Episode 108

full
Published on:

8th Nov 2024

Winners and Losers

We run through the implications of the return of Donald Trump to the presidency after an election that saw the mainstream news media making way for new power brokers in unusual guises. The podcast election proved to be real – and a harbinger of changes to come as the Information Space subsumes the Fourth Estate.

Transcript
Brian Morrissey:

Do you have a hotel recommendation there?

Troy Young:

there's a hotel I like that you could stay

Troy Young:

at.

Troy Young:

Try the NoMad.

Troy Young:

See if you can get a good deal

Brian Morrissey:

Okay, yeah, all

Troy Young:

It's in Covent Garden.

Troy Young:

It's nice.

Troy Young:

I like

Brian Morrissey:

I don't like Covent Garden.

Troy Young:

It's,

Troy Young:

got a nice library.

Troy Young:

It's, where do you want to go?

Troy Young:

What

Brian Morrissey:

I don't know.

Brian Morrissey:

I don't know where I need to be.

Brian Morrissey:

Welcome to People vs.

Brian Morrissey:

Algorithms, a show about detecting patterns in media, technology, and culture.

Brian Morrissey:

I am Brian Morrissey, and each week I am joined by Troy Young and Alex Schleifer.

Brian Morrissey:

This week, we have to focus on the election.

Brian Morrissey:

I'm sorry, we do.

Brian Morrissey:

The return of Donald Trump to the presidency is a remarkable comeback, that also marks a return to the disruptive years of his first term.

Brian Morrissey:

And, for the already hard hit news business, Trump is the ultimate complexifier, to use Jeff Bezos great term.

Brian Morrissey:

and his return comes, At a time when the overall publishing business is really in the midst of a structural change, that's put unprecedented pressure on its business models.

Brian Morrissey:

This is something we talk about regularly on the show.

Brian Morrissey:

and it got, it got us thinking about the winners and losers from this election.

Brian Morrissey:

So I wanted to to run through a few of, my own.

Brian Morrissey:

one is, is the creator economy is clearly a winner without a doubt.

Brian Morrissey:

I don't know what else to call this.

Brian Morrissey:

I, I've been trying to call it the Indieverse.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, how surreal was it to have, during Trump's, victory speech, Dana White get the microphone and then he's shouting out the Nelk Boys, Theo Vaughn, and Joe Rogan.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, just, just rewind, say like even just five years.

Brian Morrissey:

And and think about that as a possibility.

Brian Morrissey:

It's really strange.

Brian Morrissey:

and this was truly a podcast election.

Brian Morrissey:

and it proved to me that the era of mainstream media is giving way to something far more decentralized.

Brian Morrissey:

and this is just a capstone of this.

Brian Morrissey:

And that's why I think that the mainstream media overall is a loser.

Brian Morrissey:

I know this might be piling on, but, you know, we've got to face face reality.

Brian Morrissey:

many of the themes that were pushed out by mainstream news organizations, whether it was that comedian at Madison Square Garden, or other issues were just simply roundly rejected in the marketplace, which is the electorate.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, and the old saying is elections have consequences.

Brian Morrissey:

And, and this is yet another wake up call that this trust deficit for the packaged news media is, is wide and it's growing to the point where it's not, it's not clear if it can be narrowed over time.

Brian Morrissey:

as it was put to me the other day, by someone very plugged in in Washington, Ben Shapiro and Joe Rogan are more powerful than most news organizations.

Brian Morrissey:

That's difficult pill to swallow, but I think it's actually fairly accurate, particularly, Over the next four years, of the other winners to me was poly market.

Brian Morrissey:

You know, it had a lot riding on this election.

Brian Morrissey:

you know, it is a basically it's a betting site and they call these things prediction markets, but they're just betting.

Brian Morrissey:

and a lot of times it's odds were doubted.

Brian Morrissey:

It was showing trump winning for a long time.

Brian Morrissey:

and and there was a lot of reasons that were put forward again by the mainstream media.

Brian Morrissey:

and they derided, you know, these odds as being easily manipulated.

Brian Morrissey:

and in the end.

Brian Morrissey:

Polymarket kind of got proved right, and that's why I've long thought that Polymarket has the makings of a really intriguing media company.

Brian Morrissey:

because after all, you know, I often say that, you know, media will be the front end to a lot of different business models, that are not the typical media business models.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think Polymarket is a great example of these kind of quasi media entities that we're going to see.

Brian Morrissey:

That, fill the void in the information space.

Brian Morrissey:

some more losers, pollsters.

Brian Morrissey:

polling has gotten more inaccurate during the Trump years.

Brian Morrissey:

Nate Silver ran apparently 60, 000 simulations to conclude that the race was a toss up.

Brian Morrissey:

And then hours later, it became very clear that this was not the nail biter.

Brian Morrissey:

That that he and every other pollster set now, they will hide behind the idea that these are are just odds and all that.

Brian Morrissey:

And it seems like, you know, heads, they win tails.

Brian Morrissey:

They still don't lose.

Brian Morrissey:

reality is they have a credibility problem on par with when the weather channel went through that period of time when I kept typing up massive storms and never arrived these days.

Brian Morrissey:

That's a safe bet.

Brian Morrissey:

Massive storms to arrive.

Brian Morrissey:

and I think another winner as a whole is the information space.

Brian Morrissey:

Notably, Elon Musk's bet on on X is looking very different right now.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, I think it's hard to doubt that X is a very consequential media entity, particularly After the rightward shift of the electorate.

Brian Morrissey:

Elon Musk might not be able to sell many ads there.

Brian Morrissey:

I still do not believe this will be a thriving ad business.

Brian Morrissey:

but the goal of billionaires dabbling in media is not great returns.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, I can think of few worse areas to make money these days than media, but it's to accrue power.

Brian Morrissey:

and in that sense, mission accomplished.

Brian Morrissey:

And finally, another losers are the billionaires as media saviors.

Brian Morrissey:

At least, this is an idea.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, Jeff Bezos made a sensible business decision right before the election, and this also proves that, to me, my theory that the billionaires have way better data than the rest of us when it comes to um, Polling in these elections in not risking lucrative government contracts for, you know, what was really a pointless endorsement of Harris, you know, and I know I've talked with lots of people who say, well, it's not about the endorsement.

Brian Morrissey:

It's about the bending the knee and all of this and like, yeah, I get that.

Brian Morrissey:

But here's the thing.

Brian Morrissey:

The entire idea of benevolent billionaire is an oxymoron.

Brian Morrissey:

You do not become a billionaire through benevolence.

Brian Morrissey:

Just not, not in the DNA.

Brian Morrissey:

Now Patrick Soon Shiong at the LA Times has proven this.

Brian Morrissey:

Mark Benioff is throwing in the towel on Time.

Brian Morrissey:

This is the latest in a long parade.

Brian Morrissey:

Of billionaires that have come into media have gotten, punched in the nose and I've quickly retreated.

Brian Morrissey:

This is not a business for the faint of heart.

Brian Morrissey:

It looks much easier on the outside than it is on the inside.

Brian Morrissey:

We discuss all this on the show today.

Brian Morrissey:

and then Alex spends a lot of it wondering whether any of it matters because the news media is in terminal decline.

Brian Morrissey:

At least that's his point of view.

Brian Morrissey:

Hope you enjoy the conversation.

Brian Morrissey:

And if you do.

Brian Morrissey:

Please leave us a rating and review wherever you listen to this and send me some feedback.

Brian Morrissey:

bmorrissey@therebooting.Com.

Brian Morrissey:

we did guest on last week.

Brian Morrissey:

Moksha, Fitz Fitzgibbons.

Brian Morrissey:

we're hoping to have more guests.

Brian Morrissey:

I want to see if, that's what people are interested in.

Brian Morrissey:

I think it's a good to mix in, mix in both formats.

Brian Morrissey:

Hope you enjoy the show.

Brian Morrissey:

I think it's best to look at this a little bit clinically.

Brian Morrissey:

I look at it as just trying to dissect it through the lens of all the stuff we talk about on this podcast.

Brian Morrissey:

So, Maybe we probably will not get to, mystery of, of Latino voters, et cetera.

Brian Morrissey:

That's probably for the best, but I want to, I want to get into what this means for the media industry going forward, because I think this is the first information space election and it, it gave some verdicts that's for sure.

Brian Morrissey:

First, what about their, your experience, watching it.

Brian Morrissey:

Troy, you were traveling, right?

Brian Morrissey:

So you did not, you didn't tune in to CNN or

Troy Young:

I was traveling, but for the beginning of it, I was sitting in an airport lounge.

Troy Young:

and so I was listening, and watching, on my phone.

Troy Young:

I was very curious about how.

Troy Young:

Brian Williams and his production group would spin up a new kind of show and that was the Amazon Prime show and I watched, I watched that and would flip back and forth to, you know, CNN.

Troy Young:

The interesting thing about the, the, the Prime special was, was kind of awkward.

Troy Young:

They didn't really have.

Troy Young:

You know, the, the kind of run a show down and, he kept getting interrupted by these announcements and they were sitting in this MGM, projection facility, that's like a mini version of the sphere.

