wellRED podcast - #172 - Protesting and The Decay of Local Journalism (Hilarious!!!) w/ Special Guest John Hammontree

Episode Date: June 10, 2020

This week the boys discuss the effects of the protests and Drew sits down with AI.com 's John Hammontree!

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Hey everybody. It's your boy, the show. Corey Ryan Forster here, well red comedy.com. W-E-L-R-E-D comedy.com. That is where you can find out where we're going to be whenever they allow us to be places. And also check out our merch store and sign up for our newsletter. that way you get information about us first and yada yada yada and um guys just hope you're being safe out there um with both the pandemic and with the protests um but you know just wanted to say

that minnesota just uh voted to like disband their goddamn police department so um marching and protesting work so that's awesome but be safe we love you here's a podcast that we do called the well red podcast love you excuse they're the They like cornbread, but sex, they care way too much, but don't give a fuck. They're the liberal rednecks that makes some people upset, but they got three big old dicks that you can suck. All right. Well, here we are.

Yeah, we are here. Here we are. You know, shit's still wild. We're still on fire, obviously. I'm not as morose personally as I was last week for a few reasons where I can name off some of them. But first, something that don't hit. But this is, I have a particular aspect of all this that I can't stop thinking about. Because like, and this ain't a hot take or anything.

That's part of what I'm trying to say. I feel everybody knows and recognizes this that's on our side at least. But I still think it's just, it's really, really fucking wild if you sort of just like take a step back and try to like divorce yourself from our entire life's history with, you know, police brutality in America and stuff. And just look at what's happening right now. And it's fucking insane that at the macro scale, the American police, their general response to credible accusations of brutality. and misconduct has been to publicly and unapologetically brutalized people. You just start beating the fuck out of my phone. And misconduct themselves on camera and everything.

Like, it's just a level of like not giving a fuck. Yeah. Entitlement and all of that stuff that's unreal. Because, like, I can't think of it. Maybe I'll come up with something. I can't think of, like, an analogy to that. I don't think. Like, most people, even like other super shitty groups of people,

Wall Street, politicians, whatever, they, like, go through the motions of trying to act like they're not doing the shit that they're being accused of doing. Right. Cops don't even give a fuck, man. They do. It would be like if, uh, it would be like if during the height of the steroids and baseball scandal, if like fucking Martin McGuire went on Jay Leno and shot a bunch

of horse juice in his butt and then tear gas for pregnant lady or whatever, like, or if Bill Clinton had just played a sex tape throughout his impeachment hearings. I was about to say if Bill Clinton during the middle of his, that depends, yeah, that depends on what your definition of the word is, is if he was just getting his dick suck that whole time. Yeah,

publicly and on camera. Yeah. And then blinded a journalist at the end of that. But it's like people just sort of, we kind of just sort of take it for granted because the whole point is that they suck. And I know they do suck. But I'm just saying, like,

it's like, it's a whole other level of insanity. to me. Like, they just don't fucking care. I have conflicting feelings going through my head right now because I felt and was so morose last week myself on both the podcasts because I felt exactly what you're talking about when I saw police ignore looting, just literally ignore it. And then shoot at us and hit Andy and tear gas me.

And then later I stay on the news that they're, they're still bitching about the looting that they didn't stop. So I'm like also seeing that and know exactly what you mean and it makes me feel really fucking scared and sad because it's like, oh, we can't beat them. Like they can just, they can just beat people. I mean, they can. That's sort of the whole problem is that they have guns

and a bunch of fucking down. But, I don't know if this is going to make you feel better or worse, they are at least in the news trying to spin a lot of those things. but like that one that thing that happened in buffalo you know it was an old white guy was ever you know so it's not even black america at this point it's the old white america right just to return their police helmet gets close to them they shove him down crack his head over he starts bleeding one of them goes to bend down to help him another one prevents him from doing so and then when they get charged a bunch of fucking people a bunch of cops in buffalo resign and almost every cop go down at the courthouse to show for these guys. But they didn't really even resign, though, is the thing.

Right. Yeah, because, like, I heard that and I was like, well, good, fuck them. So they're not cops anymore? That hits. It hits. Everybody. Because I've seen a lot of cops doing viral posts from cops. They're like, people don't realize we're this close to just walking away and where I'll just

say, oh, no, please don't do that. But the guys in Buffalo, yeah, they only resigned from that one unit and stayed cops otherwise. So it's like even worse than it's saying. Right. Well, I was just trying to, I guess, get at this conflicting. Like, there's a part of me that's like with you entirely. Like, it's so blatant. They're just beating people on camera with fucking batons or whatever. And then there's a part of me, though, that's like, yeah, but then they do go on the news and try to spin it. And I can't decide if their stupidity is somewhat encouraging because that's who we're up against.

It's just the, I mean, guys, I worked in the public defense and criminal justice field for years. If there's anything I want to all know, it's that cops are stupid. They're so fucking dumb. It's unbelievable how fucking dumb these people are that we give guns and everyone's like, they're heroes. They're fucking stupid.

My cousin's a cop. Your cousin is fucking stupid. You have a stupid fucking cousin and you know it. He couldn't fucking finish college or he went to fucking community college so he had to become a cop. He was the only way he was ever going to get a fucking pension because he's dumb as fuck.

But, like, trade my conflict. Do I feel better? worse about that. Yeah. Like I don't, I'm not excited. I know how to feel about them hitting people and the fact that they don't care makes me sad. Is that going to lead to their demise more quickly?

Yeah. Or is it proof that they're just going to murder us all? Well, I think I, my ultimate conclusion, and I, you know, I try to be optimistic and I tell myself things a lot. But yeah, my conclusion from it is that is the former that it, that it proves that it's like too foundational of a rot in the culture of police for them to like change it. You know, like you can't change it based on what the current system is. So the only option is to basically start over.

But I think that, you know, based on what just happened in Minneapolis, like that might actually happen. Because I think enough people, even people who previously might have been like Democrats, but they're moderate Democrats or whatever and still were, you know, down with the police. and stuff, or even recently, anecdotally speaking, some conservatives and shit, they've done this enough, and they've done it at an egregious and violent enough level and publicly enough for so long that, like,

the tide has turned, I think, and I think we'll be able to actually get some sweeping changes like that because there won't be as much resistance to it as there have been in the past, or would have been in the past, because everybody has seen what they're doing, and not everybody, but a huge chunk of people much bigger than before. It's like, God damn, this is fucked up.

