A quick announcement:
I’m integrating the Dead Cat podcast a little more closely with this newsletter. We’ve brought on an audio editor with Substack’s support to professionalize the podcast. Now, you’ll be able to get Dead Cat right in your email. (But you can still listen to the latest episodes on Apple and Spotify.) If you don’t want to receive Dead Cat podcast episodes, you can go to Newcomer.co/account and deselect “Dead Cat.”
I hope you’ll listen along.
What’s the pitch?
It’s a show that gets behind the tech industry headlines. It’s hosted by me and Insider reporter Tom Dotan.
Our good friend Katie Benner, a reporter at the New York Times, is a regular special guest. So far guests have included Rippling CEO Parker Conrad, Doordash VP and Obama administration alum Liz Jarvis-Shean, and Dispo CEO Daniel Liss.
The podcast is meant to be a fun way to listen in on what reporters really think about the big tech stories of the day. Tom, Katie, and I have had a gossipy Signal thread for years. Dead Cat is that thread in podcast form.
What’s with the name?
Listen, Newcomer wasn’t the most creative name and I needed to make up lost ground. I also wanted a cute cat avatar.
But we do have a rationalization for the name “Dead Cat.”
Here’s the story:
Thanks to a shareholder lawsuit several years ago, the public got a peek inside Marc Andreessen and Mark Zuckerberg’s text messages. Andreessen was coaching Zuckerberg on how to convince the Facebook board to support Zuckerberg’s efforts to solidify his control over Facebook even if he sold shares.
Andreessen texted Zuckerberg: “The cat’s in the bag and the bag’s in the river.”
Zuckerberg didn’t seem to understand the language of spy craft.
Zuckerberg replied: “Does that mean the cat’s dead?”
Thus, the name for our podcast was born. To over intellectualize it, to me, it’s a statement about how the tech industry is already ascendant. The deed is done. The cat’s dead. We’re stuck with a culturally dominant Silicon Valley — the good and the bad. Now we’re just left making sense of it.
What’s on the docket this week?
Tom, Katie, and I talk about employee union organizing at tech companies and beyond. Tom argues that tech unions haven’t caught on like you might have expected from the cheerleading media coverage. We reflect on our conversation last week with Dispo CEO Daniel Liss and talk about reporter skepticism around cryptocurrencies. Finally, we touch on The Verge’s decision to resist background sourcing from corporate public relations.
Get full access to Newcomer at www.newcomer.co/subscribe
00:00:06
Welcome. Hey everybody.
00:00:14
Welcome to this week's episode of dead cat.
00:00:16
This is Tom do Tom coming to you here at the late-night, episode
00:00:19
recorded on the weekend with Eric newcomer, and Katie better.
00:00:23
We're all here, we're all here. We finally broke the seal and
00:00:26
talking about crypto, which I gotta think will not Be the last
00:00:30
time, by the way, on that topic. So you know, we tweeted out the
00:00:33
episode and I said something to the effect of like I think every
00:00:36
reporter probably needs to just like suck it up and learn at
00:00:38
least the terminology and immediately.
00:00:41
I was done by another reporter. I don't want to say his name
00:00:44
because I didn't ask for his permission but he was like you
00:00:46
coward. You coward.
00:00:47
Are you bi? Are you buying into this?
00:00:49
Like just goes into Spade. This is bullshit.
00:00:51
No fantasy land this crate. Which, which, which part is the
00:00:56
fantasy? Land is there's so much going on
00:00:58
in the market. If I think the fact that I said
00:01:02
crypto was worth taking seriously, enough reporters to
00:01:04
at least understand the argument and the terminology, I thought
00:01:08
it was a pretty Anodyne statement.
00:01:09
How is it? That seems incontrovertible
00:01:12
this? Well yeah, I mean people have
00:01:13
made billions off of it. Like even if it was all like
00:01:18
what a multi-level marketing scam or whatever, it's still
00:01:22
just the scope of it. It feels like worth knowing and
00:01:25
I obviously don't believe that's the case, but it feels like just
00:01:28
the sheer money. It's crazy to me.
00:01:30
My argument was just like what else you going to talk to people
00:01:32
about right now? Like no one wants to talk about
00:01:34
anything else. Let me go talk about just like
00:01:37
uber pricing all day like no like it's you got to do
00:01:40
something and so it's just like at the very least like develop a
00:01:43
common set of terms that you can that you can engage on although
00:01:48
the GM thing. The good morning thing is like
00:01:52
in undeniably stupid. Yeah I mean it's stupid or not I
00:01:55
think it's I agree that if you're going to try to debunk
00:01:59
something, You need to actually speak the language of the thing.
00:02:03
It is that you're trying to debunk.
00:02:04
So if you want to poke holes into, you know something like
00:02:09
residential mortgage-backed Securities, you should know what
00:02:12
a residential mortgage-backed security is before you launch a
00:02:16
full critique, right? With the very least if you don't
00:02:19
believe in it. Then there's a lot of there's so
00:02:21
much money invested in it. That's going to be a good story,
00:02:23
one way or the other absolutely like people getting fleeced, if
00:02:27
the whole thing is a crock of shit, so The very least prepare
00:02:31
yourself for the stories of how it all fell apart.
00:02:32
And then you can at least say how smart you were because of
00:02:34
that. No.
00:02:35
Yeah. And I mean, obviously the
00:02:36
history of business reporting, you know, what?
00:02:39
Junk bonds, I mean, you know, there's so much better than I do
00:02:42
cable. Like, you know, there have been
00:02:44
all these scandalous Financial tools that then go on to be
00:02:48
useful, things in the economy or companies, like Amazon lie,
00:02:53
absolutely. And you can't, and you can't
00:02:55
talk about why they're scandalous and you can't explain
00:02:58
to people what happened if you Use to learn the terminology of
00:03:01
the product. You bought Bitcoin like a long
00:03:04
time ago, right? I what you bought Bitcoin a
00:03:07
while ago. You sold it.
