Ted Audio Collective Hi everyone, you're listening to After Hours.
Tonight, it's just...
Just the two of us.
Mejira is a banditist.
Yes, we always miss him when he's out.
We do. So how are you tonight?
Fabulous, thank you.
So I have to say that recently on this podcast, I mentioned that I don't like musicals.
I do remember. It turns out that of all the things I have said on all the many episodes we have taped, this turns out to be the most polarizing and inflammatory thing I have ever said.
No, you're kidding.
So I'm getting inundated with if you only see this one musical.
That's very funny. Yeah.
So people. Yes. Stop sending me emails with your suggestions for musicals.
I appreciate the input, but I'm good on the entertainment front.
So, Felix, tonight I wanted to talk to you about the New York Times.
Wow. Good. Excellent.
And then did you bring in something to talk about?
Yes, I did. Not a big topic, but whenever I read the paper or watch the news, there's a million things where I think, oh my God, I wonder what young me is thinking, I wonder what me here is thinking.
And so my suggestion for today is let's just take a few topics, do quick takes, a couple of minutes just to get a sense of how do you feel about...
So do I get to do a few as well?
Yes. Yeah, please do.
Oh, so like random things?
Random, the thing you thought about this morning, the thing you saw last week on it.
So quick reactions, quick takes.
Quick takes, yes. Okay.
Excellent. Great. So Felix, the New York Times.
So the catalyst for this, for me, is I recently was listening to an interview that A .G.
Salzberger did with Kara Swisher.
A .G. Salzberger is the publisher of the New York Times.
And he was talking about the role of the New York Times in the world and how they're...
How are we doing on that mission to save the world?
Yeah. So, no, but in all seriousness, this is a newspaper that I consider so close to my heart.
I still remember when I was in college and I began reading the New York Times and how it almost was a rite of passage for me to begin reading this newspaper and feeling like this was my entree into the world.
And it's really remarkable to think about how the paper has changed over the course of its history, but more specifically over the past few years.
So the question I'd like to begin with is, if you had to give the New York Times a grade for its performance over the last couple of years...
And by performance, you don't mean financial performance.
Well, you can interpret it any way you want.
But if you had to give the New York Times a grade, what grade would you give it?
And I know this is Harvard, but don't inflate your grade.
Yeah. I will do my best.
I think I would probably say a B -plus.
I do think the Times has taken important steps to make it more viable in this particular environment.
So I'm thinking about the introduction of the paywall that just completely changed how we thought about the business model of newspapers.
I'm thinking about globalization in the sense that how many global readers they have now outside the United States.
So some things I think they have done really well.
Overall, as with all of these newspapers, I'm not impressed by the speed with which they change.
They have The Daily now.
I'm sure you've seen it like this...
The podcast that sort of talks about the day.
And I think in that interview, he talks a little bit about how more people listen to The Daily, the podcast, than ever find their way to the front page.
And so I think they're moving in a promising direction, but the pace feels rather glacial.
The second reason why I didn't pick any of the A letters is, I think has to do with the content.
After the last presidential election, for maybe half a year, I could barely read it.
It felt like I'm reading the opposite version of Fox News, where really partisan, if you thought about the way they pick their sources and what they emphasized in their stories, it just felt like, oh my God, I'm not...what I always loved about the New York Times is sort of this fair -minded, balanced
view that they would give.
But at that point in time, it was just...
Couldn't really read it.
I think if I had to give them the grade, I might be a little harsher than you.
So there's the business story, which is really positive.
There was a time 10 -12 years ago where it wasn't clear if this paper was going to survive.
That's domestic, right?
Yeah. And I think they've really proven the naysayers wrong.
There are up to 3 million subscribers.
The financials are robust.
They're growing steadily.
So on that front, I think it's hard to criticize them.
What I will say, and this really speaks to what you just described, that business success has not come without a cost.
In other words, when I look at what they do, I feel like they have become so good at preaching to their choir.
Yes. And they have become less good at being regarded as the objective, fair -minded, authoritative news source, which is kind of how I used to think of it.
Yes. And so it has been disappointing to me.
I think in its worst moments, it has become a character in Trump's reality show, and you see them take the bait.
Yes. That is so frustrating.
Do you need to take the bait every single time, in particular when it's so transparent that it's a bait?