Troy Young:

So they had these crazy, you saw it, right,

Troy Young:

Brian.

Troy Young:

They had those crazy, crazy backgrounds.

Troy Young:

what I liked best about it were,

Troy Young:

were the guests.

Troy Young:

So they had Peter Hamby and Scott Galloway.

Troy Young:

And

Alex Schleifer:

they have

Troy Young:

I thought it was funny that They brought Dan Harris on to give people breathing exercises.

Troy Young:

They had like TikTok influences, influencers.

Brian Morrissey:

Did they have a Calm, integration?

Alex Schleifer:

almost like

Brian Morrissey:

They should have.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah

Troy Young:

So it was, It was a little hodgepodge,

Troy Young:

but it was kind of fun.

Troy Young:

And I thought that the talent that they brought in was refreshing, not like classic cable television talking heads.

Troy Young:

So there was a really nice kind of amateur thing about it.

Troy Young:

and, it was almost like the internet came to the, to the broadcast studio.

Troy Young:

So a lot of people from the kind of emergent world of podcasting, next generation media, you know, the sort of column columnist ization of the world.

Troy Young:

Those people are perfect for people like Peter Hamby.

Troy Young:

Who's great.

Troy Young:

you know, those people were great additions to to the coverage and it felt.

Troy Young:

It felt more both informative, I suppose, and, you know, kind of interesting, and it touched my world more than the CNN approach.

Brian Morrissey:

No, I totally agree.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, it, it was amateurish at, at, at times, but I kind of like that.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think that's like overall what we're seeing in, in the media world, all the high production values, are declining in many ways, in giving you sort of any advantage in the marketplace.

Brian Morrissey:

And I thought it was interesting, you know, it wasn't the same old

Brian Morrissey:

thing, but it wasn't totally, totally different.

Brian Morrissey:

And so.

Brian Morrissey:

Good.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think we're going to have more of that going forward because I think a big takeaway from this, I want to get into the winners and losers, but I don't know if this, you can come to any other conclusion, but this is like.

Brian Morrissey:

Sort of the end of the mass media era, in some ways, because this election was not really close.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think a lot of us expected it to go this way.

Brian Morrissey:

But, you know, this is coming on the heels of basically since, um.

Brian Morrissey:

Donald Trump rode down that escalator.

Brian Morrissey:

you know, institutions have failed to respond in any kind of way to the challenges that he has presented.

Brian Morrissey:

And to think that a decade on, you know, they've been thoroughly repudiated and the media doesn't come out of this looking good yet again.

Brian Morrissey:

And when you look at, all of the challenges that we talk about every week on this podcast,

Troy Young:

Can you be more expensive?

Troy Young:

it doesn't look good.

Troy Young:

Why?

Troy Young:

Because it got it so wrong.

Troy Young:

No,

Brian Morrissey:

the trust issue, right, is that I believe that a large group of this population.

Brian Morrissey:

Does not believe that the media focuses on real issues.

Brian Morrissey:

The guy telling jokes at Madison Square Garden.

Brian Morrissey:

Well, that clearly wasn't the big issue that the media was making out to me.

Brian Morrissey:

Nate Silver, you know, who, you know, is a great example of the expert class ran 80, 000 simulations to find that it was a dead heat.

Brian Morrissey:

Guess what?

Brian Morrissey:

It wasn't a dead heat.

Brian Morrissey:

At all.

Brian Morrissey:

the overall, the entire polling industry needs to be emulated.

Brian Morrissey:

It needs to be rebuilt.

Brian Morrissey:

It's clear that whatever they're doing from and seltzer to all of the data jockeys is not working at all.

Brian Morrissey:

And then you look at the issues that, you know, the mainstream media, the packaged media has been pushing the narratives of, you know, Donald Trump is an existential threat to democracy.

Brian Morrissey:

Guess what?

Brian Morrissey:

People voted.

Brian Morrissey:

And, and they voted, they said the top issue was, you know, protecting democracy and they voted for Trump.

Brian Morrissey:

that's just L's across the board.

Brian Morrissey:

I don't think there's any other way to spin it.

Brian Morrissey:

Am I wrong here?

Troy Young:

you're right.

Brian Morrissey:

Okay, so that's a big

Brian Morrissey:

loser.

Troy Young:

Well, well, what, what else did you look at?

Troy Young:

Let's, let's, let's keep going on this.

Troy Young:

I'd be curious what Alex is doing other than when he went, maybe he went to his bomb shelter, but, you know, I, I was, I think one of the better predictors for me is I kept, I was actually trading a bit of coin, bitcoin at the same time.

Brian Morrissey:

You weren't, were

Troy Young:

I was, honestly, yeah, and I, so I was, I was on Coinbase a lot because I thought that the price of Bitcoin was a good predictor of where it was going.

Brian Morrissey:

one of the things I would say is I, I watched the beginning of this like I was getting dinner in, in Miami and nobody was watching the TV.

Brian Morrissey:

Nobody like zero people.

Brian Morrissey:

More people were vaping than watching the TV.

Troy Young:

well, the,

Troy Young:

the Times did a good job.

Troy Young:

Again, I'm not talking about the content or the coverage.

Troy Young:

I'm talking about the, the interface was great.

Brian Morrissey:

well, I got the needle back.

Brian Morrissey:

That was good.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean,

Brian Morrissey:

the tech

Troy Young:

had the they had the needle in every, in every state.

Troy Young:

it's just the way they presented information was, cool.

Brian Morrissey:

Alex, what was the scene on threads?

Alex Schleifer:

Oh, uh, I, I turned everything off and I just checked this morning.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't know.

Alex Schleifer:

I didn't sleep.

Alex Schleifer:

I was trying to, listen to a movie podcast.

Alex Schleifer:

and fall asleep, but I couldn't fall asleep.

Alex Schleifer:

And then this morning I just checked and that's, that was that.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't understand why people would, commit themselves to so much suffering of looking kind of numbers go up or down for hours.

Alex Schleifer:

I wasn't, I wasn't into that.

Alex Schleifer:

I think it was too consequential for me for it to become.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

So, I don't, I don't, you know, my wife and I both turned this things off and just, I played video games and then went to bed.

Alex Schleifer:

That was it.

Alex Schleifer:

People started texting me screenshots and shit.

Alex Schleifer:

And I was like, I just turned the whole thing off.

Troy Young:

Alex, when you woke up, where did you go?

Alex Schleifer:

I use this thing called brick for my phone, which basically it's like a little thing puck I put on my fridge and I tap my phone against it and it turns off all the apps.

Alex Schleifer:

So the only thing I had available was like.

Alex Schleifer:

first I, I, I checked our threads, our, our little message group.

Alex Schleifer:

there was nothing useful there.

Alex Schleifer:

and then I went, uh, I went to CNN and BBC and Google news.

Alex Schleifer:

and then I went to threads and, you know, threads is like.

Alex Schleifer:

Just on fire right now, because I mean, obviously people were in a bubble in there, people in different bubble on Twitter, but, you know, the grift, the grift of sphere has, has won out.

Alex Schleifer:

I think the next four years are going to be insufferable.

Brian Morrissey:

Okay.

Brian Morrissey:

Well, let's get into, let's get into the winners.

Brian Morrissey:

I

Alex Schleifer:

I, don't know how, I don't know how, like, my Elon derangement syndrome is gonna, is gonna age.

Alex Schleifer:

I, I stand by it.

Alex Schleifer:

I

Brian Morrissey:

well, he's

Brian Morrissey:

good.

Alex Schleifer:

I was proven right.

Brian Morrissey:

He's going to stay.

Brian Morrissey:

in the United States now.

Brian Morrissey:

He's not gone to the Hague.

Brian Morrissey:

so we'll get rockets and the rest of it.

Brian Morrissey:

We might get some other stuff.

Brian Morrissey:

but let's talk about the winners.

Brian Morrissey:

you mentioned the grifter sphere.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, I would maybe like explain what you mean by the grifter sphere.

Alex Schleifer:

it's the Joe Rogan, extended universe.

Alex Schleifer:

Cinematic universe, right?

Alex Schleifer:

It's like that whole, podcasting, mostly podcasting, YouTube manosphere supplement selling, you know, centrist posing, you know.

Alex Schleifer:

Platforming, whoever wants to talk to you for three hours.

Alex Schleifer:

vaccine denying, kind of environment that's like, that's one over, like we, I think people

Troy Young:

So you're a, you're a fan.

Alex Schleifer:

Oh, a huge fan.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

I love, I love this stuff.

Alex Schleifer:

I think it makes, it makes us safer and smarter.

Alex Schleifer:

when the guy that used to make people eat like elephant balls on TV and cockroaches now, you know, helps a presidential candidate when that's great, it's

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah, it is noteworthy that Dana White, like, took the, took the microphone at the, the Trump celebration and, and called out the Nelk Boys and, and, and Joe Rogan above, above all else.

Brian Morrissey:

the All In guys didn't seem like they got any, got any shout outs, which is a shame.

Brian Morrissey:

But I think it's pretty clear

Alex Schleifer:

online guys fit in a different category, which is all the.