Right. I agree with that. I hope so, too. I feel like, though, fuck, where to even start with what I'm trying to say. I mean, obviously, first of all, remember why this all started, because yet again, a fucking black man was murdered in the streets. And on that note, and this kind of, is analogous to how you and I have talked about

environmentalism and stuff in the past where I'm like losing hope. I hope I sound less beat down than I did last week. I had a few people hit me up on Twitter and just be like, you sound so fucking bleak even for you. I had people message me and they were like, is Drew okay? And I was like, no, I was like no, but yeah,

America's not. I do feel like after March and Trey, and you can comment on, you know, you went with me a couple times how you feel hearing some of these speakers, folks speak, seeing so many young people and different types of young people, this generation is not going to be beaten by this. Right.

I do feel that. Yeah. But how many people got to bleed? Yeah. And how long is it going to take? Right. And how many fucking photo ops is the Democratic establishment going to do while they drag their goddamn feet?

Yeah. You know, and I don't mean that. Like, I know that they're the only ones putting forth any legislation. The Republicans ain't doing shit. But I'm saying, like, how long is it going to take? take, when is enough going to be enough? How many kids are going to have to get, and reporters and nurses are going to have to get shot by fucking rubber bullets?

Yeah, I don't know about the second part, but the first part of it, I definitely agree with you. We've texted about this throughout the week of it, and I was going to get to it today. I wanted to open with the more negative thing first, I thought, before getting into trying to be a little more positive, because I do feel very, I feel very different than I did last week because when I came on when we did this last week I hadn't been out and about yet and I was talking about how I've always tried to be like really like an optimist in the long term like with the long view I think things will work out you know eventually yada yada and that last week I was

saying this is the first time that I felt like truly afraid and worried like oh shit our this country might be done for I don't know what's going to happen everything's really bad have it but in the intervening time. Yeah, I went to a couple of demonstrations, marches, rallies, protests, whatever, two different ones with you and Andy over the weekend and some other friends of ours. And it, I'm not, I'm not,

I don't want to sit here and act like, and yeah, you know what? We got under control and everything's fine. That's not what I'm trying to say. But it absolutely 100% made me feel infinitely better about the whole thing because of what you said about, like, my major takeaway, I guess, was like, This is a real thing.

This isn't going to just go away. And people are not going to just go back to being okay with this shit anymore this time. I don't think. Like that's what I took away from it. I guess like, I don't know. Multiple times I had the feeling like, and I mean, I've had this feeling to some degree or another for, you know, the past four years and various points for various reasons. But it's like we're like really living through something right now. Like it feels like a, it feels like a whole, it feels like a genuine turning point to me.

Yeah, son. It's Wochella 2020, but yeah, with bombs and shit. Right. And, yeah, and my, so, I mean, I definitely recommend going out to the protests and stuff if you have them around you and actually being present at them because I think, for me at least, it, I mean, it made me feel better. It made me feel much better, much more hopeful about everything because, yeah, I was like, this is a real thing. These people are not, this isn't going away.

These people aren't going away. And I want to say, I agree with that for all those reasons, but I was at a few before it calmed down, before people were indicted, before they started announcing no-knock warrants being illegal in Louisville. Yeah.

For reference to Brown of Taylor. And when I saw how police reacted, I can remember one example of a police officer that I saw personally, like, in my opinion, very much doing the right thing. Which isn't to say every other thing I saw was them being awful, but it's like I got five examples of police being awful.

And then one guy who showed a lot of restraint when he almost got hit by something actually pretty big and hard, and he chose not to shoot us all in the face with rubber bullets, because he knew we didn't throw it because he knew it fucking came from somewhere else. But anyway, that aside, I'm with you in the long run about the youth and the young people, but I'm so scared about what happens in the meantime. And what I don't think is that this country is going to be anywhere close to the way that it was. America as, and maybe it was never like this. And maybe it was only like this because we built it on slaves, on land we stole from brown people.

And then we bomb other brown people and make fucking Chinese people build all our clothes for 10 cents a day or whatever. I realize that whatever America was, it was always quote unquote problematic. But I don't think America in general, as we know, it survives Donald Trump. and I think this is related to it. And I do feel like there's a chance of it being more fair and better overall. But I just think it's going to take a lot of pain and bloodshed to get there. And it's hard for me to say I'm optimistic when I feel that way because those are real people who are going to hurt. And I mean, fuck, maybe die.

And real people have died. Yeah. Sorry. No, no, shit. I mean, you're right. No, yeah, I don't want to downplay. It's like, don't worry, guys. We've beaten it.

We've done it. You know, we've got under control because, I mean, yeah, it is going to be, has been and will continue to be a process for sure. But like,

my, the main thing I'm trying to say is I just, I really do feel like it's different this time. Because this isn't the first time. Obviously, that's part of the whole problem. It's not the first time. But the other times it's sort of flared up,

whatever, and then kind of got swept on the rug or went away again. And black people were just forced to go back to just fucking dealing with it. You know, and everybody else's carried. on with their lives. And I just really don't think that it's going to play out that way again this time. And I mean that like for the better. Well, just to go back on, just to go back on something, I know that we've discussed it off podcast, but I don't remember if we talked about it in

recorded form. I think the last podcast that we did, I had talked to y'all. And I was, you know, I was pretty morose about the fact that I was like, I God damn it. It just, you know, the people around me where I live. I'm in rural Georgia and I'm in Trump country and so many of these people I know it's not even worth having a goddamn conversation because I know how it's going to go and you can't you know budge these people one way or the other. And I wanted to say now publicly to everybody that I was wrong as fuck. I was very wrong. So that's why it coming like again like you said, we can't just say oh well we've done it. We beat it. But dude the tide is absolutely shifting because I've seen so many, like, I've been blown, literally blown away.

Like, my sister has taken some screenshots because I don't fuck with Facebook no more, like, because of what all I just said, because it's just a fucking, it's just cool. It's unreal. And by the way, Twitter can be too, but just the way that Twitter works makes it more bearable for some reason, because at least, you know, I guess like some cool people, some funny people are on there at least. And because they're dumb. It's hard to be that fucking shitty in 140 characters, whereas, Give them five paragraphs.

Actually, yeah, that's a big part of it. But either way, so I don't fuck with Facebook, but my sister sent me like screenshot after screenshot after screenshot of people who, if you put a gun in my head and was like, would this person ever, you know, talk against the police or rather four black people and admit that there's actually a problem going on

that you can't deny anymore? I've been like, there's no way. And I'd have been fucking shot in the head because it's really happened. Like, it's been unbelievable. And as... I'm so glad it's happening publicly. Yeah, right, right, right.

Because it'd be very easy for one of them to, you know, be like at home having that conversation when they went to fucking work or, like, on Facebook, they wouldn't do it because they didn't want to get fired. But yeah, I mean, like, it's really, really happening. And I think it's one of those situations where, like, a lot of it's happened because we've seen some police shoot white people and old white men. But, hey, look, whatever it fucking takes. I don't give a shit.