It's this need to say, gotcha.
Yep. Every time he presents a version of reality that is disconnected from actual reality, they feel this need to come in and say, gotcha.
And I feel that it gets in the way of them telling a bigger story, the more important story.
The other thing is the percentage of coverage that is focused on Trump.
Just the percentage.
Yes, yeah. If you're thinking about where does quality in American journalism come from, it comes to a large extent from newspaper journalism.
And so it really matters.
And so the importance of places like the New York Times is that they essentially are among the few entities now that create actual content, and then it just ripples through the media system.
When you say that it is a reminder to be fair, in some ways and in some instances, there is so much integrity and even nobility to what they do.
Like if you look at their overseas reporting or some of their longer form pieces, and there's just real integrity to it.
I guess what I question is the decision making about where to expand those resources.
So in that interview with Salzberger, he was talking very proudly about how they've expanded their Washington bureau.
He said it several times, he's expanded.
What he's basically saying is we've got more people covering Trump.
Yes, yeah. A few weeks ago, they ran a 14 ,000 word investigative piece on Trump's finances.
Finances, yes. Three reporters, many, many months of research.
And in some ways, you could argue this is the New York Times at its best.
On the other hand, maybe at the same time, the UN, the International Panel of Climate Control released their report.
The New York Times ran one big story, and if you looked at that story, it was essentially cut and paste from the report.
It was the laziest piece of reporting.
I got to tell you, Felix, it made me crazy.
I think this is one of the most important stories of our lifetime, and yet it is not capturing the attention of anyone in this country.
And to me, that is a failure of narrative.
And so for example, when the New York Times writes, oh, the planet's going to get one and a half degrees warmer over the next 20 years, I'm sorry.
Most people look at that number and they think...
It's a warm summer day.
Exactly. And so the idea that there's nobody sitting back there thinking, this is what matters, and how can we pound on this piece?
How can we create urgency around this topic?
That's just not happening at the New York Times right now.
But meanwhile, we're going to expand the Washington Bureau.
We have more folks covering Trump than ever before.
But let me ask you.
One of the features of that newsroom is relentless investigation of what gets attention and what does not.
So you see every click, you see the number of people who follow stories.
You have often comparative metrics, my stories versus...
So tell me, generally in business, if people pay attention to what customers want, we think, oh, fabulous.
That should be true here also.
You know, I think it speaks to a larger thing, which is so many of the truisms in business do not apply in this particular case.
So for example, in general, you could argue that competition improves the quality of whatever it is that we consume.
In most industries, that's true.
In this industry, competition creates a race to the bottom because you're competing for attention.
In most industries, data that you're talking about, the ability to measure who's reading what, how often a story gets clicked on, you would think, that's fantastic.
It creates accountability.
On the other hand, put yourself in the mindset of a reporter writing a story.
And you know you're going to get instant feedback on the stories that get read a lot, that get clicked on a lot, and the stories that you don't.
But you also get feedback on do they click in and then immediately abandon the story because it's too boring, or do they read all the way to the end?
There's data on all of this.
So now you're writing your story, and it's so hard to resist the temptation to have that influence how you write that story.
Everything we know about engagement on the internet, every study, what kind of content creates engagement?
It's content that's emotional, that's more extreme, that evokes more polarized reactions.
These are the things that create engagement.
So here is I think where the mindset of journalists in quote -unquote important media is a problem.
And I think in that interview with A .G.
Salzberg, he talks a little bit about this.
What's the mission of the times?
So it's obviously to produce relevant news, but it's also to hold the powerful accountable.
And so that puts the journalist in this, I got you.
I've discovered something that is really terrible.
It's almost like every journalist out there is looking for his or her Watergate moment.
Yeah, but it has to be a particular kind of terrible thing.
Something with a sharp narrative edge and something with a clear set of good guys and bad guys.
But also with a sense of righteousness.
So a good example of this is the Me Too movement.
The New York Times did a really fantastic job and continues to do a fantastic job covering that story.
But it's the perfect story.
There are good guys, there are bad guys.
There's a sense of righteousness underlying the story.
The New York Times is happy to be the engine to propel us to some kind of resolution.
Like we need to fire these people or we need to get rid of these people.
We need to eliminate this.
So that's great. Climate change, not so simple.