00:03:10
I did. I just it just sits there.
00:03:13
How much did you buy? Just a Bitcoin.
00:03:17
Look right here. Get because I thought because I
00:03:19
think I bought it like $118. Oh my God.
00:03:23
Wait. So it wasn't a full psych.
00:03:24
Oh my God. By want to spend $200 on this
00:03:27
thing? No, she bought a whole Bitcoin,
00:03:28
right? Yeah.
00:03:30
Yeah. That should be.
00:03:30
That's tens of thousands. Oh yeah, myself.
00:03:37
Well, it would be so stupid to spend more than $100 on this
00:03:41
thing because it's gonna go to 0.
00:03:43
But then I thought well, Maybe I should buy like 10 and I thought
00:03:47
that's so stupid and I bought one.
00:03:49
No, my god. I've never bought them because
00:03:51
I've always had this terrible like purest reporter, Instinct
00:03:54
that I'm slowly trying to shed? I clearly we first of all I
00:03:58
should have been just be you left us for substance.
00:04:00
I know, but I'm still a goody-goody in terms of like
00:04:03
conflict. I made my first political
00:04:05
donation the other day which I think you did.
00:04:07
You disclose it on the show? Was it a conflict for me to buy
00:04:10
a Bitcoin? I'm actually serious?
00:04:12
I don't know. I was, that's what I knew.
00:04:14
I was gonna B and H like I, you know, like was it a conflict?
00:04:19
I donated to my to my friend, Ben Samuels, who's running for
00:04:23
congress in a suburb of st. Louis, so, supporting your
00:04:28
friend. What's avoid talking about on
00:04:30
the show for your integrity? He's a Democrat.
00:04:33
No, I just mean like you, I don't want you pumping up his
00:04:36
numbers but I just want to show Tom and I do not endorse this
00:04:42
Canyon. And by the way yeah, I have That
00:04:45
made my selection yet, but I'll let you know, we'll have like a
00:04:47
big, you know, New York Times Hulu, show the choice where we
00:04:51
figure out who I'm endorsing in that race.
00:04:53
But I do think I need to buy like a little bit of aetherium
00:04:57
and Bitcoin. I mean I actually think the
00:05:00
conflicts there are probably almost greater to an extent only
00:05:03
in a company because I mean at least it's changed a bit now
00:05:06
because there's so much more invested in it.
00:05:07
But there was a time where an article about Bitcoin could
00:05:10
materially influence the price. I think.
00:05:13
Actually there was a reporter who right about now.
00:05:15
I mean there's a whole there's no, I never wrote a publication
00:05:18
that are set up to keep a lot of attention.
00:05:21
Yeah, Jim Ledbetter. Jim Ledbetter has a whole
00:05:23
publication. I think about, well, here's a
00:05:25
letter. And then he works for somebody.
00:05:27
But then there, you know, there's obviously coin desk has
00:05:29
been around. There's yeah, there's a bunch of
00:05:34
the block. I mean, they break news, I like
00:05:38
some oh my follow them on Twitter, I mean it but yeah,
00:05:42
there's plenty of they certainly own Do I mean there's obviously
00:05:46
the counter-argument that not owning it is, I mean, not to
00:05:49
parent their language but not owning and of it having all your
00:05:52
money in dollars and traditional equities, you know, is a is a
00:05:58
position, you know. They don't true neutral.
00:06:00
The position is called being poor, I think that's silly.
00:06:03
Yeah exactly like it's a lot of us just access.
00:06:06
We should just divert what do you mean what?
00:06:08
It's just access like you know I didn't not have stocks growing
00:06:13
up and in college because I was Taking a position.
00:06:15
It's because I was broke. Sure.
00:06:17
Obviously, if you have no money, but once you have some money,
00:06:20
you mean, like if you already have a portfolio to not
00:06:22
diversify and agree. Exactly.
00:06:24
Right. I would never want to be in a
00:06:26
position where people would consider me outweigh in crypto.
00:06:29
What's the requirement now? How about really did?
00:06:31
I haven't really Diversified into private Equity Timber, you
00:06:36
know, Venture and I just do whatever the harbor management
00:06:40
companies. That's how I take my kids.
00:06:42
Like I've taken my okay. And turn into a David Swensen
00:06:47
style. That's it.
00:06:50
I do think with Bloomberg, I got I mean like dodging cocks.
00:06:53
I'm in some of the like managed but good at managing funds in my
00:06:57
401 k because Bloomberg likes to have fancy stuff in there
00:07:01
saying, we're kind of going far failed from crypto here.
00:07:03
Now though, I would love to know what Bloomberg is.
00:07:06
All right, well, Daniel and our conversation.
00:07:09
The dispo co I very much enjoyed was a, you know, he sort of
00:07:13
said, oh, seven percent or something.
00:07:15
Krypto. That's not necessarily and that
00:07:17
was a small. I mean he was you know, talking
00:07:20
about somebody was 100% etherium, but I do think of a
00:07:24
reporter where, you know, five to ten percent crypto, they
00:07:28
wouldn't be conflicted Ness. Well they should I mean I do
00:07:33
they ask you to do, they ask reporters to disclose it like at
00:07:35
the times I haven't I haven't checked with The Insider if I
00:07:38
mean request. Would they ask me to disclose a
00:07:40
stock holding? I don't even cover business.
00:07:42
I mean like if I went and bought like Bloomberg we couldn't own
00:07:44
individual. Talks, we couldn't short.
00:07:46
Yeah, I don't I mean I don't I don't know what or we could own
00:07:49
individual stocks but it was a pain.
00:07:51
You had to tell them which stocks and it couldn't be on
00:07:53
your beat and then you probably couldn't write about it.