I'm not, that ain't the liberal I want to be. I want to whatever, dude. They finally stopped saying police kill white people too, for the most part, because a lot of people finally were like, oh, that's bad. Not like that.

They don't. Yeah. In matter of fact, police killed my cousin. We're all pretty happy about it for the first couple hours. But I will say this to, in the easiest way that I've seen to do it,

and I think it actually genuinely helps that it's a white man, if you're talking about getting people who are latently racist or automatically defensive about change. It's good maybe that a white man is doing it. The best clip I've seen was from John Oliver, who, by the way, has my understanding, quite a few black writers on his staff. Could be wrong about that. But anyway, there's defund the police thing.

There's a visceral reaction from a lot of people. What the fuck? Who do we call if we get right? or whatever. And John Oliver breaks it down. And I guess piggybacking off what you were saying, Trey, about Hope. Like, it's not enough, though, that people are like,

maybe police are bad. We actually have to change things now. And John Oliver's segment on defunding the police and what it actually means and why people are for it is super well done as it usually is. And I hope, I think and I hope, done in a way and by a white guy, so that a lot of white people can listen to it

and at least imagine the world that is being proposed by the people who want to defund the police. And I would encourage you guys to all watch it and share it on your own walls with your people. It essentially comes down to this. Why do we call the same institution, the same people for murder,

rape, someone's having a mental health issue and they're outside naked? I can't find my cat. drugs drugs why yes addiction why are we calling the one group and why does that group all receive the same type of training and why is almost all of that training uh to do vives right right it makes no sense and if you have conservatives in your life talk to them about it as big government being way too broad and getting way too much money to not actually fucking help people any small

C conservative should be able to understand that concept, that a government institution has gotten too powerful politically and doesn't actually do what it's supposed to do and is not good at doing the things. Yeah, the thing about that is, and it is different, I think, with the police specifically because of all the things we've already said as far as the tide kind of shifting, hopefully. But as far as that last thing you said, that all applies, in my opinion, to the Department of Defense also. And it's always... annoyed the shit out of me that like small government people who hate government spending and stuff take no issue at all with the bloat of the defense budget and I used to like have conversations

of people I worked with at the DOE about it because a lot of them had worked for the DOD before or whatever they like transferred from the DOD and we're in DOD contracting and so I would ask him I was like dude tell straight up for real like I mean do we really need to be spending X numbs of X millions of dollars on a, like a warehouse full of tanks that we never have used and never will use or whatever. I'd have specific examples at the time because we'd read about it in the shit we got or whatever. And almost every single time they would be like, well, yeah, no, we do because of the,

and they give some bullshit a response about how, you know, this, how it's all necessary and whatever, yada, yada, like they tell themselves that. But I want to be clear what I would say in that case, you know, as an another, analogy. I don't know what I would say if I were you in that specific example. But and people are going like, no, but we need X, Y, Z. It's like, yeah, I'm not, I'm not saying take the money and burn it. Right. I'm saying take the money and create various programs and organizations. You know, like, like, do this just take sexual assault? Like, how many more stories do we have to read about a girl who's like crying? You know, she's got, she was raped. Like, she was fucking raped. And we,

read that a male cop was like, so were you drunk? And it's like, what if there was a sexual assault advocate and a whole group of them in major cities especially who could deal with that first before it ever got to a detective? And by the way, I said earlier, all cops are stupid. I've been saying it for fucking years, except most detectives. Right. We need some, like somebody needs to investigate. We need investigators. You know what I mean? We just don't need a motherfucker with nine guns responding to every goddamn, you know, my neighbor came over here and threw poop on my point, like, especially when if that neighbor's black or has mental health issues or, God forbid, both often ends up dead.

Yeah, and right. And, yes, it's the same person who responds to any circumstance, no matter what it is, many of which in no way actually require an armed police officer. and that same guy who shows up for all the different things, they all receive the same training, most of which has nothing to do with how to properly handle a mentally handicapped person having an episode in public or at a park or something. And a lot of it's, you know,

they literally call it like warrior training and stuff. I heard of a thing earlier in Minneapolis specifically. They tried to defund just this. just part of the police training called the warrior program or warrior training or something. And the cops got, you know, horrifically offended by the notion they would do that, refused to do it. And then ran a smear campaign against the councilwoman who had suggested it, post like publicly posting pictures and stuff of her with,

it's really just like her with another black person and they're kind of like pointing or whatever. And they were talking about city councilwoman makes gang signs at city council meeting and shit like that. Like literally. What a bunch of fucking morons. Anyway, so like, they're stupid and they're so entitled. Like they cannot handle any previously. Well, they still can't handle it,

but now it doesn't matter anymore. But they've always been totally unable to handle any kind of like criticism or questioning of, is this all entirely necessary? And to them, it's like, well, we're the barometer of what is necessary. And if we say it's necessary,

then it is. And you all need to shut the fuck up and be grateful that you have. have us, you know. But they're powerful. No, that, yeah, very, very powerful. And it worries me because dismantling that is going to take a lot of work and a lot of time. And that's the other thing I hope for these kids.

Every, I sincerely feel like this, every generation politically, if they have to, if they get put in a situation where they've got to respond to something, does it a little better than the generation before them. But every generation gets to. worn out eventually. And it still moves culture and society along to a certain point. But that's the other thing I'm worried about.

This is a big fight. This is a big fucking fight. People cannot, there's so many people who literally can't wrap their heads around police being a corrupt institution. Yeah. That's true.

I mean, yeah, they're the fucking heroes, man. Right, but so many fewer of them now than there were, I think. Fucking NASCAR had a whole little segment, a Black Lives Matter segment before their recent race. They had a montage of, you know,

related to the movement and drivers talking about supporting the movement and wearing the shirts and stuff like that. Then they had a moment of silent, then they observed a moment of silence in honor of George Floyd and victims of police brutality and all that before the race started. And that's fucking NASCAR doing that. Shout out Ethan SP, our buddy, who did our show in New York. I have a black friend,

but I'm bringing him up because he loves NASCAR, and I can't wait to tell him that. I, oh, God, I keep seeing on Twitter, like, with NASCAR and with, like, Drew Breeze and with, you know, several of these other high-profile people who normally didn't ever speak out, but now they're speaking out against this.

Like, of course, there's, like, all those people on Twitter who are like, look at these companies, look at them, all just bending the knee to the Democrats and bending the need to the liberal agenda so that they don't get in trouble and blah, blah. And I read that every time and I'm just like, God damn, I'm so glad. Like, even as fucked up as things are in this country, I'm glad that major corporations and major athletic people think that it's in their best interest to come out against police.