Alex Schleifer:

The billionaires, and masters of industry that were seeing the tide turn and decided to suck up to the new king before he was new king, knowing that if by chance Harris would win, she wouldn't be as retaliatory as Trump would be.

Alex Schleifer:

So everybody shows up great

Brian Morrissey:

man,

Brian Morrissey:

I'm the cynical one.

Brian Morrissey:

My God.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't know.

Alex Schleifer:

Maybe it's because, A European education teaches you a lot about, the dangers of, fascism.

Brian Morrissey:

but that was rejected by by voters.

Brian Morrissey:

and, you can't sort of get around that.

Alex Schleifer:

And to be fair, the election went relatively smoothly, you know, if you want an upside

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah.

Brian Morrissey:

but

Brian Morrissey:

it's very clear that the, the, the podcasters did come out as a winner in this.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think broadly speaking, if you talk about the decline, we've talked about a lot of mass media, a lot of this influence is leaking out to places like podcasting and what I call the indiverse.

Brian Morrissey:

and that has emerged.

Brian Morrissey:

As to me, a clear winner, Troy, what do you think?

Troy Young:

think that's true.

Troy Young:

I think that, The Rogan thing that Trump did in particular went a long way to sort of humanize him.

Troy Young:

And I think this style of conversational media was really important in the election.

Troy Young:

you know, I don't think its influence was, over emphasized or overestimated.

Troy Young:

In terms of the winners, I think Alex is right.

Troy Young:

The Bros won.

Troy Young:

Elon won.

Troy Young:

Seemingly corporate America will, will benefit.

Troy Young:

I think that type of sort of center, right?

Troy Young:

Partisan media did great.

Troy Young:

I think, you know, in the end, everybody.

Troy Young:

Aided on JD Vance, and he turned out to be the sort of president of the Yale debating club and, I think showed up as a.

Troy Young:

you know, a confident sort of, to, to fight Trump's battles and never back down from them.

Troy Young:

I think this will, position him incredibly well.

Troy Young:

if you're in fossil fuels, you're probably a winner.

Brian Morrissey:

Let's stick to media.

Alex Schleifer:

well, I mean, if you're, yeah, it's true.

Alex Schleifer:

If you, if you're the planet or women, you kind of, you know,

Troy Young:

Yeah.

Troy Young:

Well, the losers, the losers were clearly, clearly women, DEI, probably broadcasting,

Alex Schleifer:

but I

Alex Schleifer:

mean, even if you look at, even if you look at the media landscape that, that, you know, the griftosphere, as we call that, it's mostly male, it's, it's so bro y, it's incredible.

Alex Schleifer:

And the voting patterns lined up

Brian Morrissey:

but, but this is like, Trump

Brian Morrissey:

won everything.

Brian Morrissey:

he didn't, it's not a male thing.

Brian Morrissey:

if you look at it, it's like he won, he won 10 points more in Manhattan.

Brian Morrissey:

this is an utter repudiation.

Brian Morrissey:

I, I don't, I'll give people a few days to sort of get over their hurt feelings and stuff.

Brian Morrissey:

But it's, it's time to look inward.

Brian Morrissey:

this isn't a messaging problem.

Brian Morrissey:

It's a product problem.

Troy Young:

the coalition is, is broken.

Troy Young:

It, there's a big problem.

Troy Young:

don't know how you, if you're the Democrats, you have to do a huge amount of soul searching about what is fundamentally bringing a group of people together.

Brian Morrissey:

I want to talk about the media's role in this, right?

Brian Morrissey:

Because after 2016, we were told it was Russia.

Brian Morrissey:

And we were told it was Cambridge Analytica.

Brian Morrissey:

And it was Facebook.

Brian Morrissey:

All these different things that we were trying to explain a phenomenon that people didn't like.

Brian Morrissey:

Right?

Brian Morrissey:

And there wasn't like a reality.

Brian Morrissey:

People got JD Vance's book to try to understand it for a little bit, but there wasn't really an acceptance of reality that this very unusual character had tapped into something that is broad within the American And electorate and just the American people.

Brian Morrissey:

And at first it was, and it's still, you hear, oh, it's just, you know, racist and all of this, and that just makes it even worse.

Brian Morrissey:

And then all of a sudden, he's broadening a coalition to include, Latinos and it trumped into terrible really with, with women overall.

Brian Morrissey:

And so it's hard to really, I don't see how you come out of this without, thinking a lot about how the media has, the mass media in general, has just not figured this out.

Brian Morrissey:

And I don't know if, I don't know if it can at this point, and I don't know where it goes from here.

Brian Morrissey:

is it like 2017 where it goes back into the leaders of the resistance, right?

Brian Morrissey:

Does it make an accommodation like the billionaires?

Brian Morrissey:

I don't know.

Brian Morrissey:

What do you think is the path that that will be taken?

Brian Morrissey:

People are going to have to figure out a path.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think what Bezos saw was he saw the numbers.

Brian Morrissey:

Here's another thing.

Brian Morrissey:

I think clearly there's a lot of people who had way better numbers than the ones that we were fed

Troy Young:

Clearly, there was a memo went around to the billionaires.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah, I don't know what their pollsters are like, but they're clearly better.

Brian Morrissey:

They're, they're running better simulations than, than Nate Silvers.

Brian Morrissey:

because that was a clear choice.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think Jeff Bezos comes out of this actually in a weird way.

Brian Morrissey:

People won't like to hear this, but as a winner, you know, he hedged the bet when it was a good idea for who, for what, like he's not going down with, you know, consternation in the Washington post newsroom.

Brian Morrissey:

He's not going to do that.

Brian Morrissey:

Um,

Troy Young:

know, Brian, you make

Troy Young:

the, things you just said resonate so much with me, and I think that it will come, you know, I call that, you know, you need a new coalition, which is a set of ideas that that brings, you know, people together and gives you something that collectively can represent the energy of a country, because what has the, you know, GOP done, there's been a complete realignment of the working class to the GOP.

Troy Young:

Right.

Troy Young:

And, they've completely taken sort of non college educated Americans from the Democrats.

Troy Young:

in this election, major unions declined to support the Democratic Party, which is a break with history.

Troy Young:

They lost Latinos, They lost black men.

Troy Young:

They,

Brian Morrissey:

not, not really.

Troy Young:

no, not, no, but I mean, in terms of percentages

Troy Young:

relative to the last, uh, it eroded, right?

Troy Young:

And, and, and white suburbanites shifted even more strongly to Republicans.

Alex Schleifer:

when I step

Troy Young:

you, you know, when I step back I, I, don't know.

Troy Young:

In addition, to needing this kind of, like, new ideas that can align a group of people that are just not the sort of talking points that seemingly came outta the media that didn't resonate at all.

Troy Young:

and I'm, I, I'm saddened by what I think was, in America, is just kind of basic sexism from actually both men and men, men and women.

Troy Young:

that It's really hard to get a female elected president in this country.

Troy Young:

I

Troy Young:

think that there is, broadly speaking, and I don't know the best way to frame this, but I think it's just a pure, a woke backlash, where what people don't want,

Alex Schleifer:

don't

Troy Young:

this is, kind of what is, understood broadly to be this kind of sensitive, liberal, woke mindset to be the defining characteristic of this, you know, time.

Troy Young:

And voting for Trump is a complete rejection of that.

Troy Young:

you know, you can't talk about this without, I think we'll look back and say, well, we had a really weak candidate, you know, like like Kamala and I think she's I just find her likable as a person, but I think as a leader and as a presidential candidate, she was, she was unable to separate from the Biden legacy.

Troy Young:

she lost on Israel.

Troy Young:

She lost on, on immigration.

Troy Young:

She lost on inflation.

Troy Young:

She lost on like all the issues.

Troy Young:

And so all of these things together.

Troy Young:

And, and I, and I think That, you know, I don't know how, you know, what kind of Trump's savantess kind of understanding of his core constituency in, you know, is like, he obviously has a very good sense of what people want, and I don't think it's coming from, you know, a bunch of strategists.

Troy Young:

And that one, it just did it one in a democratic system.

Troy Young:

And so the other side is like, you're right.

Troy Young:

Like what was the media's role in this?

Troy Young:

And what does it mean to the, to the DNC?

Troy Young:

And I think these are, these are really complicated questions that need to get resolved before another election.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah, Kamala Harris also spent way more money on advertising and I mean, Trump put a lot of money in advertising, but also that needs to be recalculated in a, in a world where mass media has clearly lost its central role in society.

Brian Morrissey:

This, the political class, the political consultants love to pour money into advertising because they run the firms and they get rich off it.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, it's crazy.

Brian Morrissey:

This makes ad tech look like, you know, uh, a charity business.

Brian Morrissey:

But, it didn't work.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, I mean, I think, like, you spend a billion dollars to do worse.

Brian Morrissey:

you're literally starting off in this country, like, you've got Donald Trump up against you.

Brian Morrissey:

You're starting off with, like, 40 plus percent.

Brian Morrissey:

That's, that's your, that's your basement.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, that's, that's, that's where, you know, it is.

Brian Morrissey:

And you're just building on top of it.

