea that because he's so accessible that's partly why he's getting so much attention and thus why he's rising

the polls there's a virtuous cycle here that might be going on yeah do you think that in in the was the we the media and you think that we're being a little uh... playing a little fast and lose this one do you think we should be more critical of it do you think we should be more dismissive i've actually heard a lot of criticism you know i don't know if i've i don't know i'd say people are dismissive although I've heard lots of people on TV say he's unelectable and he's never been president.

You disagree with those statements though. I let the guests say them. That's what I do. You think he may be president someday. Well, president Trump, just so, just call me crazy. But when you think about president Trump, does it not immediately, do you not in your mind immediately go to like a dystopian sci-fi

hell world that is run, where America is run by President Trump? No, in my mind. In other words, President Trump, I can't help but think that, you know, his inauguration speech, there's like in the background there are like, you know, buildings that are charred and there's, you know, all the people are in handcuffs or something. It's like he's got some sort of dystopian robotic

and forester is behind him. That's what I think of when I think of President Trump. I think he've seen too many movies. It's possible, but you gotta admit, it sounds not totally off the mark. I know you can't say that because, you know, you're trying to stay neutral. I'll tell you two reasons.

Number one, I didn't think he was gonna run. Yeah. And I've been proven wrong. He got you wrong there, I was trying to stay neutral. I'll tell you two reasons. Number one, I didn't think he was gonna run. Yeah. And I've been proven wrong. He got your wrong there, I think. And number two, I wanna see what happens. I'm now very intrigued by how this story ends. This is my concern. So, the media is the media just like playing along with it

because they wanna see what happens, shouldn't we? I think there's been a lot of criticism. I think there's been a lot of skepticism and a lot of tough questions asked by the press. But yes, he is a very different kind of candidate. So does it require a different kind of coverage? I think that's an interesting question. I mean, let's think about fact checking, for example. Yeah. If he says things that are demonstrably untrue in an interview, can it be fact checked in real time? Right. Should it be fact checked in real time? Yes. Should it be fact checked afterward? in real time right should it be fact-checked in real time yes should it be fact-checked afterward i love what the fact and the watch and

imposed and others do uh... in terms of fact-checking but it's possible that some candidates are on fact-checkable uh... not a fact-checkable but that but that the fact-check's don't matter that there be that the other i see what you're saying that even if even if we say well you know statistically x amount of mexicans are rapists. A statistician. Well, there's been some good fact checking done, right?

We've been good data pointed out about how immigrants, illegal immigrants in the United States are less likely to commit crimes than others in the US. Don't tell Trump that. I hope I'm getting that right. It's Googleable. Sounds right. But the point is that sort of follow up,

following up, follow up, and create a word. It has been done up in greater the word has been done. And it's good. It's been done. Yeah. You know, I guess I look at the last few weeks. I look at the size of the crowds and look at the poll numbers. And I think there's something really important happening here that can't be dismissed.

Donald Trump is is a circus side show. I think he is a television celebrity with a lot of money. And he's a, you know, he's a real estate. He has control over the GOP primaries. He's a real estate. Even if he's what you're saying. Right. Because he's important. He's the guy who people know most from TV.

I think if we're serious with ourselves in the media, and I listen, I mean, I've been part of an organization that's been covering him, you're covering him obviously. I think we could probably be a little bit more blatant about the possibilities for Donald Trump. I think that we could be a little more blatant about how seriously even Trump is taking his presidency, it was run for the presidency. But let's flip that around.

Is it possible that that also would result us in taking other candidates unseriously who should deserve attention? Well, I think we could probably. Would Bernie Sanders get less attention in that calculation because he's too off to the side, off to the fringe. Well, he's performing really well. Would we have taken candidate with a middle name who's saying as seriously?

Why are you taking it there? You're really equating dogs with, it's my, it's my, it's my, it's my, it's my, it's my Trump card. Oh, okay, that's right. Is that a thing on your show when you say that you get like a graphic Trump pops up? No, but it should be. Well, okay. That's right. Is that a thing on your show you when you say that you get like a graphic Trump, no, but it should be well. Let me record about it. I'm gonna suggest like a Trump comes up I'm just suggesting that to the extent that the press The public has got to be involved in and identifying who the important candidates are. Yeah, but you know come on the public

Can't trust the public They've been doing pretty well for two hundred something years. The public's obviously, but the public, but also it's the job of the media. I agree, you've got to listen to the public. No question. We certainly have an agenda setting function show. But you got it, but the media job of the media

and the job of the press, which I think is so valuable and so important is to say, we're going to help you cut through the bullshit too. And we're going to say, Well, yeah, and here's an example. I think we could be doing a, we're going to explore this on my show on Sunday. The I-G-N-11-A-M Sunday morning CNN. There you go.

And you watch it online. No, afterwards. If you have a cable subscription, you can. Okay. But, you know, the idea of, if you're interested in Trump, you should know his history. Yeah. I'm not sure voters outside of New York, for example, know about all of the wild scandals and controversies.

Can you tell us some of them? Well, you just, uh, he's. He's it out. Let's hear a little bit of what we're going to be checking out on Sunday morning. Yeah. Oh, actually, this will air after the show. So you just see him every what? Exactly.