Right. Well, that's the, that's the whole thing. They wouldn't. Here's the thing, that none of them would be doing it if they felt like it would actually, it would hurt, yeah, would ultimately be detrimental to their brand or their bottom line because that's how corporations work. Which means they think the majority is on that side. They think that it's in their best interest to be on that side of it, which is indicative of something at the societal level. And yeah, I completely agree. And that is a good thing.

I also roll my eyes at every time there's any kind of, you know, any kind of crisis or movement. Every single fucking corporation has to weigh in on it and whatever. But still, here's the way I look at it. You're 100% right. This is the way I look at it if I'm a corporation. Because it's also the way that I look at it, sometimes just for us and we're not shit.

But two things are going to happen when something like this goes down. You either say something and you get, you know, all the fucking Twitter bots hitting you with that silence brand meme or whatever and telling you, look at these corporations saying something and talking about blah, blah, and you're going to get shit for that. Or you don't say anything and then all the comments on your page are going to be, your silence on this issue is deafening. So if you're going to get shit either way,

I err to the side of let me get shit for having said something and just looking like a corporate robot. That's at least, I would rather get that shit than for someone saying, you've got a platform and you didn't say a goddamn thing. I'd rather have the other people mad at me. You know what I mean? Yeah. And again, going back to that long-term encouragement, and you guys are basically saying this. But it's just like when Nike's supported cap, I looked at it and I was like, yeah, this is a hollow grab for money. but how amazing is it that it's profitable in our shitty capitalistic society that that's going to make you money to do right?

Yeah, it is. I wanted to ask you all another thing. It is directly related to this, but not specifically the part of it we were just talking about. But like the blue wall of silence thing. And I know for a fact that it's not directly analogous because it's their job. whatever they face like livelihood consequences and whatnot. I'm not making excuses for them. I'm making excuses for the analogy I'm about to make.

But, you know, all three of us are like, we all belong to, we undeniably belong to a group of people that a whole lot of other people consider to be largely bad. And we lose our jobs when we are. Bad, evil, race, whatever. Like, we're all part of a group that's like that. And also talk about being

proud of it. We talk about how that's not all of us, because it ain't all of us. It's not the same as the cops with the bad apples thing, because I've got a million examples of people close to me that prove that it's not all of us. But the biggest point is nobody, nobody hates a goddamn backwards-ass racist, dipshit redneck more than I do and we do. You know what I mean? and we're not ever quiet about it. We don't make excuses for them. We go out of our way to call them out and say, hey,

fuck this guy and everything about this guy because he's making the rest of us look bad or whatnot. And so I think that's part of why, without even really thinking about it in those terms before, or I do think that's part of why I've just never had any fucking sympathy at all for that aspect of it. Do you know what I mean? Because they don't be doing that.

Because they don't, right. Yeah, they don't do that. They'll say how it's just a few bad apples, but then they don't ever, ever do anything about the apparent bad apples, whatnot. And they always stand together and like, I don't be doing that with the fucking clan. We're both from Tennessee,

you know? Right. And I mean, you know, for what it's worth, like, as you were literally, like, in comedy, there's a shit ton of dirt bags, but, like, comedian self-police pretty good. I mean, I think better than they used to because, like, there was a lot of stuff that for years and years and years and years was just rumor and then like you know kind of the levy breaks and now it's just like okay fuck this but like

you know comedians are are pretty good at like if some comedian get a racist thing or jerked off on a woman's feet you know like we we kind of are like hey don't do that so we call out our bad apples and then that's if you if people still want to go see him we can't say shit about that but like fuck you you're not on my show so right no if if comedians acted about other comedians and discretions the way cops operate, then we'd be having a fucking Bill Cosby benefit special every year. Yeah. Like, that's the level of bullshit that they operate at.

They don't acknowledge any of it at all. But, yeah, I mean, I feel like there's, I mean, I'm sure there are. I don't know other industries well enough. I'm sure that definitely happens in other, well, I mean, like, you know, the GOP is an obvious example, the party at large. I mean, most politicians, to be fair, are a little bit like that. yeah I know but then and I know like I mean they are most politicians are for sure but then like you know Al Franken man this shit got he got in did yeah but Republicans Republicans will cut

somebody loose if they think it's going to be bad for the brand they just have a different brand well what makes it bad for the yeah right okay so like Mitt Romney marching in a Black Lives Matter march like he's done yeah right yeah that actually wasn't I mean it was a march see this is one those things. This goes back when we were talking about it. He's not a corporation, so let me ask you guys this. There was a Black Lives Matter protest in his city where he was at that day across town. He did not go to that. He went to this Christian march that was admittedly saying, hey man, some things are messed up. I'm so glad that a group of Christians that Mitt Romney's down with are marching.

But I am just pointing out to you that Mitt Romney purposely didn't go to an actual Black Lives Matter organized march and went to a different one. That had their march at the same exact goddamn time as a Black Lives Matter march, which would have been easy for them to know was going on. That's hilarious. And join. I didn't know that. Obviously, the pictures of stuff were fun around all over the place.

It's him, you know, he told a Black Lives Matter with him pictures at a big thing. I didn't realize that that was the circumstances. Well, here's the deal. It is very raven, but like, you know, it kind of don't matter to, in the sense of like, A, I didn't know that either, which means that trust me, most Republicans that are seeing that don't know that either. They're just seeing him there do that and they're going to hate it regardless. So, I mean, you know, points still made.

It would surprise me. But, you know, again, as we were saying, Mitt Romney absolutely thinks that that's going to benefit him. Period. That's all it is. like politically or his fucking Bain Holdings company somehow. I don't fucking know.

Like he thinks there's something in it for him. Right. And I want to say something about that, actually. You just made me think of something. There is a part of me as a human in my humanity that wants to believe that Mitt Romney actually gives a shit. And I don't remember he's a fucking lizard person.

They're all fucking-Mormons are nice. Mormons are nice. Sure, but Mitt Romney is a lizard person. I know. He's a lizard Mormon. Right. But I'm just saying, um,

we've gotten, I've had some conversations both with trolls and with friends of mine, et cetera, et cetera, about this idea of performative wotness. I want to be very clear right now. 99 times out of 100, if you see somebody saying, this person or this thing is just doing it to get clout,

if it's not a corporation or a politician, 99 times out of 100, you're full of shit. Because if you have any sort of platform, you're going to get way much more grief. You're going to, you know, unless you're already, you know, Trey Crowder, for example, the liberal redneck and known, like, I put my stake in this fucking ground from day one, you're losing followers, just as much as you're gaining.