That does not have that sharp narrative arc.
There's not the good guys and the bad guys.
And therefore there's like zero interest in covering that story.
Yes, yes. But so this is where I have actually hope for the clicks and for a sense in which the market is now holding newspapers accountable in a way that wasn't the case before.
In part what we're seeing when all of a sudden now you click, do you not click, do you stay on page, do you not stay on page.
What we're seeing is that just that reorientation towards the reader.
And part of that I have to say I actually quite like.
Okay, but think about what this means as an enterprise.
I mean you're evolving in a direction that is responsive to what people click on.
If you're People Magazine, fantastic, great.
But I don't know if that should be the driver of your evolution.
If you still want to claim to be the authoritative place for objective fair -minded news.
To me this is a good thing.
In much of European journalism there's not this classic separation of fact and opinion the way we have it here in American papers.
You basically know if you read a liberal paper you're going to get the liberal set of facts and if you read a conservative paper you get the conservative set of facts.
But that's what's happening with us.
And that's what's happening with us.
And I think that's what's happening actually on a much grander scale.
Because remember most people most of the time these days find their news on Facebook.
Some algorithms decide this is the kind of story that you should read.
And I think what is happening now is that the responsibility of discerning what is content, where does it come from, what does it mean for me?
That more and more shifts to the reader.
So my sense is we need to educate a next generation of readers to just be critical about when you read stories.
Where you think can this really be true?
What is the evidence that is being presented?
The picture that you're painting though is one where we have evolved as an audience to what we're being served up in the news.
Yes. But that's not our current reality.
So our current reality is we're somewhere in the middle.
We are still using the language of objectivity and fair mindedness.
And yet the reality is messier I think.
And we really need to be relying more on the intelligence of the audience.
And yet that hasn't happened.
Okay, great. Okay, Felix, you wanted to do short takes.
Short takes. Yeah, okay, I'm ready.
I have some ideas. Okay, shoot.
I should go first? Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so one thing I never got a chance to ask you, quick take on.
We never talked about the midterm elections.
Oh, that's right. Yeah, they came and went.
So if you think back, midterm elections, one or two kind of big takeaways for you.
Not so much the outcome of the midterm election, but the take on the midterm election surprised me a little bit.
And I think the wave was actually much, much bigger than people realized.
And I say this for two reasons.
One is Democrats flipped 30 districts.
Yeah, that's not a very large number.
But 300 districts voted significantly more liberal than they did in the last election.
So, yes, there's a big rethinking of what you want and where you stand in response to politics.
And people, because they just stared at the 30 districts that flipped, didn't really see it.
You know, the other thing on that though, which makes it even more impressive, I think, is to see this kind of flipping happen in the context of such a strong economy.
That is exactly right.
The second part that I remember is that was a little sad.
After the presidential election, there was some moment of soul searching.
Oh, my God, what happened?
What did the other half of the country think that they wanted to go in a completely different direction?
Now it feels like a sports competition.
All that matters is, does my team win?
I have no interest in why it is, say, why are women evenly split between the two camps?
Don't really have a conversation about that.
It's all just about my team.
And it shows up in this city versus rural divide that is going to lock in a Democratic House and a Republican Senate.
Really not so great for the future of the country.
Two Americas. Yeah.
Okay. Your turn. I wanted to ask you about drones.
Drones? Yes. You mean in the sky?
In the sky. Okay. Which, in the beginning, looked like, you know, an interesting hobby.
Maybe you get amazing pictures for your wedding, but now it's commercial.
And it gets more commercial every day.
What are your hopes for drones?
So in Japan, there's a company called Rakuten that I'm associated with.
And Rakuten was the first company in Japan to use drones commercially.
And let me tell you the application.
So Rakuten owns a bunch of golf, among many things, a bunch of golf courses.
So you're on the golf course.
And let's say you get a little hungry.
Yeah. So you can ask for something to be delivered to you, for you to eat, and a drone will deliver it to you.
Now, on the one hand, you could say, that's just so silly, because of all the applications, delivering medical supplies to people in need, for example, you know, you're going to deliver, like, pizza to someone who's on, you know, the night pole or something.
On the other hand, this technology is still pretty nascent.
And so it's these non -critical applications with high frequency that enable you to test it out, to begin to do it.