00:07:55
So yeah, makes sense. I never write about stock in the
00:07:58
company that you write about. What I feel like is thanks
00:08:00
praying about tech. You're, you know, you're making
00:08:03
implicit statements about tech relative to other Industries, I
00:08:07
don't know. I mean, it was literally
00:08:08
something I did at 2:00 in the morning after I had had a lot of
00:08:10
drinks. It was, I didn't really think I
00:08:12
was smart. Yeah, I just had And I think
00:08:16
we're working with you at the time.
00:08:17
Yeah. I just but I read prop.
00:08:20
We had probably gone out for those drinks that I wasn't there
00:08:22
for like the asset panic. I wish I had that we probably
00:08:27
went out somewhere in the mission and have some cocktails.
00:08:30
We're at the 500 Club or whatever.
00:08:32
And then I went home and I was like, I'm buying a Bitcoin.
00:08:35
Yeah, Kitty, neglected us you you were worldly, you knew
00:08:39
things. I should have texted.
00:08:41
You guys should have you just what I'm doing right now?
00:08:44
Yeah. Yeah.
00:08:45
Yeah God. I thought you guys were my
00:08:47
friends but anyway I do think reporters should probably spend
00:08:51
the time. Learning the language to be able
00:08:53
to have at least semi coherent does very interesting
00:08:55
controversial today in coherent people.
00:09:00
But yeah, I'd be like if I was like I refuse to learn what an
00:09:05
indictment is. I'm just going to do this job
00:09:09
fucking not. Yeah.
00:09:11
Early audience on this show is definitely reporters who Try to
00:09:15
manage like what are, you know, 100 person audience will you.
00:09:21
It's like, hey, how could you say that about me, or, you know,
00:09:25
right, we're one step away from the call-in show, but I do want
00:09:29
to, I do want to talk about Ben, Smith's column, okay?
00:09:31
Yes, walk us through. What is the column?
00:09:33
The column that Ben wrote? Which came out last Sunday was
00:09:37
basically talking about why reporters have suddenly gotten
00:09:40
so interested in labor and you know, that was very focused on A
00:09:45
paper that I hadn't heard of in New York that was bought that
00:09:48
was, you know, diving into a lot of the Union activity in New
00:09:52
York City specifically. But, you know, we are in this
00:09:55
period that, you know, we're in November now.
00:09:57
But all the strikes that happened in October is something
00:10:00
that has been heavily covered by a lot of the press.
00:10:02
And I think the question that Ben was asking was like, you
00:10:06
know why? Now is, you know, have reporters
00:10:08
decided to jump on the story that some reporters have been
00:10:11
covering for decades, but it hasn't gotten a ton of interest
00:10:13
but it seems like it's caught on.
00:10:14
Way now. And I think he's, you know, was
00:10:17
drawing the comparison that reporters are in unions.
00:10:19
There's a ton of digital media Outlets that have unionized.
00:10:21
I work at one that voted to unionize, right?
00:10:24
Right, when I joined. And for me, it was, it was
00:10:27
personally interesting because I was on, I was at a company
00:10:31
previously, that was not unionized.
00:10:32
And I was on a beat that was completely uninterested in that
00:10:36
particular, like the beat reporting in media, no one
00:10:39
really cared about the Union's they do now, which is
00:10:41
interesting. But at the time, it was all
00:10:42
about, you know, what are the Solid ations and Acquisitions
00:10:46
and shit shows that are happening at the corporate
00:10:49
level. And I chose to leave to cover a
00:10:51
beat, that is very much interested in labor.
00:10:54
And so I thought there was going to be some discussion in there
00:10:56
about like you know, what is change?
00:10:59
That is caused reporters to take interest in something that is
00:11:02
still, you know, low level compared to, you know, Ben had
00:11:06
to deal with all the union negotiations at BuzzFeed and was
00:11:09
on the side of management. So I did feel like he threaded
00:11:12
his media story and this case As more about sort of these
00:11:17
interesting weirdo Outlets, it wasn't so much about sort of the
00:11:22
hip kids of digital media being obsessed with unionizing and
00:11:26
those beat reporters, right? It went in a different direction
00:11:30
but it just bring it to Tech specifically, you know, I mean
00:11:33
Eric you wrote years ago at the information, a story sort of
00:11:37
suggesting that Tech workers should unionized workers of the
00:11:40
World Unite would attack workers of the world.
00:11:43
Yeah. And I think that was a Jonathan
00:11:44
web. Burr, who is our editor at the
00:11:47
moment he definitely should have, you know, ghosts
00:11:50
co-writing credit promotion, Evergreen Weber story as well
00:11:54
because he he would love every industry to unionize.
00:11:59
Sure. Well, I mean it was very
00:12:01
prescient article I mean because it's just I mean made the point
00:12:05
that software Engineers are so. In demand they should use their
00:12:08
leverage to extract stuff but by large they have it from their
00:12:11
employers but it was partially about you know, getting benefits
00:12:14
for themselves. It was also, these companies are
00:12:17
so powerful. They should use it to redirect
00:12:20
those companies and we're sort of seen that.
00:12:21
But again, it's like, and we've talked about, you know, the
00:12:24
Apple employees protesting and the Apple employees.
00:12:29
Really made it about their working conditions and not
00:12:33
about, you know, factories, and in China.
00:12:36
So I do think a lot of the, the labor movement from Engineers
00:12:40
certainly has been around sort of diversity, equity and
00:12:43
inclusion but Then sort of General working conditions, but
00:12:47
it's outside of the process of a typical Union.
00:12:50
Like the Google workers workers there there.
00:12:52
Where there is a Google Union, I don't believe it has more than
00:12:55
1 members but aside from a lack of releasing statements
00:12:58
here and there and putting some people on the record, they have
00:13:01
no real power and I know like at a corporate level Google was
00:13:03
very dismissive of them and then there's a few other startups
00:13:06
that unionize Kickstarter and a few even less known ones, but it
00:13:11
really hasn't taken off in any serious way, which I may be
00:13:14
naive. We thought it was going to at
00:13:16
the beginning of this year, but we're at a point and I don't
00:13:19
know, I don't see it getting much better any time soon.