A, and B, for better or worse, we live in an online world. We need images, and we need, we need some of the dumb weak people on our team, and dumb weak people are moved by images. and like, it sucks, but like, you, I understand that when you see these videos of these fucking influencers, like, coming up with their photographer, hopping in line with the protest, taking a picture and then hopping out of line and going back to their fucking mansion, that you want to murder that person. And eventually we should. We'll get to them after the cop. But, like, I've hid so many things I've done in my life since we've become more public. that are genuinely good things that I'm proud of because I'm so afraid it's going to look gross or icky. Volunteering we're talking about specifically. And I'm now realizing that like when you get a platform,

you actually do inspire people or affect them in some ways. And I'm saying all that to say, if you're out there and you're listening and you're like, I went to the March, fucking post a picture, especially if you're from a tiny southern town. Show that you are with them. And people can go, well, that's performative or it's icky or you're trying to get clout.

that exists that's a real thing but what we're trying to do now is normalize questioning the police and being on board with black lives matter that's what i'm trying i think i think what that is people people say you know don't post a picture if you're going to do something if you're going to do an act of charity you do it anonymously blah blah blah blah blah i've heard that a lot in my life from like you know my dad has gone my dad does things like that my dad gives to charities and he does other things and he doesn't tell anybody but he's like i think that's the way to be and for years i grew up thinking like, oh, he's right, because you shouldn't do it for your own personal gain. And there is, there is something to say there. But there's also part of me that like kind of genuinely

believes that that whole attitude was started by the fucking top tier lizards to keep us from talking about the good that we've done with each other to inspire other people to do good because they don't want us to do good. It's kind of like how CEOs years and years and years ago started floating around the idea that it's rude to talk about your salary. And the only reason that they don't want you to talk about your salary is that you and somebody else might find out that, oh, shit, you're making more than me and I've been here longer. They don't want you talking about that because then you're going to go in and ask for a 10% raise and go on fucking strike. So there's part of me that definitely feels that whole like, look at this motherfucker chasing cloud or like, oh, you're just your virtue signaling. All that is is trying to get the timeline to be completely silent.

That way everyone thinks nothing's fucking going on and no changes being made. That's how I feel personally. So yeah. And also, I'm glad you said virtue signaling. The most succinct way I can try to say it is, if you're signaling virtues, but you're living those virtues, that's a double hit for me because you're living it and encouraging other people to do it. That photo I shared of myself at the rally with the sign hillbillies for Black Lives Matter has been shared more, has led me to meet new people. I read this article on medium called Rednecks for Black Lives Matter that I never would have gotten sent to me had I not posted that picture. like these things have positive qualities to them i know there's a gross aspect of trying to like

get credit off of the backs of some tragedy and that that's that's real that you should think about it but at the end of the day your goal is to be visible and vocal yeah the virtue signaling shit pisses me off not not people who virtue signal that it's people who caught like look at these fucking virtue signals oh hey man quit quit signal on your you know virtue signal blah blah blah and then you'll go to that person's page and like two posts down, they were talking about how if you don't stand for the flag, blah, blah, blah, it's like, motherfucker, that's your virtue. And you call it and you,

all the media is. Yeah, and you calling me out, you, you taking time to retweet my post with a comment that says, look at this dude, virtue signaling, this isn't how you're speaking. You're literally signaling your virtues right now by doing this to me. So shut the fuck up. Right.

Virtue signaling is just sharing a goddamn opinion, which is the thing that you think. I think everybody should, I don't know, man. It's also not the time to talk about it. George Floyd died in the street after being choked for nine fucking minutes, and the goal with this particular picture is to spread awareness about that and let people know what sides you're on, whereas, yeah, you have a good point about a hypocrite.

We'll get to that in fucking August, bro. Right. Yeah, I don't know. It's stupid. People are dumb and don't. Yeah, I mean, me and Drew talked about this the other day. I mean, I had already taken the picture and posted the picture before we even had this conversation. So, I mean, I'd already made the decision.

But we were talking about this whole thing in the car. And I was saying, like, that I get it. I get the, not the virtue signet thing. I'm talking about the, like, people feeling weird about stuff like that because I feel weird about it, too. I was always going to share a picture because I thought that it was more important of all the reasons Drew said to, like, make it clear. where you stand and also to show support for a very important thing. And, you know, I've got an actual platform that makes it more important to do stuff like that, you know, I really believe all that.

So that's why I did it, but I still couldn't help but feeling a little weird about it. For me, it's because of I just, the thing is, it's, you know what it is? It's some bad apples. I just can't help me think about all the influencers Drew's talking about. You know what I mean? Like all the things we see going viral with them with their bullshit. And so I'm just like in my head, I'm sitting there. Even while we're taking a picture, in my head, I'm like, God, they think that I'm that.

But think about that word, influencer. Yeah. They're not a politician. When you see Nancy Pelosi fucking kneeling in a fucking Conte cloth, I'm not sure I said it wrong or whatever she did. You should be livid unless she's coming with some reform this week. And you know what I'm saying? And apparently she has introduced the reform bill. I haven't read over it.

I didn't bring her up to make anybody mad. I know we got some Pelosi stands out there. They just love how she clapped instead of actually standing up with Donald Trump. But I just couldn't not do it, could I? But my point is, influencer. Like, our culture is vapid and it's hollow, and it might be eroding from the inside. But at the moment, some reason these fucking people do influence.

kids. Yeah. So like, so take your picture. You were already a soulless fucking succulent on our society.

At the very least, I hope my 12-year-old nephew sees it and thinks, well, fuck, if Jake Paul's doing it, maybe it's pretty cool. Yeah, the thing with that,

and I know you know this, but the thing with that is it's like, the problem is not them taking the picture. The problem is them taking the picture and then getting in the Mercedes and driving away.

Like the problem is that they don't actually give a fuck. But just like the corporations do, though, and we already talked about that. The corporations don't actually give a fuck either. It still is a good sign that they feel that it's conducive to them and their brand or whatever to do that. That still ultimately is a good thing. But I'm just saying that I understand this.

Because like whenever I see one of those videos specifically, I also am sitting like, God, this motherfucker, you know, it's hard not. It's hard not for me. Obviously. Yeah, it's hard. And I just, you should have already hated influencers.

And I know I did. I do. I know that. But that's what I'm saying. It's like, we all, yeah, we hate influencers.

I'm just, I'm just sitting back going, well, that's what they do. And I'm glad that this is what is cool right now. Yeah. Me too. Yeah.

And it don't mean shit about you or us or our movement. It never has. Anytime somebody on the other side says, anything about any political issue and they point out a person's hypocrisy. That doesn't change the truth. Yeah. Well, Drew. What?

Do you want to give a little intro into this bonus segment that's about to start up here in a minute? Then we'll get out of here. John Hammondry is a journalist and podcaster at al.com. in Alabama, and he started the podcast called Recen. And Reckon is a... We're the guest this week. Go listen to it right now after this. On the Wrecking podcast, the Well Red Boys are the guest this week.