Now, having said all of that, did you ever see that movie, Wally?
Yes, yeah. In the end, this scene, when they're all just sitting in those chairs and they don't ever have to do anything?
If you think about it, our phones have become like the remote control for our lives.
It's like, we want to deliver to us, you push a button in your phone, you want a car, push a button, and a car will show up to you.
You want a date? Push a button, a date, tonight.
You know, the bottom line is, if this thing happens with drones, I am never leaving my house.
So one of the really interesting things is, I think because it's much more difficult to navigate drones in dense areas, this actually might push back on super dense cities.
In the following sense, if already today, if you're in the suburb, likelihood that you have a yard where I can land my drone, the likelihood that you have a place where I can leave something, it's not going to get stolen, so much better in the city.
Oh, interesting. So it's one of these technologies, it opens up the space.
And so I think that while density generally is just enormously beneficial, and that's what gave us these big cities, drones might actually push a little bit back.
So you want the best pizza out of Brooklyn, but you happen to live on Staten Island.
Some of these advantages will go away, because the pizza will come via drone.
Wow. So even though I live in the city, my loft does have a deck, so the drone can land on the deck.
Okay, do you have another one?
I do. So enormous corporate change.
Dunkin' Donuts is now without the donuts.
So this name change, what do you think?
Oh my goodness. Yeah, so for our listeners who don't live in New England, Dunkin' Donuts recently said they're changing their name to Duncan.
If we were texting right now, what I would send you back is the shrug emoji.
Okay, so I need to say something about this.
You know, it's interesting, some of these things are so, it's so obvious what the intent is, that the execution almost just feels awkward, because the name change is preceding the reality.
In other words, the way most people experience Dunkin' Donuts is through their physical retail presence.
And when you walk into the store, the first thing you see are rows of donuts.
You know, I remember when Apple Computer dropped the word computer from its name, and they just became Apple, and when they did it, it was like, of course, because by that time they were doing many other things, and computers were just a very small piece of what they were doing.
And so that didn't feel awkward at all.
But when Dunkin' Donuts, you know, another...
Oh, Weight Watchers recently announced that they're no longer Weight Watchers.
They're going to be called WW, which stands for something else, wellness, something, something.
That too feels awkward, but you know why they're doing it, of course.
It's Kentucky Fried Chicken is now KFC, because they didn't want people to see the word fried.
And it's also super well hidden on their menu.
Yeah, exactly. What do you think?
I mean, my first reaction was exactly, what?
It's like, everybody knows it's Dunkin' Donuts.
But I mean, I think the reality that even today their business is driven by coffee, and growth opportunities are driven by coffee, that of course is a reality.
I think the interesting question is the one that you asked.
Like, if you think about these names, is it that you change first, and then you adjust the name?
Or is there merit to the idea that you signal where you would like to go, by also internally in the company, like taking out the donut names.
And that's not the heart of the company anymore.
There's a lot of messaging that's happening.
There's a lot of messaging.
Okay, can I do one more?
Yes. I just thought of one.
Okay. I feel the worst.
So, not that long ago, I might tell this story wrong.
But apparently, there was an object that flew through the sky, and the head of astronomy, the head of astronomy at Harvard, he says there's a possibility that this object might have been sent from aliens.
Did I say that right?
Yes, you said that right, yes.
Okay, and by the way, this is not, no one is not Joe Schmo, this guy's the head of astronomy.
Oh yeah, yes. He's a highly, highly credible person.
Oh, yes, absolutely.
And so it is, I think, so I remember this story.
Do you remember this?
Yes. So awesome. Yes.
Felix, they're here.
They're coming, finally.
Finally. But I will say, so we know it's from outside the solar system, because of the speed.
And then, first, actually, they thought it must be a comet.
And then, it didn't quite have the right properties, and then they said, oh, maybe an asteroid.
And then they decided, no, it's also not an asteroid.
And then they called it an interstellar object, which I think is a fancy way of saying, we have no idea what this thing is.
So it's not unlike how I described it.
Like, this thing came.
This thing came, and so I think it has two really unusual properties.
So it's basically a football field long.
And that is very...
You went deep into this story.
Actually, my wife is interested.
It's mostly secondhand.
So that's really interesting.
So the shape, you said it's narrow?