00:13:22
And so as a reporter that's interested in labor and Tech,
00:13:25
it's gone in a very different direction that I was the boss's
00:13:27
one, they just fatigued. Yeah, I haven't honestly not
00:13:32
covering the beat. There was, you know, you know,
00:13:34
all this movement and you're right, it's been quiet.
00:13:37
What is what is sort of the headline?
00:13:39
It's hard to write the non-story but what is it?
00:13:42
I think what happened is that people People that were upset
00:13:46
about their jobs instead of trying to ban together to make
00:13:48
their jobs better, they just left their jobs.
00:13:51
They just decided to you know, freelancer or Cobble together,
00:13:56
you know, up work like work or just bounce around for a couple
00:13:59
of months from place to place. This is a controversial thing to
00:14:02
say these days. But isn't that part of how
00:14:06
American capitalism is supposed to work?
00:14:08
You don't like your employer and you go to another company.
00:14:12
Like I don't know that that Like a default reasonable way to
00:14:17
correct corporate action. You know, if everybody's leaving
00:14:21
is they don't like doesn't correct corporate action because
00:14:24
the markets not tight enough for that to correct corporate
00:14:26
accidently not intact. Now, it only correct corporate
00:14:28
action if they're only 10 and jars.
00:14:30
I mean, I don't know if you guys believe in them, but what
00:14:33
hundred xers or whatever? I mean, the super talented
00:14:35
employees where they go certainly, does have an impact
00:14:39
on companies. Yeah.
00:14:40
But they've all like they don't have connections to other, you
00:14:44
know, their workers to a degree, right?
00:14:46
Like they're not as interested in saying, like, hey, join with
00:14:48
me, and I'll push for something better.
00:14:50
That will improve the lot for everyone here.
00:14:52
Like, they're more like shit. I'm a star.
00:14:54
Let me see how much I can get from the company here, and, and
00:14:57
maximizing that way. I mean, it's like the engineer
00:14:59
version of joining a sub stack, right?
00:15:01
I have a question, do you think that some of the reason why
00:15:05
unionization didn't really take hold and tuck in the way you
00:15:08
were anticipating is cultural. It's about how the employees
00:15:12
view themselves and their jobs and their companies.
00:15:15
And just as I will say, I'm just finishing the book uncanny
00:15:18
valley. I know that I'm coming to it
00:15:20
like a year after it came out. I haven't read it yet.
00:15:24
Is it worth it? Did you like it?
00:15:25
Sort of weird to read because we were all actually in San
00:15:28
Francisco at the same exact time that Anna was, so her
00:15:31
descriptions of the companies and the places are bringing back
00:15:35
a lot of memories. But, you know, there's a scene
00:15:38
where she talks about seeing somebody who's homeless, wearing
00:15:41
a GitHub sweatshirt and she mentions it to 100.
00:15:45
Colleagues and is really disturbed by it.
00:15:46
You know, she's sort of sees it as this sort of like ultimate
00:15:49
expression of how horrible the wealth Gap is become.
00:15:53
And his he goes. Yeah, that's a bummer.
00:15:56
And there's a long, pause things.
00:15:57
Like I wonder who gave their sweatshirt away because we're
00:16:00
really not supposed to do that, you know, misses the point where
00:16:04
people love the imagery Gil, you know, when you're thinking about
00:16:07
something when you're thinking about something like labor and
00:16:10
you're and you're thinking about something like labor movements,
00:16:13
The reason you join, you know, the idea you join you also
00:16:18
sacrifice part of your paycheck. You become part of an entity is
00:16:23
because you are thinking Beyond oneself.
00:16:27
And because you are trying to think about how to make a
00:16:31
company improve on a deeper cultural level.
00:16:33
Yeah, I know is, I know a certain Union that had a little
00:16:37
finagling about how much they wanted to give of themselves.
00:16:41
But I'm just saying, like paying dues in All right thing, I'm
00:16:45
just talkin New York Times Union, obvious like the that you
00:16:48
pay dues and you become part of an organization.
00:16:52
You only do that. You only go through the trouble.
00:16:54
If you actually think there's kind of something wrong, you
00:16:57
have to do it like once there's a human, right?
00:17:00
We held, it's not like an individual Choice, your
00:17:03
colleagues decide, and then you're probably right?
00:17:06
But you need a mass of your colleagues to make that decision
00:17:08
and it's not going to happen in a culture where people outside
00:17:11
of diversity and inclusion is issues.
00:17:14
It's not going to happen. If people are like, well, yes, I
00:17:16
mean we should probably hire more black people.
00:17:19
That's a bummer. But ultimately, we actually
00:17:21
think that this relationship between the owners of the
00:17:25
company and the workers in the company is just fine.
00:17:28
How are you ever go? How will you never take off if
00:17:30
that's the culture and that's the way people.
00:17:32
What you're saying? You're saying, companies can
00:17:34
still do diversity inclusion without unions, but otherwise
00:17:38
there isn't the juice or I just want everything, like, beyond
00:17:41
the question of diversity inclusion.
00:17:42
Is there anything? Driving people in the valley to
00:17:45
think. Oh my gosh, sickly yeah, intact
00:17:47
to say right? Oh gosh, like I really don't
00:17:50
like this arrangement for myself.
00:17:52
I really feel disadvantaged and only by Banning together with my
00:17:55
fellow workers. Can I can I rebalance this
00:17:59
inequity? Well, it's a weird.
00:18:01
If you're a white collar worker at Google, right.
00:18:04
It's like obviously if you're the top person, you don't have a
00:18:06
strong incentive and then if you're in the middle band of
00:18:09
engineer or product manager, or whatever, maybe you have a In a
00:18:13
financial incentive to improve the average, but then if you
00:18:17
really embrace the ideology of the Union, you should be
00:18:20
helping, you know, the contractors, the bus, you know,
00:18:23
all of a sudden, it's like, oh, we're actually going to erode
00:18:26
the nice white collar work. We have because if we really
00:18:28
think broad, this is why I'm saying, it's a cultural
00:18:30
question, right? Right.