We have planned before all this popped off, but there we were. And we recorded it before I ever marched or Trevor March just for the record, folks. But anyway, I wanted to keep him on after we did his podcast and talked to him about something I've been thinking a little bit about ever since, frankly, we talked with Sarah Smarsh. You guys, well-read fans, remember, we discussed some things with Sarah Smarsh. Sarah Smarsh is a writer and also a journalist who moved back to Kansas, even though she's Ivy League educated and had all these opportunities to write for New York Times or whoever it was, because she was sick of parachute journalism.

I wanted to speak with John about something that I've been worried about, which is sort of the death of the local newspaper and even the death of statewide newspapers and news outlets in some cases. I have a lot of opinions about why you can hear some of them in this conversation I have with John. He confirmed some of my opinions and validated them. And he also pointed out why I was wrong on some of them. I want to say, though, I hadn't really thought it out before I started asking him. And it became pretty clear to me that, and John openly says it on the interview. You'll hear it in a moment that he had to be a little careful because he is.

a person who works for a smaller news outlet that is owned by a major corporation. And that is an interesting relationship that he's trying to navigate there. And so I cannot put any words in his mouth one way or the other. You know, I can go ahead and tell you guys that I purposely didn't bring up unions or anything like that or breaking up huge corporations with John very much because I didn't want to put him in a situation that was uncomfortable. But I wanted everyone who's about to listen to us to know

that, yeah, I'm aware that huge corporations are evil in unions would be the best way to go. That being said, it's a good conversation. I hope everyone is worried about local journalism because without local journalism at the state and county and city level, all the things you talk about and think about with Donald Trump's White House and corruption and all that,

it's just going to go on and checked in smaller versions, wherever you live. And so that's why we need newspapers. And John is a person who is living that, fighting against it and doing fucking great journalism. And unfortunately, it's one of those situations guys where there's a way things should be, which is that every small town and every community and every small city

should have its own press that does, Right. But that's not the case. In order to even make that happen, you've got to be really, really, really good. And John Hammondry is really, really, really good. And so are his colleagues there at A.I.com. A.L. Right. Yeah. Yeah. They're hit the toll of it, man. They've been hitting for a while. You know, I've taken note of it because, you know, it's Alabama. Right. Right. Right. Right. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, one more thing. This is a plug, but it's, I think, for a good reason. On end of the abyskit this week, all I'm going to put up. Andy didn't tell me she had done this, but she, until recently,

she recorded about half of that rally we were at, Trey. Oh, really? Unfortunately, she didn't get your friend. I think her phone just cut off without her realizing it. So I'm just putting up the speeches. I mean, we can do that here. She recorded the video? No, it's, she just.

I just did an audio. Yeah. I was about to say, how they help you do that? Right. So you can hear these women, these black women doing the work, black women doing the work. You can hear them speak from their heart about what needs to happen and what it's like to be them in America.

And it's pretty powerful stuff. Yeah, it is. All right. Well, y'all check it out and enjoy this conversation with John Hammondry. We'll see y'all next time. We'll be right. What's up, everybody? We're going to do a little short statement.

We are here with John Hemetree of al.com. Journalists, podcaster, all-around great guy. I want to talk to you, and I also want to get right into it about that first word. I am very sincerely and not, I don't think, just in a tinfoil hat way, afraid of what is happening with journalism in America right now. and there's many, many things that sentence could mean, but specifically what it means to me is that it seems like it's going away.

There's a variety of reasons. First of all, do you agree with that? And by going away, I mean, it seems like there's less journalists who are able to support themselves through journalism and therefore there's less good journalism. Is that accurate? Yeah, that's 100% accurate. And I think what is really happening

that sucks for places like, you know, Alabama and Tennessee and places that we care about. I mean, you know, obviously A.L.com is doing great, but by and large, the journalism in the middle of the country is hollowing out, and like New York Times is doing fine, Washington Post is doing fine. I mean, the West Coast is, it has a lot of journalists, but I mean, a lot of it is also like the varieties and the Hollywood reporters and like the entertainment journalists of the world.

Even California is kind of hollowing out when it comes to like investigative and accountability journalism. I mean, this pandemic has really accelerated it. I mean, every week, it seems like, hundreds of reporters are losing their jobs. You know, and it's weird because like we're one of those few industries

that people like cheer when we lose our jobs. You know, I mean, the president tweets that he's excited about reporters from the Atlantic getting laid off. Well, that's where I get into the tin foil stuff a little bit, and I'm happy to dive into that. And I don't even think it's tin foil stuff personally, but I mean, I think some of this is, if not planned, being co-opted as an opportunity by power structures. You know, without me saying the power structures in this country are trying to get rid of journalism, at the very least, they're realizing there's an opportunity to control and get, rid of journalists that are against them? Yeah, I mean, I want to keep my job so I can't say too many bad things about our employers.

But, no, I mean, it is accurate to say that a handful of billionaires have bought up most of the newspapers that exist in the country. Does that explain alone? Does that explain what you were talking about, the vacuum, how in the middle of the country, that's where it's suffering? I don't think it's necessarily that they are deliberately trying to get rid of journalists. I think that it would be... I'm sorry. I didn't mean the deliberate part. No, no, yeah, yeah. I'm following what you're saying.

I'm just kind of continuing it out. Is that, you know, if the newspaper is owned locally or it's a local nonprofit or supported by people in your community, even when it starts to turn less profitable, there's an incentive to kind of keep it going, right? like it because it does a public good. If you are a hedge fund in Boston and you own a newspaper in, you know, Hot Springs, Arkansas, you don't necessarily lose any sleep if that newspaper goes out of business because it doesn't really affect your life. It's just a bottom line. It's just numbers.

And so, you know, when it's just a matter of the corporate owner, of anything need to stay in the black versus going in the red, then yeah, it's easier to cut jobs and places that are easy to forget about. It's not just happening in the coast. I mean, you know, the Atlantic, which I mentioned a lot, I mean, New Yorker, there's been a lot of coastal outlets

that have shed employees. I mean, it's not just happening in middle America, but it's definitely felt more here. I was looking at something last year. And this was in the fall of 2019. I'm sure it's even worse now, but 22% of all journalists in the country were in three cities, New York, L.A. and Washington, D.C.

And so, like, when you have one in five reporters being in those three places, that definitely affects, you know, local coverage of the cities. like municipal corruption or state corruption and stuff that like you know 20 30 years ago used to have a lot more resources for and then obviously Facebook and Twitter and Google have eaten up all of the ad money and so like that's been a part of it too is that there's just no you know there's there's fewer and fewer ways for local companies to succeed I think that we have tried to innovate as best we can at a.L.com and I think that we've been able to weather the storm better than a lot. But it, I mean, it's definitely depressing to see, to see it happening the way that has. Generally speaking, why have you been successful? Well, and I'll say successful from an employee standpoint. And I mean, I think successful from a public service standpoint, but that would be the audience's call to make, not mine.