But, you know, just, so even just the personal life, right? Even just, even just the X-wives and some of the, how many X-wives? How many X-wives? Yeah, I got to Google that. Yeah. Some of the tabloids, some of the, some of the, some of the page six stories, some of the outlandest things he said a decade ago. Yeah. Some of his democratic sounding positions. All of that, I think, you know, we've seen in-depth stories about Bernie Sanders lately and Hillary

Clinton and Marco Rubio and others. We're going to need those for Trump too. Yeah. If he's as serious as he says he is. That's what I think we do need for Trump. I think that's what I'm getting to is that before, I mean, we've got all of this like kind of crazy, I think we're, I believe he said that today. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But we just, just a big, just the right big story from, from the outlets that we trust. Those are going to really matter. The story is about who is this guy and what is he,

what he's saying does it really check out? It doesn't make any sense. And as a result of whatever he's saying, should we be check out it? Does it make any sense? And as a result of whatever he's saying, should we be taking him as seriously as everybody seems to be taking him? Should we listen to these polls? I mean, and shouldn't, I mean, frankly, it's up to his competition. They need to be doing something.

I mean, they are, I mean, it feels like, really, I mean, it feels like he's sucking up so much air in the room. But that gets to my point about availability. If these candidates were giving interviews every day, they could be a taking oxygen away from Trump and be responding retaliating against Trump. Don't you think part of the problem is that? But as you pointed out, they have more to lose.

That's the right way to do it more to lose. But I think that's really an interesting point because what I see in those candidates is a tremendous amount of fear of stepping in something that they can't get off their shoe, you know. And it has created, it's a loud Donald Trump who by the way doesn't really care, it doesn't seem to care if he says something that is going to be tremendously unpopular to the American public. I mean, saying that the people that are coming to America from Mexico are all rapists, which is essentially a paraphrase, essentially what he said, or are many of them are rapists and drug dealers.

I think in America is probably a pretty unpopular sentiment to most Americans. I think that I don't know that most Americans feel that they may have disagree on our immigration policies. They may not feel like they want lots of people from Mexico coming to the country, but they probably wouldn't say, yeah, they're probably all rapists. His favorable ratings, though, are up in the past month. And maybe that's because what's pulls taking place. Hold on, the point, but that's the,

you just get on the most important point, which is even if they disagree with him, they may like him seeming to believe what he thinks, seeming to say anything, seeming to stand up. Let's, I mean, you know, George, there's an element of that. Everyone have a beer with George Bush Let's true. There's an element of a beer. Everyone have a beer with George Bush, you know. There's an element of the, oh, he's actually speaking his mind,

which by the way is maybe what we've seen from Obama lately, and which might be appealing to people from the president. How's his point? There might be a connection between. How's Obama's point? He's in a pretty good place compared to where he's been in the past couple of years. Interesting.

You know, once you're in the seventh year, the numbers aren't going to change all that much. Right. But he's in a pretty good place in part of where he's been in the last few years. And you could actually draw a line maybe between Obama and Trump. You did that before.

You love that line. Oh, no, but on this issue of, on this issue of, I think of Trump. I think of Obama. Being unplugged. And, and, and the, I mean, the president used the N word

in that podcast with Mark Marin. He went to a prison this week. He, he, he sang, sang a song at the Eulogy for the Tarles in the Nine, the Manual Nine. You know, we are seeing a different kind of president of Obama. Maybe there's just a slight connection between that and Trump in the idea that they're willing to say anything. And I think, I think, freely.

I think actually what's interesting about what you're saying is maybe Americans are getting sick of the, like the PR feel to our politics. Let's hope so. Because there is, you got to admit, I mean, there is a sense of every politician has the same kind of wishy, washy answer about everything that's going on, you know. I thought one of the things that was most striking about a bomb on the campaign trail, and at times in office, not all the time, but at times, is when he just says something really real.

He said something that you thought that you wanted to hear somebody say. He asked a question or said, made a statement on something and you just like, yeah, like, how come nobody's been saying that? How come nobody's been talking about that, you know, I do think the last few months, the last year or so, well, yeah, last year or so with Obama, if you can drop parallel between between Trump and Obama, they are, they do seem more real. I don't like what kind of real person Donald Trump is, but he doesn't seem like he's Well, he does actually in some ways seems like he's playing this up. There is a performance There is a performative element to it. Don't you think and that and that if that's why I call it the Trump show

Yeah, and create you know that that's and it's it's television news as opposed to entertainment It's not airing on NBC in prime time. It's airing on NBC nightly news But it is the Trump show. And it is warping the entire GOP race. And it's some extent warping the Democratic race for the time being. Now listen, we've had lots of summers where there's a quote unquote story of the summer. It's whether it's a sexy story or a scary story or a flash in the pan story. These are things that come and go.

Remember the summer of the sharks, there's always these sorts of stories that fade away after the hot months of the year. Maybe that's Trump. You think people are just crazy with fever? They're just, the heat is getting to them, they're like, maybe I'll move for Trump. We can come back here in a few months

and maybe we'll know the answer. I love the idea to that. All right, that's a good place to close. There are actually a lot of stuff I have to say. I really enjoyed this conversation. There are a bunch of things I want to talk to you about that we have That's a good place to close. There's actually a lot of stuff I have to say. I really enjoyed this conversation. There are a bunch of things I want to talk to you about that we have not had a chance to talk about.

Luckily, you live in New York. So you'll have to come back on. And now I know where the studio is. You know where the studio is. It's very easy to come to. Brian, thank you so much for joining me. That is our podcast for this week. I'll be back next week.

Of course, with more tomorrow. And as always, I wish you and your family the very best no matter who they both are. you