Brian Morrissey:

And you spend a billion dollars?

Troy Young:

More than a billion, you know, the other strange thing is the normalization of chaos, like our culture has become so accustomed to just chaos

Troy Young:

and I think it's, I think it's exhausting.

Brian Morrissey:

Well, I think that is, is interesting is when we talk about how, you know, journalists cover, the Trump return, it's, it's going to be in 2017 to 2020, there was a lot of those, you know, I, the Washington Post, I think, actually started, it was like, we talked to 43, you know, unnamed officials.

Brian Morrissey:

And then it was like, okay, somebody's fighting with somebody.

Brian Morrissey:

Trump's raging.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, Maggie Haberman was like, you know, it's like, oh, no, Trump's raging.

Brian Morrissey:

It's like, oh, God.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, we clearly can't go back to that.

Brian Morrissey:

And also, again, it's just wholesale rejected.

Brian Morrissey:

I go back to the nobody was looking at those at the TVs.

Brian Morrissey:

I don't think Trump too.

Brian Morrissey:

And I could be wrong.

Brian Morrissey:

I don't think it's going to, I think covering it the way it was covered with who's up, who's down, makes no sense.

Brian Morrissey:

At all, because of that exhaustion that's been set in now, people, the, the, the, you know, this is the popular voice has been heard.

Brian Morrissey:

So people want this guy in office and they clearly agree more with his policies and Kamala Harris is, but how the media covers this, I think, has to change and I don't know whether they fall in line.

Brian Morrissey:

I don't think that's obviously

Troy Young:

people don't, I mean, just stating the obvious, people don't trust and they don't care.

Troy Young:

The media didn't change people's point of view.

Brian Morrissey:

But I guess the question ends up being, is that the job of these news organizations, right?

Brian Morrissey:

Is it the job?

Troy Young:

Well, sure, of course it is.

Brian Morrissey:

It's to change people's points of view.

Troy Young:

Well, I mean, I'm not saying that that in a partisan

Troy Young:

way, I'm saying by informing people, yes.

Alex Schleifer:

I say that your policies without those, all of

Troy Young:

So what does it take to persuade someone, Alex?

Alex Schleifer:

better alternative

Troy Young:

if I'm presenting things

Alex Schleifer:

them,

Troy Young:

If I call you,

Troy Young:

a fascist or a despot, or I align all the people that were close to you, generals, et cetera, and say you're not to be trusted.

Troy Young:

Or I say that your policies around deportation are insane and impractical.

Troy Young:

Or I say that Your tariff policies are going to create inflation.

Troy Young:

Now those, all of those things would either lead you to believe that there's a better alternative because you believe them and you trust what someone's saying to you and it persuades you,

Troy Young:

or you

Troy Young:

believe You just think they're bullshit and you're going to go with this, you know, carnival barker, like

Alex Schleifer:

like, if you

Troy Young:

if you don't trust the things that people in, you know, institutionalized media are saying, to you that they're both the right things and they're believable and they matter, then what's the purpose of the media?

Troy Young:

Like what, what, what replaces it?

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah, I don't know.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't know.

Alex Schleifer:

It's grim.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, if only just, if only just the tariffs, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Like seeing the level of education around proposed tariffs.

Alex Schleifer:

my complaint about the media was that it was Trying this weird kind of centrist, both sides, let's cover both sides with the same amount of, fervor.

Alex Schleifer:

and, I don't think they, that resonated with anyone.

Alex Schleifer:

I think the stuff that resonated was the stuff that was already talking people into the things that they were feeling.

Alex Schleifer:

I think it was a very like vibes election.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't think people voted on, I don't know.

Alex Schleifer:

They probably, you know, the, Gas is more expensive and they're worried about foreigners coming into the country.

Alex Schleifer:

That's as

Troy Young:

The problem is gas isn't more expensive.

Alex Schleifer:

Oh, I doesn't matter.

Alex Schleifer:

Like it doesn't even, Doesn't even matter.

Alex Schleifer:

It's just like vibes, right?

Alex Schleifer:

People feel like what the life has become more expensive.

Troy Young:

Oh, I think there's been inflation.

Troy Young:

I'm just saying gas sets have

Troy Young:

been, but I, I,

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, the economy is, the economy is doing great, you know, the compared, compared to anywhere else in the world.

Alex Schleifer:

it's, it's hard to tell.

Alex Schleifer:

It's hard to tell what the media could have done.

Alex Schleifer:

It just definitely shows that they don't have much power left.

Alex Schleifer:

Right.

Alex Schleifer:

and, I don't even know how much.

Alex Schleifer:

Rogan and stuff like that influenced this other stuff.

Alex Schleifer:

think, um, I think, I think

Alex Schleifer:

it was this, there's, there's so much, but there's so much noise in that data.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, you know, it was, he was also going up against a woman, a woman of color, like God knows how people voted around that.

Alex Schleifer:

Right.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, it's hard to

Brian Morrissey:

but it was also a person that just got like dropped into the race without people voting for like you can't like untangle all of these

Brian Morrissey:

things after years of saying Biden's sharp as attack and the media, the media did launder that

Brian Morrissey:

like nobody's business

Alex Schleifer:

people clinging on to

Alex Schleifer:

all people clinging on to power, and trying to remain relevant is like, you know, maybe that's a good analogy for media.

Alex Schleifer:

It's like Biden not wanting to get away and like, you know, just Like just

Brian Morrissey:

mean,

Troy Young:

what do you make of on one hand, sort of, I would say distrust of institutions or experts, right?

Troy Young:

Whether that's an economist or, you know, a doctor, but the kind of wild embrace as of someone like Elon is an innovator.

Brian Morrissey:

What do you mean?

Brian Morrissey:

Like, I mean, I think, you know, Elon is like a remarkable, you know,

Brian Morrissey:

historical

Troy Young:

We trust Joe Rogan more than we trust like real professionals, like doctors.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah, I think so.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think that's a lot of it.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, we talk about it all the time.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, right now, I always thought that the perceived authenticity and being your real self, I mean, because

Brian Morrissey:

Nobody really thinks that Trump is someone totally different behind closed doors.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, I don't think anyone thinks like, I mean, what could it be?

Brian Morrissey:

if anything is more normal, like behind closed doors.

Brian Morrissey:

but like, nobody really believes that.

Brian Morrissey:

I think, with Joe Rogan it's Like, similar where, you know, we've seen this decline or we've seen like, I think,

Brian Morrissey:

it's been mispriced.

Brian Morrissey:

Authenticity has been mispriced in the, in the marketplace, but it, that is not going to end that this is, this is going to be, I think how, the next sort of phase of media goes, it is going to be, be moving more in this direction than Joe Rogan becoming more like, I don't know, Peter Jennings or something like Jay Leno, like that's just not happening.

Brian Morrissey:

and I think that every single trend right now is going against a lot of the mass media conventions.

Alex Schleifer:

think

Brian Morrissey:

And it's a, it's a hard transition to make.

Brian Morrissey:

that's why I think that the, every single media entity is going to need to come to terms with how they, respond to, to this in the marketplace.

Brian Morrissey:

Right.

Brian Morrissey:

And, you know, you look at, you know, we talk about the puck model a lot, you know, it's not perfect, but like, you know, they've put, they've put,

Brian Morrissey:

personalities front and center,

Brian Morrissey:

and I think that's going to be, you a continued path that that will be taken because

Brian Morrissey:

again, look at the market, like if the market rejects what you have, like, you have to adapt.

Brian Morrissey:

You can't just blame

Brian Morrissey:

the customer like that.

Brian Morrissey:

That's crazy.

Brian Morrissey:

And just to go back to politics, I think the Democratic Party had a product that was being broadly rejected and kept blaming the customers.

Brian Morrissey:

and didn't work out.

Alex Schleifer:

I wonder if the left will start embracing their kind of like, I don't know what you call them.

Alex Schleifer:

Firebrand YouTubers.

Alex Schleifer:

because there are people like destiny and stuff like that on YouTube that are just like, you know, militant left, just aggressive.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, podcaster.

Alex Schleifer:

It's, it's kind of the, the left wing version of that same sphere.

Alex Schleifer:

Right.

Alex Schleifer:

it exists.

Alex Schleifer:

It's just like the establishment, the coalition doesn't embrace them.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, like the right embraced, like Rogan and Shapiro and all these guys.

Alex Schleifer:

Like there's like, everybody's coordinated, right?

Alex Schleifer:

the left isn't coordinated.

Alex Schleifer:

Instead it's trained to be centrist

Troy Young:

Yeah, it's the problem I have with that is that America is not a country that embraces strident leftists ever.

Brian Morrissey:

it's a center right country

Troy Young:

Yeah,

Alex Schleifer:

Is it center, right?

Alex Schleifer:

It doesn't seem

Brian Morrissey:

compared to Europe.

Brian Morrissey:

Yes.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, outside of like Serbia and Russia and a few other places, like, yeah,

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah, no, I mean, I'm saying right now it's more right than center right, but yeah.