I would say that. Is there a hint in that that you're saying you're not sure if you're successful in terms of people who own Hale.com? No, what I was going to say is that I think our company made some tough decisions in 2012, and they consolidated a lot of stuff and moved to a three-day-a-week newspaper. And that upset a lot of our existing readership, and we put a lot of stuff online. And, you know, it took a long time to build back that trust. I think because we made the painful cuts so early, it forced us to adapt. happened and changed. And so that's when we started getting into video and podcasting and, you know, more digital journalism. And so I think that we've been able to weather the storm because we, you know, like the perfect storm. Like we steered the boat right into the wave and like managed to make it over it. But, you know, I mean, nobody's safe. The bottom could drop out for anybody any day now. I mean, Jeff Bezos could decide he doesn't care about journalism.

anymore and the Washington Post is suddenly struggling me. It is a humbling that there's so little we can do about like keeping our jobs. Like the Atlantic, right? I love the Atlantic. It's great publication. I read that they had added 90,000 subscribers since March. Like they've killed it when it comes to coronavirus pandemic coverage and coverage of everything else, right? So the journalists, they are doing all the right things. They're adding new subscribers, you know, everybody's supporting it. And yet they had to cut 20% of their workforce because, you know, they can't do in-person events anymore. And that was a major segment of their business. And so, like, there's stuff that, like, it's all, like, above our heads. We can't really do anything

beyond just kind of putting your head down and trying to do stories the best that you can. But, you know, I mean, there are actions that people can take. It's please support whatever your local outlet is. What does that mean when you say support? And I mean, let's get into some specifics. We don't have a huge listenership, but a big part of our listenership is not on the coast.

Yeah, sure. Are we talking to subscriptions? Are we talking about taking out ads if you own a business, all of the above? Both, yeah, for sure. I mean, particularly if you own a business, advertise with your local outlet. I mean, you know,

they're probably going to be able to reach audiences in more impactful ways, honestly, than Facebook will at this point. I think a lot of people have gotten used to tuning out Facebook. Subscribe to your local paper, read your local outlets if you can. You know, when it comes to like sharing stories, stop sharing the goofy fake blog that like somebody in your town owns and like share whoever your local reporters are.

you know, subscribe to their podcasts or their YouTube channels or whatever. I mean, the same way that like people would support you all, right? Like, I mean, A.L.com, we're not going to sell you like an A.L.com t-shirt, but like you can go on, you can make a donation, you can subscribe, you can subscribe to our newsletters, stuff like that keeps us afloat to the extent possible. And then I think that, I mean, the real thing that, I've always kind of run into is like, you know, become a consumer of local news and then like share it with your friends, right? Like, I mean, the dirty secret of New York Times is that they wouldn't be able to do what they do without local news.

And as soon as like this ecosystem falls apart, the New York Times, which some of your subscribers, some of your followers may subscribe to, you know, it's going to be less of a paper if they don't have local journalism. that they can go to and like get story ideas from. I'm not like, I'm not saying plagiarize. I'm just saying like that's, that's how like stories elevate up the food chain. It's like, you know, somebody in Des Moines, Iowa writes about a local sheriff who's corrupt and all of a sudden New York Times is writing about it. Like, what, if you take away that reporter in Iowa,

then you might not ever get on the New York Times radar. Do you have any positive, outlook that that is what will eventually stop the bleeding, the fact that places like the New York Times need these other places? I think the New York Times in particular has tried to do a better job recently of encouraging people to support and subscribe to local journalism because it is necessary. You know, our overlords who broke us in half at Facebook and Google are now setting up news initiative so that they can try to keep local news alive.

We'll see how long those last and how far that money goes. So do you think it's a shift or a reset or a desk of small town newspapers? It's been the weirdest fucking thing for the last three months, right? So the pandemic hits, right? And we have never been read more

in the history of AL.com. than we have been in the last few months. And I do think that there has been a shift of like, you know, when shit hits the fan, you want your local TV station, you want your local newspaper telling you, oh yeah, like these are what the numbers are in Alabama.

These are what the numbers are in Tennessee. You know, like I think people have realized the importance of local journalism a lot in the last few months. The irony is, is that local journalism has never been more vulnerable because, you know, when the economy tanks,

we tank, because when our advertisers can't afford to advertise, then we don't get any revenue. And so, like, it's that weird, messed up, like, Black Mirror episode irony where we, our audience has never been bigger, but we can't make any money off of it because there's nobody spending money on advertising. And so, yeah, I don't know.

I mean, I think, I hope local journalism will figure out ways to survive. But in some ways, like, it either, there has to be a return to like local ownership or at least national owners who care about local journalism or you know there's been some local nonprofits that have popped up you know we're trying to fill the gap with a.l.com and reckon and things like that. So I don't know. I mean hopefully that answers your question. It's not the most hopeful answer but I think that like you know we're we are an important part of people's communities and hopefully people. people, you know, the same impulses of like, go support your favorite restaurant while their doors are closed because you want to keep them in business.

I hope that people feel that way about their local news outlets because, like, if they don't support them, they might not always be in business. And what is, you said that about it not being hopeful. I mean, a thing that I've been preaching on my other podcast with DJ Lewis and started saying on Will Red is that false hope is actually the least hopeful. Like, it's the most nihilistic thing you can do. So it's fine if your answer isn't hopeful. But on the back of that, you know, what is the outcome, in your opinion, as a journalist? What happens if we lose the newspapers or local newspapers? Oh, I mean, I think that a weird byproduct of the last four years has been that, like,

I bet you could pick up the phone and talk to anybody in your contact. list and they could either tell you, here's this super corrupt thing that Donald Trump did, or here's this super corrupt thing that the Democrats in Congress did. You know, here's something Joe Biden did. But I bet they couldn't tell you who their city council member is. I bet they can't tell you who their state rep is. And so, like, the corruption that actually affects your day-to-day life more than anything. And I'm not trying to minimize, you know, what's happening in Washington, D.C.,

it certainly affects all of our lives, but the corruption that affects, you know, whether there's enough money for your schools or your streets, or who gets to open a business downtown, even the stuff we're seeing in Minneapolis right now, that corruption happens on the local level, and if you don't have the infrastructure

to watch that corruption happen on the local level, then they just get away with it. And, I mean, in Alabama, we've at least seen in the last five years. You know, we had a, we had our state speaker of the House, got prosecuted and convicted on ethics charges that he wrote, like, you know, he went to jail. He got a bit. Charges that he wrote.