00:18:32
But I mean, a lot of unions are pitched.
00:18:34
I mean, I'm not a scholar in the history of unions.
00:18:37
Be. A lot of them are pitched is
00:18:38
like self-interested, right? Like it's good for the specific
00:18:41
workers who are Signing up. It's not some political project.
00:18:46
Is that naive? Like isn't that nice?
00:18:48
I know it's saying, yes, we have an interest in doing this but
00:18:51
you yourself alone. Can't improve your situation.
00:18:54
The only way for you. And but each individual voter
00:18:57
who votes. Yes, is supposed to believe it
00:18:58
will help them. You're supposed to get a
00:19:00
majority. But what I'm trying to say is
00:19:02
that the only way to pitch, basically, the union pitches
00:19:05
you, the individual Eric, your work life, you don't like it but
00:19:10
you the individual Eric can never change it because Total of
00:19:13
power, but I have to believe that it helps me.
00:19:16
So that is why you that is why you band together with others.
00:19:20
So even though the pitch is even though the pictures, as you put
00:19:23
it, self-centered it implies the only way to fix the problem is
00:19:27
to not be self-centered, but I think culturally like, you're
00:19:30
sort of circling around a lot of these people don't believe it
00:19:33
will actually help. Well, that's them.
00:19:35
That's what I'm saying. Or will ever help them?
00:19:37
But I don't know if I think they're wrong.
00:19:39
I mean, how much better off can they be?
00:19:41
I mean. Well, this is the question.
00:19:43
Because what it comes down to is not necessarily your state right
00:19:46
now, but the state you could be in that if you're in a point in
00:19:49
which you do not have, you're not an ideal situation.
00:19:52
If you are, you know, threatening to be fired or your
00:19:55
compensation, is what you think it should be.
00:19:57
You have no recourse to push back on and all other than get
00:19:59
another job, right? Like BuzzFeed is a great
00:20:01
example, like there was a time when buzzfeed's valuation was
00:20:04
really huge and there was no, you know, there, the idea that
00:20:08
employees that would want to unionize when it was like the
00:20:10
really fun Media Company. The interesting media Many, the
00:20:13
media company is flush with cash.
00:20:14
The media company with interesting stuff happening with
00:20:17
money, where there were people making money to what's the
00:20:20
incentive to unionize. And, of course, now years later,
00:20:23
when fortunes took a turn, there's there it is.
00:20:26
That's the insight. And I don't know with BuzzFeed
00:20:28
specifically how much of them are compensated in stock that
00:20:31
they thought like, oh, you know, we're going to the Moon here and
00:20:33
everything's going to be great. But I think part of the issue
00:20:37
that you're talking about is there's no historical connection
00:20:41
to the union and the labor movement Within Tech that it's
00:20:43
still a relatively new industry and with a lot of the, you know,
00:20:46
like John Deere that's striking now.
00:20:48
Yeah, there's been over probably 100 years or something of Union
00:20:51
activity within like the tractor world but it's building up from
00:20:56
such a standing start. Do you listen to the Chapo
00:20:58
episode about the activism of John?
00:21:01
Probably? Yeah, it was can't remember
00:21:03
super interesting. I mean, yeah.
00:21:05
Yeah, I mean, that's exciting. I mean, because they have
00:21:08
exactly what you're saying, they have a legacy to it, they sort
00:21:12
of really understand it. Are bought in, they see how it's
00:21:14
going to help them. And I've seen, you know, I spent
00:21:16
some time talking to the Google Union, the alphabet Union and,
00:21:21
you know, they're interesting, they're nice people, they
00:21:23
clearly care about this idea. I mean, there's a little out,
00:21:27
their beliefs, on their part that they think they can
00:21:29
influence like, who Google does business with, which I mean,
00:21:32
that would be incredibly powerful if they could.
00:21:34
I mean, that's the stuff that, you know, employees that are
00:21:38
unhappy with their company. I mean, that's real chain.
00:21:40
That's a lot more I think than just issues with diversity.
00:21:43
And whatever, but they're never gonna be able to do that.
00:21:46
There is no way that the Google Union and what company Can
00:21:48
employees do that. Like I'm I don't think there is
00:21:51
one and within Tech none. I mean I spoke to some banking
00:21:56
know it like your teacher to school.
00:21:59
You're an elementary school teacher.
00:22:01
You can you can even get the the universities to divest from oil,
00:22:05
right? I mean there's slowly doing it
00:22:07
now that maybe it's a bad economic bet but if you can't
00:22:10
get not a problem, nonprofit. Universities who are doing
00:22:15
research to divest, the idea that you're going to get a
00:22:18
company that you're going to get Google to not get million, do
00:22:21
military contracts. I mean, it's it's a heavy lift
00:22:25
just on the media side. I mean, I do think one way the
00:22:28
unionizing fits into the text or is just I think, you know, there
00:22:33
are people in Tech not these workers unionizing but, you
00:22:37
know, sort of the leaders who see reporters like being active
00:22:43
Organizers and just very on one side of the labor movement at a
00:22:48
time. When part of the story of tech
00:22:50
is tech companies, fighting with their own labor organizers.
00:22:55
And I do think it feeds into the notion that reporters are, more
00:23:00
and more willing to just pick a side that they're expressly
00:23:04
pro-labor, which makes them right Pro worker who's
00:23:07
protesting against their employer.
00:23:10
And that just means that on every one of these These sort of
00:23:14
anti Apple Google Facebook Stories, you know, reporters are
00:23:20
clearly on this side of the Whistleblower or the word, which
00:23:22
is where, I thought Ben's column was going to go, it didn't
00:23:25
really in the end. But yeah, there's no question in
00:23:27
my mind that reporters are trying to like gun it a bit on
00:23:31
the labor side and and Juice these kinds of spaces, it's
00:23:34
really an aesthetical to what reporting supposed to be.