Brian Morrissey:

well, this is, I mean, if you look at that, that is the story, at least initially coming out of this election is, this is a moment of a sharp turn to the right for in this country, and it goes back and forth, but it is pretty much never been, truly liberal in the American sense of liberal, I just for historical reasons and lots of other reasons.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, it's embedded in like, you know, self reliance and all that stuff that's embedded in the American psyche.

Brian Morrissey:

So I think that it's always going to be, right of center and how the Democratic Party responds is going to be interesting.

Brian Morrissey:

And when you talk about the media, I don't know, like, to me, the market always, you know, tells you again, like, it doesn't seem like the, you know, The very hard left militant, podcasters, grifters, or whatever, have nearly the cut through.

Brian Morrissey:

Counterparts to now maybe that was just because it's easy to be a rebel.

Brian Morrissey:

when, you know, Biden is president, but I don't know.

Troy Young:

Yeah.

Troy Young:

I don't know.

Troy Young:

Maybe there's some basic lessons here that we could articulate and it's like, this is age old, but you need your base.

Troy Young:

That, this shift, let's call it to, you know, it's like a.

Troy Young:

I don't know if it's the conversational movement in media driven by podcasts brings out, I think it advantages certain types of politicians, I think that's going to be far more of our, our

Troy Young:

medium spec, our Media spectrum that the world becomes, I think that Kind of audio is an extension of all media, is going to be way more important, and I think that people, to your point about authenticate, you know, authenticity are going to look for that same authenticity and their politicians, whether it's you know, savory or

Alex Schleifer:

like,

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah.

Brian Morrissey:

I think, like, just by going on Rogan, it doesn't

Brian Morrissey:

even matter if people were not the 42 million who actually, you know, why YouTube and so many more on Spotify and Apple, I think it just proves that, like.

Brian Morrissey:

You can get a measure of the person and that they can like hold their own.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think that is going to become a core feature that You need in running for, for this position.

Brian Morrissey:

It used to be, you had to give like a great speech, right?

Brian Morrissey:

And, but like, when you listen now, and I say this as someone like, you listen to Obama talk, it seems like, from a different era, to be honest with you.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, I know everyone like fell off their chair with the Michelle Obama thing.

Brian Morrissey:

Again, it seemed like so retro.

Brian Morrissey:

And part of that is how Trump has completely shifted the norms for that kind of speechifying.

Brian Morrissey:

I'm very, I'm very thankful personally.

Brian Morrissey:

Anytime I, anytime I give a

Brian Morrissey:

solo presentation now.

Brian Morrissey:

you know, the bar is, is set to where, you know, you can wander off in all

Brian Morrissey:

kinds

Alex Schleifer:

No, but

Troy Young:

you you know, to get practical about it, you think about you know, instances, like, what would you do if you were now the programming head at CNN?

Troy Young:

how would you change the formats?

Troy Young:

if you in light of the election would you have changed what, you know, Jeff Bezos did at the Washington Post?

Troy Young:

would you have done anything differently?

Troy Young:

How would you organize a newsroom differently in this kind of more conversational environment?

Troy Young:

You know, do you like the idea, like the semaphore

Troy Young:

idea where we start to physically kind of break facts and opinion, in every article, whether they're called the semaphore or whatever.

Troy Young:

you know, what, what do you think are some of the things that that you would do, if you owned, you know, legacy media to prepare for this?

Troy Young:

new world?

Alex Schleifer:

we

Brian Morrissey:

I would start by reverse engineering what's working, right?

Brian Morrissey:

Like, I think we started this with like, Joe Rogan.

Brian Morrissey:

Why, does that work?

Brian Morrissey:

why does this guy from, from fear factor?

Brian Morrissey:

Why, why, why is he like so influential?

Brian Morrissey:

Seemingly, let's just assume that he's, he's very influential.

Brian Morrissey:

Well, then why is that?

Alex Schleifer:

I can't help you there.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, I think it's, I think there was a format that he managed to help kind of, I mean, Mark Maron was, you know, when I started listening to podcasts, Mark Maron was one of the first with these long form,

Troy Young:

It was the original Rogan.

Troy Young:

He

Troy Young:

was the, the, the liberal Rogan.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

He wasn't, I mean, liberal, like, you know, pretty centrist in some ways, but I started listening to him like episode four, you know, when he had like, You know, a handful of listeners and, the format immediately appealed to me because he could, the conversations could go on for a while.

Alex Schleifer:

You could keep it on in the background.

Alex Schleifer:

and you could get to know people and it was just interesting.

Alex Schleifer:

And I think so Rogan kind of won that.

Alex Schleifer:

format, and so he's got just like, just a lot of energy, behind him.

Alex Schleifer:

And, I think that's part of it.

Alex Schleifer:

Like people just like listening to podcasts, men specifically, right?

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, this is like, this is a very male.

Alex Schleifer:

Driven election, even though women were women's rights were on the ballot box, you know, a lot of like male media kind of drove this and this kind of concept of listening to our long meandering philosophizing is very male dominant.

Alex Schleifer:

I can probably.

Alex Schleifer:

You can probably figure out, the gender distribution of the all in podcast.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, I haven't been to their event, but I'm pretty sure the audience there is going to be skewing a certain way or Lex Friedman.

Alex Schleifer:

Like how many women listeners do you think Lex Friedman has?

Alex Schleifer:

He doesn't even, how many, how many, how many women guests do these guys get on?

Alex Schleifer:

Like, like,

Troy Young:

Is there.

Troy Young:

So I like this.

Troy Young:

I I, I like this idea of, of reverse engineering.

Troy Young:

The product, but Brian, what does that mean?

Troy Young:

Like, is there a problem in newsrooms?

Troy Young:

Is there a cult, fundamental cultural problem in newsrooms?

Brian Morrissey:

Oh, I mean, probably, right?

Brian Morrissey:

there's, there's an unreality, right?

Brian Morrissey:

And there's also, like, you know, I got, it's like, nobody is safe, right?

Brian Morrissey:

Like, I got this person, like, I just wrote a very, like,

Brian Morrissey:

about the post, right?

Brian Morrissey:

And, And I got like, it's like, I'm done.

Brian Morrissey:

I'm out.

Brian Morrissey:

you know, you are supporting a fascist.

Brian Morrissey:

I'm like, what are you talking about?

Brian Morrissey:

I like wrote back this person.

Brian Morrissey:

And, it was very clear.

Brian Morrissey:

This person was, this person's an editor.

Brian Morrissey:

Right.

Brian Morrissey:

And.

Brian Morrissey:

There is an activist, strain that's clear within journalism that has always been present.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think it's, it's, it can be good, you know, because it, to have like a mission driven, and this is, this is after Watergate.

Brian Morrissey:

I think it really sprung up.

Brian Morrissey:

but I think in many ways it goes into directions that aren't helpful.

Brian Morrissey:

With building that connection with an audience, it's very clear that a large group of people in this country do not trust journalists,

Brian Morrissey:

and it is easy to blame other people for that.

Brian Morrissey:

And some of that blame is completely correct.

Brian Morrissey:

However, they're tapping into an underlying feeling.

Brian Morrissey:

And all the data supports that, that news is not on the up and up when it comes to separating people's personal opinions from their work.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, the reality is most newsrooms are filled with people who voted for Kamala Harris.

Brian Morrissey:

That is not some I'm not going into some conspiracy there.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, that's obvious.

Alex Schleifer:

But to me, doesn't this just show, like, I don't know how much there's like, doesn't this just show that the media, just the relevancy is dying out, which is why in the, in our text message, you know, I'm pushing for us, like to stop covering the media, the dying brands of the media and rather look forward at the new things that are coming.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't think it's entirely.

Alex Schleifer:

the right call to just look at what Rogan's achieved and see like what others can learn from that.

Alex Schleifer:

Because remember, half the population or around half the population didn't vote for Trump probably feels very differently.

Alex Schleifer:

the vast majority of podcasts, consumers, and kind of, you know, That that's fear around YouTube.

Alex Schleifer:

vast majority are men.

Alex Schleifer:

So there's this, there's the question should be more, there's this whole other side of the consumer, women, young people, you know, that, that make up a large proportion of the, of the audience, which I think aren't served.

Alex Schleifer:

I think the, the, the dudes that listen to Rogan are very well served.

Alex Schleifer:

They can be mediated all day long with free media that like tickles, like, you know, whatever, you know, nerve they need tickled.

Alex Schleifer:

and then, yeah, like I can tell you that, like, where else do you go for that sort of catharsis if you're a woman or, or, or somebody who, who leans in the other direction?

Alex Schleifer:

That's, that's less evident.

Alex Schleifer:

So I think maybe the, I feel that if media just starts saying, well, we need to become broken.

Alex Schleifer:

that's going to be a fool's

Brian Morrissey:

No, I don't mean philosophically.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, when I say reverse engineering,

Alex Schleifer:

but even the format, even the format, how many women in your life do you know, consume podcasts at the rate that men consume?

Alex Schleifer:

Why is that?

Alex Schleifer:

Like, that's the more interesting question for me.

Alex Schleifer:

Like women do not consume podcasts at the same rate as men.

Brian Morrissey:

yeah, that's true.

Troy Young:

that true?

Troy Young:

How do we

Troy Young:

know that?