The shape. It looks like a cigar, really.
Imagine a cigar, and a truck went over it.
That's basically the shape.
Oh, interesting. But then the other thing that's even more interesting is, as they tracked it, it sped up, which it's not supposed to do.
Because it knew it was being tracked.
It has a higher intelligence.
That's right. The aliens said, huh, who's tracking here?
Let's get out of here.
This doesn't feel quite right.
It knew this was a bad...
The interstellar police, you hear the siren, and then you speed up.
It sensed that this was a bad neighborhood.
That's right. And so it said, I got to go to different selages.
Which is, that's not so great news.
Even the aliens stay away from Earth.
Because they've been reading the New York Times.
But they're super depressed about what's happened.
So, Felix, do you have a pick for me tonight?
I do. I started watching season three of The Man in the High Castle.
You might remember the Philip K.
Dick book that has this dramatic premise.
Second world war ended differently.
Nazi Germany occupies the East and the US.
And then when Amazon made it into a show, I really loved the first two seasons.
And then, of course, because they probably didn't know that it would be successful, you have to wait forever for the third season to come out.
And yesterday, as I started watching, and as I started to fall back into the story and remembering who is who and what did they do, I was thinking, this sense of anticipation is actually something really nice.
And in an on -demand economy, I don't really have that many of these experiences because whatever I want, it's always there.
Instant gratification.
And I get it the moment I want.
And so I was thinking, even in my online decisions, you probably saw like Amazon will now in the future, you can pick the date when they deliver something.
And I was thinking, maybe I should buy something that I really want and pick a delivery day 10 days from now.
You're out of your mind.
Just, no, I'm telling you.
The sense of anticipation, it was really nice.
Try it out. Okay. There's only one scenario where I try to be a little bit manipulative with anticipation.
And that is when I host people over for dinner.
And someone taught me this trick many years ago, and it works so beautifully.
It might even be you that taught me this trick.
I'm not even sure. Oh, God.
So I might be telling you something that you taught me.
But the trick to hosting a dinner party with people is they show up and you have fabulous cocktails.
And they can smell the food.
But you don't feed them.
You don't serve them.
And there's not even any appetizers, nothing.
And you just keep serving them cocktails.
And they just start to get hungrier and hungrier.
To the point where they're a little distracted because they are ready to eat.
And then you bring out the food.
And they're like, this is the best food ever.
Because I was starving.
Because they're starving and they've had a few drinks.
And so, you know, that combination.
And they remember it as being this dinner party where the food was great and they, you know, the whole thing.
I think, did you teach me that?
I did not. Okay. Anyway, but it's playing with anticipation.
Yeah. That's the only time, though.
No, no, try it somewhere else.
So my pick for you, one of the saddest things about doing this podcast with you and me here is that neither one of you likes sports.
Yes, true. It's really...
Or maybe we like sports but we just don't know anything about it.
That just makes absolutely no sense.
So whereas I love football and basketball and anyway, and I follow it all, I love it, love it, love it.
So one of my favorite websites is this website called theringer .com.
It's run by this guy named Bill Simmons.
He used to be on ESPN.
He did Grantland. I'm telling you so much more.
You're just... It's all totally over my head.
Just totally over my head.
But anyway, what I love about this website, and he started doing this in his Grantland, is even though he started out from this narrow place that I'm going to write about sports, it's become much more expensive, and it essentially covers pop culture.
So, for example, they'll cover Game of Thrones religiously, or basically anything on Netflix.
I might check it out.
You might, or music, and they're writers.
Really, really good writing on the site.
So it's my version of People magazine.
Wonderful. Remind us what's at ringer .com?
Theringer .com. You're not going to go.
You're a lively listener.
Well, Game of Thrones.
Yeah, but maybe some of our listeners.
Which is another fabulous example for the joys of anticipation.
What is? The final season of Game of Thrones.
Oh, yes, of course.
But here's the problem with that.
I'm going to have to rewatch the last season because I've forgotten.
Yeah. And so you have to go back and remind yourself.
I'm not the only one that does that, right?
All part of the process, yes.
Oh, okay. You do that as well?
Yeah, I do that as well.
Makes me feel less bad.
Okay. Anyway, thanks everyone for listening.
This is After Hours.
You're on the same page.