00:23:37
Like I realized that part of forming labor unions is to bully
00:23:41
people into posting like Pictures or apparently, that's
00:23:44
what common labor organizing is now, right?
00:23:47
I mean, you have to literally scold people into like, putting
00:23:50
your union in their Twitter Avatar, but it just seems
00:23:54
reporters are supposed to be sort of individual thinkers
00:23:57
people, you know, unaligned necessarily and then the unions
00:24:02
are demanding that they participate in this movement,
00:24:04
with all sorts of ideological commitments.
00:24:08
Katie, please push back on me if you disagree, I just like I'm
00:24:13
Saying that labor is this issue. But at what point does it just
00:24:17
make sense for reporters and Mass to make some decisions
00:24:20
about how they cover an issue and come down on a side.
00:24:25
So for example, when reporters were covering, you know, the
00:24:28
march across the Pettus bridge and they're watching, you know,
00:24:31
people get their shit beat out of them by cops because there
00:24:33
are trying to, like a take in a Civil Rights march, you know,
00:24:38
there was a reason why the coverage wasn't like, well, on
00:24:41
the one hand, right? Cops.
00:24:43
The cops do this, but on the other hand, civil rights
00:24:47
Marchers are doing this. There was a reason why the
00:24:50
coverage was. John Lewis just almost died on
00:24:52
this bridge. And if he does, he'll be a
00:24:53
martyr. For one of those Noble causes
00:24:55
that's happened in the country and decade, I do think to
00:24:57
counterbalance that if you're going to take a stance, it's
00:25:00
good to be sort of open with what your values and sort of
00:25:04
approach is. And I don't think the view from
00:25:07
nowhere like journalism is willing to really admit.
00:25:10
I was just saying, I don't think that is the view from nowhere.
00:25:12
I don't think you can have you from know.
00:25:13
We're on some issues by the way, even though I do think, you
00:25:16
know, a lot of reporters are juicing the labor issue in Tech,
00:25:19
more than the momentum actually allows for.
00:25:22
I don't think it's gotten that extreme except when you just
00:25:26
flat-out miss the story and that to me is like the biggest
00:25:28
problem you have. When you're, you know, your bias
00:25:30
is push you towards thinking, something is bigger than it is,
00:25:34
and like me, there's no better example of that than the Amazon
00:25:36
warehouse. Absolutely like, if you read the
00:25:39
coverage, and basically, every mainstream publication, it was
00:25:42
like, Amazon's going to have a you 100%.
00:25:44
But you might have got like this thing was gonna be an
00:25:46
overwhelming slam-dunk thing. And where's the recrimination?
00:25:49
Everybody just fucking moves on with their life.
00:25:52
It was a big Miss II. Do think that's the reporters
00:25:55
should get things right on their beat and and you can tell when
00:25:59
they're cheering, when they don't care about getting it,
00:26:01
right? They want to help out come
00:26:03
along. But there was an excellent story
00:26:05
about that after the fact that the media side of things, but
00:26:07
Harper's actually randomly did it earlier periods because there
00:26:11
again, they're free of the narrative.
00:26:13
I mean it Not always good but we ignore them when they're bad and
00:26:16
when they're good they penetrate.
00:26:17
Well, the story was written very, you know, from a very
00:26:19
pro-labor reporter. Like I'm sure he's someone who's
00:26:21
like submitted pieces to Jack event or something, right.
00:26:23
But the story actually took time to like go to the warehouse and
00:26:29
Alabama and talk to some of the people that were against it and
00:26:32
that were for it. And the big takeaway from that
00:26:34
piece, was that the younger people who've never been in
00:26:37
unions? They didn't really grow up in
00:26:39
that environment, didn't understand the value of it, and
00:26:42
they don't view of working at Amazon.
00:26:43
Permanent job. And so for them it's like why
00:26:45
should I invest you know my time lose a little bit of my income
00:26:49
in furtherance of a union working at a company that I
00:26:52
don't really want to be on, you know, be out in a couple years
00:26:54
because I really want to be like a you know an influencer and and
00:26:57
start my like Instagram makeup label or something and Amazon.
00:27:01
By the way, completely benefits from that, you know, like they
00:27:04
run ads constantly talking about like work at Amazon will help
00:27:06
you. You know, go to college, get a
00:27:07
degree and and that theoretically would mean you
00:27:10
don't have to work there anymore but yeah I mean like the real
00:27:13
reporting About that, after the fact explained extremely well,
00:27:16
what happened there? But I think Amazon was freaked
00:27:19
out by it to write. Like they read the Press
00:27:21
coverage. They saw all the stories talking
00:27:23
about like the rising anger at this Warehouse.
00:27:26
Well, they know it's existential.
00:27:27
I mean if you read Brad's book, Amazon imbalance or the sequel,
00:27:31
to The everything store, very enjoyable.
00:27:35
If you if you care about Amazon it's like a great book to read
00:27:38
and maybe I was naive going into it but coming out of that book
00:27:43
if I Pick one major theme. It is just like Amazon is in
00:27:46
every way set up to avoid unionization, and from top to
00:27:51
bottom, that company is like will do everything they can to
00:27:54
kill Union, which, you know. Yeah.
00:27:57
It is pretty dark and speaks to the power of unions for lubbers
00:28:01
the same way, right? I mean you know from covering it
00:28:04
during its earliest, right. It's and then we stayed here
00:28:06
until I mean it's existential for them tubers such a I mean I
00:28:12
was four The California Proposition.
00:28:14
I mean, Ubers a Marketplace. I mean that's inherent to the
00:28:18
biz. Anyway, that's a long.
00:28:20
Yeah, fight. We built a lot of these tech
00:28:22
companies are I guess my point was that they are existentially.