Alex Schleifer:

every piece of like the, the popular podcast, every piece of like a gender distribution, I've seen like skews heavily male, especially when you're looking at the Freedman's and the stuff like that, I mean, these are technology podcasts, but even, you know, MKBHD, and all these types of, of things like, these kind of YouTube shows, that are on tech and politics and, and these types of news.

Alex Schleifer:

It's like 7 percent women.

Brian Morrissey:

serious claims that, that it's almost split.

Brian Morrissey:

It's 53 percent male, but they have, they have an interest in, in that.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't know.

Alex Schleifer:

I think it's, I think it's something interesting to look at.

Alex Schleifer:

Like there's definitely like a split, like a gender split happening as well as a, as an ideological one as to how, like the formats that people consume.

Alex Schleifer:

And I, you know, I know that there's probably lots of podcasts that, you know, that, that are majority women, but I don't think the numbers line up with a Rogan, there's

Troy Young:

Well, I think, you know, I would just be careful.

Troy Young:

I think we probably need to validate it.

Troy Young:

I think that a lot of the big podcasts are mail driven.

Troy Young:

but I think that you'd probably find, you know, other types of consumption.

Troy Young:

Maybe it's more fragmented.

Troy Young:

Maybe it's more short form stuff on Instagram and and tick tock rather than, you know, YouTube and podcasts.

Troy Young:

But I think the phenomenon of, you know, People channeling their point of view, and, you know, these kind of folk media people, is probably universal,

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, I think it's pretty clear that people want to want to know.

Brian Morrissey:

like what the person who's, who's creating the media, like where they're coming from.

Brian Morrissey:

Right.

Brian Morrissey:

And to me, that's, that, that is a big takeaway, like hiding behind the institutional brand is not going to cut it anymore.

Brian Morrissey:

That was my big problem with the editorial board endorsement at the Washington Post.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, who?

Brian Morrissey:

You just got hired.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, what is your, what makes your point of view, like, more valid than anyone else?

Brian Morrissey:

I don't even know your name.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, why, why, why are you christened, because you got through the HR department

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, at the end of the day, it doesn't even matter, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Like it

Brian Morrissey:

Well, yeah, it doesn't matter.

Brian Morrissey:

either, but I think it speaks to an underlying arrogance that's embedded in the Capital J Journalism, like, world.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, there is.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, why does

Brian Morrissey:

it

Troy Young:

are we trying to fix something that will never be fixed?

Troy Young:

like,

Troy Young:

you know, it's like,

Alex Schleifer:

it's fucked.

Troy Young:

it's

Brian Morrissey:

Alright, so let's move on.

Brian Morrissey:

What

Troy Young:

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Troy Young:

They'll just hold on.

Troy Young:

Hold on.

Troy Young:

Like

Troy Young:

if, if, if, you know, liberal newsrooms are serving liberal audiences, New York times is doing quite well, there's.

Troy Young:

half the country, you know, appreciates, the news output of a lot of these left

Troy Young:

leaning institutions.

Troy Young:

The problem is that.

Troy Young:

liberal media has, it's, it's almost impossible to come to terms with what we've had to kind of navigate with Trump.

Troy Young:

It's just like, if you're the whole premise is, you know, facts and, uh, And, you know, hard reporting and, this, the search for some type of objective truth, the Trump thing just completely turns it on its head.

Troy Young:

Like, how do you navigate that?

Troy Young:

How do you ever navigate that?

Troy Young:

And maybe the answer is you don't, maybe you just serve your audience.

Troy Young:

Maybe Bezos shouldn't have worried about endorsements and just say, the Washington post is a liberal paper.

Troy Young:

We

Troy Young:

don't need an endorsement.

Troy Young:

to know that the newsroom

Alex Schleifer:

reason he didn't endorse was not the reasons Brian thinks there shouldn't be endorsement.

Alex Schleifer:

The reason he didn't endorse is because there's like a vengeful guy in power and he wants to put rockets into space.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, so much of this election has been transactional, right?

Alex Schleifer:

Like, so that's why it's kind of hard to even, And, and the ownership structures of these media companies make it hard to understand why they make decisions like the Bezos one is, is one that's like that.

Alex Schleifer:

But you're right.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, I think they're going to keep serving their audience and people are perfectly happy with it.

Alex Schleifer:

I do feel that.

Alex Schleifer:

And specifically in that there's a new type of news commentary, media mixed with entertainment mixed with interviewing.

Alex Schleifer:

That's become hugely influential.

Alex Schleifer:

It seems to serve men in majority.

Alex Schleifer:

I'm not saying women don't listen to podcasts.

Alex Schleifer:

That's been a big shift.

Alex Schleifer:

that's been a big evolution.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't know what new media companies come out of that.

Alex Schleifer:

I think AI is going to play a role.

Alex Schleifer:

I think that's what we should cover.

Alex Schleifer:

Like the new stuff that's going to come out.

Alex Schleifer:

The old stuff is either going to survive and not change or disappear, right?

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, I don't think there's much, much to do with it.

Brian Morrissey:

I found it very interesting.

Brian Morrissey:

I think one of the winners out of this speaking to like what comes next is poly market, right?

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, like, poly market got there first, while Nate Silver was, was running his 80, 000 simulations, they were saying, you know, this is Trump and, I think it'll be very interesting to see, you know, I don't know if you, I was following them on, on, Twitter X, whatever.

Brian Morrissey:

And they were like, we're the new news, you know, they were like emerging as, and I think it'll be interesting to see which, what kinds of news sources emerge.

Brian Morrissey:

There's a clear lane that like the free press took, you know, with having.

Brian Morrissey:

You know, they're basically, they have a point of view and they're going to be writing to that point of view.

Brian Morrissey:

and it's just slightly off because it's, it's, it's center, right?

Brian Morrissey:

I, I saw someone, someone, Bubba Atkinson described it as a really funny guy.

Brian Morrissey:

he described it as one of the concierge services.

Brian Morrissey:

So like the,

Brian Morrissey:

the free press is a concierge service for Democrats to become.

Brian Morrissey:

Uh, Republicans and then, I think the, the bulwark is the concierge service for Republicans to become Democrats, but most of the lanes, I think we're going back to pre mass media where all the business interests are to align explicitly with an

Brian Morrissey:

ideological point of view, if not a specific political party, newspapers always did

Brian Morrissey:

this before,

Alex Schleifer:

or

Troy Young:

maybe we should, maybe we're over sort of correcting or emphasizing the role of media in this one.

Troy Young:

We have a problem with ideas that are clearly not resonating when we have a problem with, the organization of a group of people around ideas.

Troy Young:

And so it's not just a media problem.

Troy Young:

It's a political problem.

Brian Morrissey:

right?

Troy Young:

well, that's not to mention, you know, other, you know, challenge threat facing media, which you talk about Brian as being, you know, news as a feature.

Troy Young:

As opposed to the product and the future of, you know, just something that's kind of tacked on to a chat service.

Troy Young:

What I, what I would just kind of make a point around rather than than good product is this.

Troy Young:

I had a moment this week using.

Troy Young:

Chat GPT is, as some of the listeners will know, or you guys know that we, they've sort of are steadily closing the last mile.

Troy Young:

And what that means is, in addition to bringing on, core LLM developers bringing on new suppliers or content suppliers.

Troy Young:

They're connecting the LLM to the web index, right?

Troy Young:

So that all of your queries go out and they don't just process.

Troy Young:

It's not like, just like, Oh, there's a search engine on Wikipedia.

Troy Young:

They're processing, you know, real time information off the web.

Troy Young:

And, and it was just like a moment.

Troy Young:

I texted Alex or I texted you guys where I had been querying.

Troy Young:

it was, you know, it was a product query around speakers as an, you know, like audio speakers and basically, it had in my mind, it had completely ripped the interface layer off the Internet.

Troy Young:

Where it just brought back what I wanted, you know, it delivered, like, here's the speakers.

Troy Young:

Here's the features and benefits.

Troy Young:

Here's the auction price.

Troy Young:

Here's the date listed.

Troy Young:

Here's how they compare.

Troy Young:

Like, I put it all in tables.

Troy Young:

Here's how they compare to other products in the category.

Troy Young:

And it was, you know, it was virtually instantaneous.

Troy Young:

And it was real time data, and it was put into an interface that was just so efficient for me.

Troy Young:

And I did the same thing with a flight query, looking for flights where it just grabbed all the information, put it in a table for me, and like, I could look at it any way I wanted.

Troy Young:

And I just thought, Oh, my God, everything I've thought about for years and years and years, which is sort of a page level construct is access point to information.

Troy Young:

Web design as boxes pages is over now.

Troy Young:

It's like we have to think massively.

Troy Young:

We have to think differently about what our role is as someone who supplies information to a surface area, because that information is being absorbed into something where it's a query and it's formatted however you want it.

Troy Young:

and it's not an, an organized interface.

Troy Young:

so to me, and then Alex said something great, which is sort of like, You know, it's going to make the web better or it does like it just has, like the page has to be useful or interesting or interactive or something.

Troy Young:

or there's no reason for it to exist.