We had Roy Moore as our Chief Justice of the Supreme Court have to step down for, you know, violating his duty. We had the governor have to resign because he got. caught, like, using state resources to cover up an affair. And then he appointed Jeff Sessions replacement to the U.S. Senate in what seems to have been a handshake deal to kind of, it was the attorney general. He appointed him and then he said to be Senate. And then all of a sudden that investigation was dropped. And so, like, all of that corruption on the state level may not have been found out if there weren't a journalist there to help bring.

drag it into the light. It might have, but, you know, it certainly doesn't hurt to have watchdogs that are calling for it. And that's what terrifies me about it. You know, at the beginning when I said that about, you know, I don't want to get super-timful hat of here, but it feels like an erosion on a local level of something that's vital. It feels like it's almost as important as hospitals disappearing from rural communities and jobs disappearing from rural communities. And I don't want to cast my own politics upon you. I'll obviously allow you to respond. But for me, and I know my well-read listeners know this, you know, the problem of all those things, hospitals, jobs, and local newspapers disappearing is that the bottom line somewhere else supersedes what's

important to you locally. I don't know if there's a way to overcome that. I don't know if there's I don't know if there's any one way to fight back against that. I've become more and more, according to what my, I'm not saying literally my dad said this, but what my dad's thinking, I've become more and more communist as the days go by because I'm so frustrated with our government allowing corporations to just suck everything from these places,

including newspapers, and it frustrates me, but what do I do, you know? Yeah, I, um, so I mean, we've talked a lot about like newspapers as like legacy, media institutions, right? Like, you know, I mean, the Mobile Press Register has been in Alabama for hundreds of years at this point. And so, like, the loss of newspapers like that, you know, the loss of the New Orleans Times,

Picayune when it was bought by the advocate there in New Orleans, that's, you know, that's a hard loss to replace. but there have been locally owned, locally managed, either nonprofits or employee-owned alternatives that have popped up. You know, in New Orleans, there's the Lins. There are groups like the Marshall Project. There's a new company out of North Carolina that I think is called the State's Newsroom that is setting up newspapers.

they just set one up in Tennessee, I think, called the Tennessee Outlook. And that's kind of the nonprofit model. And, you know, so there are alternatives that are blowing up. And I think that we've seen a lot, particularly with the Black Lives Matter movement, we've seen the importance of citizen journalism. So, I mean, some of that, you know, journalists might not look like alt-weeklies. It might not look like traditional newspapers or traditional news sites. And I do think that, like, you do need some, like, rigor and fact-checking that goes into that.

Like, I don't think that every citizen journalist has the right motives. Like, you know, there are a lot of Sean Kings of the world out there that seem to be more interested in Sean King than, you know, lessors might crucify me for that. But I think anyone would have to acknowledge that his platform is at least similar to someone like Alex Jones. or somebody like that, even if that's probably me going too far. I'm not saying that he lies as much as Alex Jones, but everyone would have to acknowledge he occupies the same space in terms of fame and generating content, generating clicks.

Right. He is very good at elevating stories. What he is not going to replace is somebody going and finding those stories that need to be elevated by somebody like him. And sometimes, you know, sometimes things get distorted and sensationalized when it goes through kind of the social media ecosystem. I mean, we were talking about earlier or maybe later, depending on when you put this on the show, but, you know, the picture of the Klansman,

the guy wearing the clanshood as his mask, you know, people saying, like, meanwhile in the South, even though that picture is in California, like when stuff only traffics through social media, it gets distorted. So I think that, like, you do need at least somebody accountable. whether it's a nonprofit or a for-profit or even a corporation when it comes to some of this media. One problem with that model is that like, you know, it's what happened to Gawker, right?

Like, it got sued into oblivion. It's really easy for some of those corporate powers with major money to sue a local nonprofit to the point where they have to close their doors. So, like, I think that that's a problem with it. Real evil is anyone having that much money and power. But that aside, you just mentioned the well-read crew, all of us, Mitre, and Corey, were on John's podcast, Reckon.

That's the name of the podcast. The Reckon interview, yeah. The Reckon interview, okay. And Reckon is a, how would you describe Reckon, a section of A.L, a part of A.L.com? Yeah, it was kind of born out of A.L.com. It's sort of growing into its own entity, but we took a bunch of the resources that we had at Alabama Media Group and started focusing on like, you know, there's a whole audience out there who can't imagine never having their hard copy newspaper. And then there's a whole audience that can't imagine ever picking up a newspaper in their lives.

And so like how do we take? Some of us are 35. And how do we take like that legacy of solid reporting. but start doing it in new ways that reach new audiences where they already are, whether it's podcasts or videos or social media, stuff like that. And so, like, what we have tried to do is be a resource for Alabama and the South of, like, here's some high-quality reporting in formats that, like, you might be used to seeing from New York media,

but maybe aren't used to seeing from media in Alabama. That was the first place I was introduced to you and what you do, and I think it's phenomenal. I was super jealous of the name. It's so great because obviously there's the Southern Will I reckon. And then there's obviously the meaning of that word. And that's what we're all trying to do right now. Anybody with a brain and a heart,

we're trying to reckon with what's going on. And on that note, I'll let you get out of here. I guess just to end it, if you're a concerned citizen worried about local journalism and stuff, I think, and you can either add to this or disagree with, But I think what we're all saying is at some point we've got to realize it's on us. We've got to take care of ourselves one way or the other. Whether you are a journalist starting new website or you're just making sure that you're supporting your local newspapers and outlets.

Do you have anything to add to that? Yeah, I mean, I think that everybody is kind of accustomed to like the buy local, right? Like buy local produce, buy local restaurants, buy local hardwool. where, so just kind of apply that to your journalism too, by local and hopefully it'll be better. And is there anything they should watch out for? Correct me if I'm wrong. Sometimes you think your state newspaper that's made in Birmingham is just, you know, about as local as it can get. And then it turns out it's not, or am I, is that ignorant because no matter who owns it as long as it's made nearby, it's what we're after? I will say that, like, yeah, I mean, there's corporate ownership, but like there are people who think that, like, we

get our marching orders from New York, and that, I mean, that doesn't happen. I know that some of the TV stations are required to run, like, national opinion segments from, I think the gray TV stations are required to do that. I might have that wrong, but no, I mean, most of the time, even if it's owned by somebody else, the local reporters are caring about the community. Right. That's what you're really after is the local reporting. Well, thank you so much, John. Yeah, thank you. Follow him.

What does your social media handle? Yeah, at John Hammondree. Please, if you like this show, go subscribe to the Reck and Interview Podcast, wherever you get your podcast. And you can find me on al.com as well. Cool. Thanks, guys.