00:28:25
You know, connected to the need to not have a union among their
00:28:29
large labor workforce, right? But yeah, I do think Amazon was
00:28:33
misled almost by the reporting that happened because member
00:28:36
there was that period where you know, the head of Amazon's
00:28:40
Warehouse divisions was out there.
00:28:42
Tweeting like in It's to Bernie Sanders which apparently other
00:28:46
stories were saying was after being, you know, pushed by Bezos
00:28:49
to do this because he was worried that they were losing
00:28:51
like the Battle of public opinion on this front.
00:28:54
And I just think ultimately, they don't care that much about.
00:28:57
They don't need to care that much.
00:28:58
About public opinion. Like the the momentum is so much
00:29:01
both a to, I mean, Amazon's more popular than the media than
00:29:05
Congress. I mean, it is one of the most
00:29:06
popular institutions in the United States.
00:29:10
So they definitely need to care about public opinion.
00:29:13
They Not necessarily need to care.
00:29:14
I mean, on this issue, the media is opinion, right?
00:29:16
And they need to understand that people's assessment of Amazon is
00:29:20
as much shaped by going to amazon.com as it is what they
00:29:24
read in the New York Times. And so right, they have a lot of
00:29:26
control, right? And sometimes getting drawn into
00:29:29
the fights that the media wants them to is probably a losing
00:29:33
proposition and that's extremely frustrating for reporters who
00:29:38
want to frame The Narrative. Yeah, my last thoughts on this
00:29:41
is just that I would have thought after the Which has been
00:29:44
over a year now, since, since the Amazon warehouse vote that
00:29:46
they could you know this could have been a time for reporters
00:29:49
to recalibrate the way they cover labor and and try to at
00:29:53
least accurately conveyed a readers where what the
00:29:55
temperature actually is and what most people want to do and, you
00:29:59
know, I guess I theoretically am included in that group.
00:30:01
I'm curious. What is your position on the
00:30:03
beat? I mean, obviously, you've gone,
00:30:05
strong on, go puff, and it's like, okay, we have this sort of
00:30:08
bubbly new, emergent startup world that's going to have some
00:30:11
of the same excesses of Of logistics and food delivery of
00:30:15
the past. So that's like a clear thesis
00:30:18
that comes through and is smart. But I do feel like you're sort
00:30:20
of in this tough position where you're not going to be the raw
00:30:25
Union partially because you're expressing this thesis, that the
00:30:28
real reporters have overstated it, but you're not really,
00:30:32
you're not going to take the pure.
00:30:34
What's the? I mean?
00:30:35
Not like it's pure narrative-driven.
00:30:38
But like, do you see like a through line or Direction?
00:30:42
I think the There is no and I think but because it's know, it
00:30:46
really just means that it's going to be status quo and and
00:30:49
Status Quo is to not have any large cohesive at least in the
00:30:53
u.s. movement of organization among like gig workers.
00:30:56
You know drivers and delivery workers.
00:30:58
And and I think that is, you know, if it's incredibly hard I
00:31:02
find not to complain or why but it's hard to report on because
00:31:06
it's even hard to get a fair sampling of workers at this like
00:31:09
one of the typical things that reporters do if you want to like
00:31:12
interview, Dr. Ivers is you you can go to a male Harry camera.
00:31:17
Yeah, this guy runs the Rideshare guy blog, and he, yes,
00:31:21
yes, yes. Oh, there's there's guys like
00:31:23
Harry Campbell. Who's really nice and I email
00:31:24
him. I like him lie.
00:31:26
I try not to go to him to get drivers.
00:31:29
I will say he's better than going to like Cal Rideshare dot
00:31:32
org and all these other you know driver advocacy groups.
00:31:34
Because they you know, literally put the same people on the phone
00:31:38
in multiple articles which if you think about is, he's insane
00:31:41
risers. So many Drive.
00:31:42
There's so many Drive. Driver should turn so much.
00:31:45
Like how can you yeah, yeah, or you go to What's even worse I
00:31:48
think is go to Uber Lyft. They like you classic reporter.
00:31:52
Your strategy is like hey Advocate on one side you give me
00:31:55
six drivers and hey boober you give me six or whatever.
00:31:59
I mean, I'm yeah, I mean, you know, I did a story about driver
00:32:02
sleeping their cars and their we literally went to a grocery
00:32:04
store and talked about drivers and there is a degree to which I
00:32:08
mean, obviously if you're taking a lot of Ubers you can talk to
00:32:10
drivers and it's it's super interesting to get it.
00:32:13
The ranch of points of view. Well that to me is the best way
00:32:16
to do it. I mean, it's very anecdotal.
00:32:18
You're literally I was in the zubur with a guy who's literally
00:32:20
like yeah, all the other Ubers aren't working because they're
00:32:23
getting unemployment and like they're lazy it whether it was
00:32:27
even their lazy. They're just like they're making
00:32:28
an economic calculus. They're making more in
00:32:30
unemployment and you know, like no leftist reporter wants to
00:32:34
really put that right print but I was is from the mouth of an
00:32:37
Uber driver. I mean that I think was uberX.
00:32:39
It wasn't like uber black or anything.
00:32:41
It was just sort of like I'm out here hustling.
00:32:43
Like I had a failed business, you know, other people aren't
00:32:46
working, right now, I'm still working like, you know, they're
00:32:49
getting on. What?
00:32:50
Yeah, I mean, that was his point of view.
00:32:51
And it's, I mean, drivers are not, I mean, this is sort of a
00:32:56
through line of Democratic Party politics throughout like, you
00:32:59
know, the Working Class People in the party or aligned, with
00:33:03
aren't don't necessarily share the same values as the media.
00:33:07
Yeah, because they haven't worked in unions.