Troy Young:

and I think that's, that's something that's been bugging you, Alex.

Troy Young:

And, it's, it's a really interesting time to think about what is the role of a company providing digital information and, how do you monetize it?

Troy Young:

and to me, I was just sort of thinking about the dimensions, like the rallying cry, you know, inside a media organization, you know, in, inside of this platform shift to reality.

Troy Young:

And I was like, okay, well, direct, we have to have direct connections.

Troy Young:

to people.

Troy Young:

Whether we have the gravity to have an app, or we can do text notifications or email or someone.

Troy Young:

is using an interface that we create such that it's better than the alternative.

Troy Young:

So direct, you know, obviously that implies an editorial or content strategy.

Troy Young:

that in the face of what is inevitably the commoditization of a lot of information, you have to have a talent strategy, right?

Troy Young:

Like this, where the creator world meets the AI world, you have to be more human.

Troy Young:

I don't think that, you know, that we think enough about what is unique about our data

Troy Young:

set, about what it is, if it's information, what it is that we are gathering, processing, organizing, curating, that we are introducing into the world.

Troy Young:

What we used to do is we would scramble to write evergreen content that five other companies already wrote.

Troy Young:

And we would just try to do it better so we could spoof the search engine, you know, we could win that game.

Alex Schleifer:

we

Troy Young:

And then you think, well, you know, multimedia.

Troy Young:

at least today, chat doesn't do multimedia, Right, whether that's audio or video or combination of, you know, or interactivity.

Troy Young:

Like, that's going to be much more important inside of your media organization.

Troy Young:

And the last one I would say is, this is going to force, at least some companies, to figure out how, I mean, this is actually going to push you to be transactional, whether that means selling a product, or taking first party data or facilitating, you know, the purchase of a service or, you know, a product because the AI can't break that.

Alex Schleifer:

I

Alex Schleifer:

think that's true.

Alex Schleifer:

I think everybody should basically consider themselves like the Yellow Pages in 1999.

Alex Schleifer:

You know, like I think that there's going to be

Brian Morrissey:

was still a big business in 1999.

Alex Schleifer:

And, and some of these, I mean, when I complain about this stuff, I hear it's still a big business, but look, they had a record year.

Alex Schleifer:

And, Taboola is still doing great.

Alex Schleifer:

I feel like we, we've spent a lot of time turning pages so that they would be machine readable with SEO so that, you know, they would be kind of absorbed, and, Yeah, there is a potential where, you know, as information, the information layer is completely absorbed by the, by the LLMs and the, and AI and AI kind of gives you information much better.

Alex Schleifer:

Your daily news update a little in whichever format you want, that's all going to happen.

Alex Schleifer:

we have an opportunity to create value.

Alex Schleifer:

there's going to be a bunch of value destruction, but there's like new value that can be created.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, and I hope it's, it's an opportunity to save the web because the web is the last place that you will fully own and control.

Alex Schleifer:

so I think Troy, Troy is right.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, there's an opportunity there

Brian Morrissey:

having like undifferentiated information is, is really important.

Brian Morrissey:

A road to nowhere,

Brian Morrissey:

you know, if everyone else has the, the information and you got it, like quote unquote first, it doesn't really, it doesn't do a ton for you.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think that's going to take, a rethinking because I, I always remember like in, in, newsrooms, it was like, your competitor gets a story and it's like, we have to match it.

Brian Morrissey:

I'm like, that makes no sense.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, unless they're inaccurate, what, what are we providing?

Brian Morrissey:

and some of it was just like, well, we have to like, we don't want to train people to go to AdAge instead of AdWeek, I'm like, they go to both, what are you kidding, like, what's the matter, like, sometimes you win, sometimes you get the three finalists for the Pennzoil review, sometimes AdAge does, I don't think people really care, but yeah, there's been too much of that, so I think you have to just like, refactor the whole organizations, and, and what you're, what you're after,

Alex Schleifer:

I do think that like my hope for the podcast is that we talk a little bit more about this new stuff, because I think there's a tendency for us to look at what do we do with all these old brands and I think you, I don't think we can provide that much help with that.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, I don't find these conversations that interesting either.

Alex Schleifer:

But rather talk about the tools and the opportunities that are coming up.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't know how brands are going to use them.

Alex Schleifer:

but it's, it's a little bit like, you know, it could be a little bit like talking about MTV and saying, you know what, what MTV should do right now is move to reality TV, which was the right call.

Alex Schleifer:

I gave them another five years, you know, maybe 10.

Alex Schleifer:

but the truth of the matter is there's like really interesting Content creation, technology, distribution, technology, multiple ways to monetize it.

Alex Schleifer:

People just need to find new places where, where value can exist and value can be created.

Alex Schleifer:

That's what I hope.

Alex Schleifer:

That's my optimistic message for the future.

Brian Morrissey:

all

Alex Schleifer:

It should be exciting.

Troy Young:

did you think about the election?

Troy Young:

Thank you.

Alex Schleifer:

It was a fucking nightmare.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean,

Troy Young:

What would you do if you owned the Washington Post?

Alex Schleifer:

I don't know.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't know.

Alex Schleifer:

I guess I didn't get the phone call that base was gone.

Alex Schleifer:

So I don't know, you know, didn't get the phone call that you, you better do something or your rocket stay grounded.

Alex Schleifer:

I don't know what happened.

Alex Schleifer:

Uh, I wouldn't be in that space.

Alex Schleifer:

I think they're all regretting these purchases.

Brian Morrissey:

Well, I think those are all ending.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, Mark Benioff is, is, apparently looking to unload, time to Antenna, which was going to buy Vice, but then didn't, so I think it's the end of the billionaire, the billionaires, it turns out they don't have the journalism industry's, best interests at their hearts.

Brian Morrissey:

Go

Alex Schleifer:

The crazy thing is I grew up watching Antenna and having,

Alex Schleifer:

having them spend.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

It's a, it's a, it's a big Greek media company.

Alex Schleifer:

There's channels that we could get in Cyprus.

Alex Schleifer:

well, you know, I mean, the thing that's going to be fun to watch is how they all turn on each other.

Alex Schleifer:

That's going to be fun.

Brian Morrissey:

Oh, that will be fun.

Brian Morrissey:

That would be fun.

Alex Schleifer:

uh,

Brian Morrissey:

There's only one main character, and he

Alex Schleifer:

Yes,

Brian Morrissey:

tan.

Alex Schleifer:

yes, exactly.

Troy Young:

What's going on with that?

Troy Young:

What's going on with the tent?

Troy Young:

If you go to the New York Times homepage right now, the center image, he's very kind of a brownish orange.

Troy Young:

is that a, is that a, is that a kind of cosmetic product?

Troy Young:

What is that?

Alex Schleifer:

it's a spray tan.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah,

Troy Young:

Is it spray?

Alex Schleifer:

yeah, for sure.

Alex Schleifer:

Because it doesn't go around his ears.

Troy Young:

So the new president is a spray tanner?

Alex Schleifer:

You're noticing that now, would that have changed your vote?

Alex Schleifer:

Troy, would you have changed your vote if that, if you knew that?

Brian Morrissey:

Why wasn't the media covering this?

Alex Schleifer:

I actually genuinely wonder, he seems to have less of the energy and the cogency.

Alex Schleifer:

I wonder how active he's going to be because he's got to be exhausted.

Alex Schleifer:

Like 78 years old,

Brian Morrissey:

I wouldn't want to do that at 78.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, that's But, these

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah, he might, he might not make it.

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, this is like, you know,

Brian Morrissey:

built different.

Alex Schleifer:

it takes a lot

Troy Young:

Brian, would you mind if I just have you wrap this up and just kind of based on how you started it.

Brian Morrissey:

How do I start it?

Troy Young:

You started it by talking about the medias complicit.

Troy Young:

how they were sort of complicit in kind of where we are now.

Brian Morrissey:

I understand your point, Alex, that it does seem, you know, it's like, wow, why are we talking about this?

Brian Morrissey:

Because I do think it is kind of like the denouement of this story, right?

Brian Morrissey:

we all know that mass media has been losing its, its, relevancy and its power and its centrality.

Brian Morrissey:

and this is just, you know, making it abundantly clear, like, that this is, this is not going to be It's not coming back necessarily.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, I don't wish ill on any of these companies.

Brian Morrissey:

I think they're needed and they think that they're going to be forced to adapt and they'll have different roles, but it's very clear that

Troy Young:

by

Brian Morrissey:

are gone.

Brian Morrissey:

They're not coming back.

Brian Morrissey:

And so my hope is that new entrants do fill that who aren't just From the grifter sphere, I believe you call it a grifter space, grifter sphere, which is, is broad.

Alex Schleifer:

and, and derogatory.

Alex Schleifer:

I get it.

Brian Morrissey:

It is it is derogatory, but, uh, but my hope is that like new, you know, we, we do have new entrants who, who use a lot of the, who use a lot of the tools and the platforms that are, are taking place that to have credible information that, that people can

Troy Young:

but, but but your point was broader.

Troy Young:

Your point was that the media missed a kind of a sensibility not even a, what am I saying?

Troy Young:

Like they missed the nation's sentiment and they were not.

Troy Young:

They are no longer important not just, you know, in, in, in, in sort of sensing what's going on in the country, but, but influencing people.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah, I mean, that's very obvious that, you know, the influence that the mainstream media has over people is, maybe it was never as great as they pretended it to be, but it's, it's clear from the advertising to the coverage, none of these issues that were, that were pushed nonstop seemingly cut through, at least if you look at the data that came out so far, I mean, none of it did, none of it resonated.

Brian Morrissey:

no, they made the choices to push these, look, the, Trump talks all day long.

Brian Morrissey:

You, you can choose what you're, you're going to, to focus on, and it's always the hardest thing as a reporter.

Brian Morrissey:

It's like, okay, what am I going to focus on?

Brian Morrissey:

Like, out of three hours, he said this one thing, like, as an aside off the teleprompter.

Brian Morrissey:

He doesn't even really use a teleprompter.

Brian Morrissey:

So I'm going to focus on that.

Brian Morrissey:

I'm going to, I'm going to bring in a lot of B material because, you know, he, he kind of called Kamala Harris like a bitch, but not really.

Brian Morrissey:

Okay.

Brian Morrissey:

And so I can get 700 words out of that.

Brian Morrissey:

I just don't think that that is, that is not influencing people.

Brian Morrissey:

People have seen through this and we're seeing this throughout the media.

Brian Morrissey:

Like all of these conventions are losing traction in the marketplace.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, one of the things that I've noticed with Semaphore that I think is kind of interesting, but I don't think it'll, it'll work is they're publishing way more Q and A's.

Brian Morrissey:

Like they're actually showing the material, right?

Brian Morrissey:

Like, cause you make so many choices with.

Brian Morrissey:

Stories.

Brian Morrissey:

And I mean, first of all, storytelling as the heart of journalism needs to go away.

Brian Morrissey:

because in most people's minds, storytelling means making stuff up, right?

Brian Morrissey:

You tell stories, and you make choices within telling the stories that, sometimes like make a very complicated situation seem very cut and dry and simple and I think anyone has been the I thankfully nobody's ever written about me, but like I'm sure the experience of having been written about like you've experienced Detroit or like

Brian Morrissey:

Well, this is kind of based on a true story, but not quite, uh, the true story.

Brian Morrissey:

and there's not, there's been a lack of humility about that.

Brian Morrissey:

I feel like throughout the profession and there needs to be more of it.

Brian Morrissey:

You could get away with that when there was fewer choices in the analog media industry.

Brian Morrissey:

Because

Brian Morrissey:

there's just a power imbalance.

Brian Morrissey:

It was, that's why nobody picks a fight with, you know, someone who buys ink by the gallon or whatever.

Brian Morrissey:

That's why, that's over.

Alex Schleifer:

I also wonder, I mean, it's going to be interesting, but it's like how much analysis can be done about the media landscape considering.

Alex Schleifer:

How unique a character Trump is like there was nobody, even though he was 77 or 78, when he came back, there was nobody to step up to him.

Alex Schleifer:

Like he's, he's, he's just, he's just such a unique animal.

Alex Schleifer:

And, and once he's gone.

Alex Schleifer:

have they built an enduring playbook, you know, that's what I wonder

Alex Schleifer:

and, and and does the, does that whole manosphere environment fade away the same way, other fads kind of come and go, you know,

Troy Young:

Yeah, and I would add just one last thing to it is that what you're saying, Brian, is the role of the filter and the interpreter and the curator that was defined, you know, by the kind of journalistic conventions in

Troy Young:

the newsroom is changing.

Troy Young:

And, you know, the all in guys would say that it's been replaced by the commons.

Troy Young:

And by, you know, a kind of iterative process where we arrive at the truth through conversation and lots of actors and the algorithm, Elon would say it's publicly sourced and filtered by the algorithm and, you know, the truth floats to the top and, you know, in that world, we, we kind of.

Troy Young:

All of the, you know, kind of journalistic conventions that we're accustomed to are challenged that's what you're saying about the Q and a.

Troy Young:

It's sort of like, okay, roll back the filtering role, the storytelling role.

Troy Young:

Let's just present the conversation.

Brian Morrissey:

Right.

Brian Morrissey:

But it's also like, I think the role moves from filtering, To like connecting the dots, right?

Brian Morrissey:

Like, and I think that to me, when you get at these, these podcasts beyond the like oddities of them, like what, what they really get at is a conversation where people are, are connecting dots between different things.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think that's what the power of them is when you package up.

Brian Morrissey:

When you present these, like, neat packages with all the, it's all sanded down, it comes across, particularly these days, as completely inauthentic.

Brian Morrissey:

And I think that is part of it.

Brian Morrissey:

So I think reinventing the packaging is, is critical.

Brian Morrissey:

I just can't imagine that the 750 word inverted pyramid story is going to be the, the, the sort of atomic unit of journalism in five years.

Brian Morrissey:

Doesn't seem likely.

Troy Young:

There you go.

Brian Morrissey:

All right, so we'll focus on that going forward.

Alex Schleifer:

we should focus on that.

Alex Schleifer:

Just look ahead.

Alex Schleifer:

I need stuff to distract me.

Brian Morrissey:

midterms.

Alex Schleifer:

America is a fucking hardcore heart.

Alex Schleifer:

There's a hardcore place to live on.

Alex Schleifer:

Got to be

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah.

Brian Morrissey:

Yeah.

Troy Young:

you mean?

Troy Young:

What do you, mean?

Brian Morrissey:

This isn't Cyprus or Austria or

Brian Morrissey:

any of those

Troy Young:

at me

Alex Schleifer:

it's just an interesting country and I feel like Seeing just even glimpses of the media onslaught yesterday.

Alex Schleifer:

I'm like, my God, you gotta be either masochist or just so hardened to just put yourself in front of, of, of that stuff, you know, for hours and hours.

Alex Schleifer:

and I was, proud that I managed to stay off it.

Alex Schleifer:

I think there was a, so one of the better moments.

Brian Morrissey:

I just think America refuses to be a normal country and will

Brian Morrissey:

always refuse to

Alex Schleifer:

sure.

Brian Morrissey:

place.

Brian Morrissey:

And in some ways that's to be celebrated, I think.

Brian Morrissey:

Always goes its own way.

Brian Morrissey:

I mean, the good

Alex Schleifer:

I mean, it's like any, it's like, it's like no other country.

Alex Schleifer:

I think that the fact, the way the States are organized and, you know, the whole political system, the way it's all held together is, is pretty, it's pretty special.

Alex Schleifer:

so I want to celebrate that.

Brian Morrissey:

yeah,

Brian Morrissey:

couldn't pull it off if you're a Belgium.

Brian Morrissey:

Like 0 percent chance.

Alex Schleifer:

No, I mean, you're, it's too small.

Alex Schleifer:

Like, like, you know, as I, as I tell like people in France, don't worry.

Alex Schleifer:

About.

Alex Schleifer:

you know, political decisions that are made in Poland 99.

Alex Schleifer:

9 percent of the time you don't wake up freaking out about what's happening in Poland, and that's the same thing as here waking up in California and looking at how Florida has voted like that rarely happens like there's nothing like that in most countries in the world and then and then other large countries like China, you know, it's just completely different.

Alex Schleifer:

So, It's a coalition in itself.

Alex Schleifer:

And, it feels that you're constantly always worried about what's happening everywhere, which is exhausting.

Alex Schleifer:

and, we're going to have a lot of adverts for, you know, anxiety medication popping up

Brian Morrissey:

I also just a final thought on that is,

Brian Morrissey:

I almost think like going forward over the next four years, I almost think like news is going to come with like a surgeon general's warning, like about it being bad for your mental health.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, I don't think that, broadly speaking, the populace can return to 2017 through 2020.

Brian Morrissey:

Like, I just, maybe it's just built up immunity.

Brian Morrissey:

but I don't, I don't know if people can return to that.

Brian Morrissey:

And so I think news avoidance is going to get worse too.

Alex Schleifer:

Yeah.

Alex Schleifer:

Fun

Alex Schleifer:

times.

Brian Morrissey:

decision.

Troy:

That's it for this episode of people versus algorithms where each week we uncover patterns shaping media culture and technology.

Troy:

Big thanks as always to our producer, Vanya Arsanov.

Troy:

She always makes us a little clearer and more understandable and we appreciate her very, very much.

Troy:

If you're enjoying these conversations, we'd love for you to leave us a review.

Troy:

It helps us get the word out and keeps our community growing.

Troy:

Remember, you can find People vs.

Troy:

Algorithms on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify, and now on YouTube.

Troy:

Thanks for listening and we'll see you again next week.

Alex Schleifer:

All right,

Troy Young:

right.

Alex Schleifer:

London,

Alex Schleifer:

Troy.

Troy Young:

Thanks guys.

Troy Young:

Bye.

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About the Podcast

People vs Algorithms
A podcast for curious media minds.
Uncovering patterns of change in media, culture, and technology, each week media veterans Brian Morrissey, Alex Schleifer and Troy Young break down stuff that matters.
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