00:33:09
A lot of them in the past or if they have, they didn't have a
00:33:11
good experience with it for some reason or another Other and
00:33:14
yeah, I agree with you. I think it's probably the best
00:33:18
way that I've found to get any sort, at least for Uber drivers
00:33:21
is to just go in and talk to one and it's anecdotal and it's just
00:33:25
one sampling, but it's much better than going to the
00:33:28
advocacy groups, or the companies and saying give me
00:33:30
someone who's going to give me a quote, but that's what most
00:33:32
reporters do. Isn't it completely the problem
00:33:34
of politics today? Which is why people are
00:33:36
mystified when they see that minorities who voted for Trump
00:33:40
are there, like confused about why women who voted for Trump
00:33:43
are there? Not understanding why blue
00:33:44
collar workers don't want to support Democrats.
00:33:46
When Democrats have always owned blue collar workers and it's
00:33:49
like, maybe it's because you don't talk to anybody, right?
00:33:52
Because we only talked to Consultants, maybe it's good.
00:33:54
You have no ground game where the advocacy groups that the
00:33:57
Consultants put you in, you know, in contact with to get to
00:34:00
the workers themselves. I didn't I didn't rank.
00:34:02
Eric Adams, I wouldn't have voted for Joe Biden.
00:34:05
You know, it's just like, I'm so disconnected.
00:34:07
Now, I don't like, oh, Eric Adams is an exciting mayor, but
00:34:10
it's like it just fast. Well, Eric Adams is going to
00:34:12
make near Big city, the best story.
00:34:14
I know it's the next few years. My temptation to go to the Metro
00:34:19
desk is huge huge. He's he's fascinating.
00:34:24
Is is going to be an amazing person, the cover.
00:34:27
I'll put it that way. I just went to Sergio.
00:34:29
My girlfriend has a film coming out about Andrew Yang.
00:34:33
I just went to the premiere today.
00:34:35
How was it? I'm so excited.
00:34:36
Notice great thing to get into. It's amazing to see, you know,
00:34:40
I've seen lots of the cuts along the way but to see a finished
00:34:43
Product and then lat, you know, any theater, it's good and it's
00:34:48
fun to listen, you know, to the, the audience laughs at the right
00:34:51
things and sort of. So I'm excited.
00:34:54
I think it goes on online for a real December but you know Eric
00:34:58
Adams it's a big character is the second time we mentioned on
00:35:01
the podcast to I'm not really he's like all over my life.
00:35:04
I mean it's fat. It's nice to have a mayor that
00:35:06
feels like New York. I mean to bother was just so
00:35:08
bad, you know. It just you want like this sort
00:35:11
of cultural standard Bearer. In a mayor and Eric Adams was
00:35:15
like, oh yeah, I went to two clubs, you know, they already
00:35:18
got them like parking on the sidewalk blocking traffic there.
00:35:22
They're tracking, he's gonna be an extraordinary, interesting
00:35:26
person to cover, I'll put it that way, but I think that one
00:35:29
of the reasons why a lot of Institutions especially
00:35:32
mainstream institutions are surprised by how people behave,
00:35:36
whether its workers at companies wanting to, or not wanting to
00:35:39
unionize, whether it's how people vote whether it's how
00:35:41
people feel about, The issues is because they already presume
00:35:45
that they know based on Market Research style data about
00:35:50
demographics, that that continues to make less and less
00:35:54
sense every day as the country changes.
00:35:56
You know, this idea that by 2048 the country would be there, be
00:36:00
more minorities in the country than people who are white.
00:36:03
The presumption was, that that would mean that we would have
00:36:05
this, like, really liberal country demographics are
00:36:08
Destiny. Obviously, that's not right,
00:36:10
because it presumed that people weren't white cannot be
00:36:12
conservative. Which is one of the dumbest
00:36:14
things I've ever heard in my life, right?
00:36:16
Like, hello. Because I have melon, it means I
00:36:18
can't have a conservative point of view, there's literally
00:36:21
insane especially when you look at who emigrates here and you
00:36:25
look at, if you spoke with people, you might understand
00:36:27
that their values, they come to the United States with values
00:36:31
based on their own beliefs, not based on the color of their skin
00:36:35
and how that's supposed to fit into some sort of like,
00:36:37
demographers view, who people are inside a land of opportunity
00:36:41
messages, very popular with people.
00:36:44
Don't have religious message, right?
00:36:46
You know, also it was also the belief, I think not.
00:36:49
I think it was the belief on the Democrats part or their
00:36:52
Consultants part that like, well, the Republicans are so
00:36:54
racist that there's no way they would ever want to support them.
00:36:57
You kidding me. And it was like, it's like,
00:36:59
well, if people are a little complicated and like plus to do
00:37:02
anything than that. Yeah.
00:37:04
Also like if your policies aren't going to directly benefit
00:37:06
their lives on a regular basis, like I think they can or if your
00:37:10
economic benefits come with a system of values in Imposed cram
00:37:14
Downs cram down people's throats that they just don't agree with.
00:37:16
They're not going to care about the economic benefits.
00:37:19
But I think that one of the reasons why it is hard to pin
00:37:23
down where Tech is going to be on labor issues is because we
00:37:28
have a really limited view of why people would or would not
00:37:32
right to unionize the issue and the issue is they actually care
00:37:34
about which can actually only be discerned by doing what you guys
00:37:38
are doing, which is actually talking to people on the ground
00:37:40
who are working these jobs. You know, the idea that they
00:37:42
think of the jobs is A short term is an extremely compelling,
00:37:45
reason not to unionize like when my dad worked in unionized
00:37:49
Industries, he worked in factories this because people
00:37:53
thought they were going to work those jobs for their entire
00:37:55
lives, right? And they had reason to.
00:37:56
And so they were like, if I'm going to be in this for the Long
00:37:58
Haul, I want to make sure that I get pay increases and that it's
00:38:02
safe. And job swapping is, in some
00:38:05
ways, an alternative to a union because you're absolutely,
00:38:09
they're competing for you and you can practice tomorrow
00:38:12
Market. Right?
00:38:13
And a couple ways to deal with disempowered already be so
00:38:16
straightforward. It's such a we obviously, if
00:38:19
people move jobs every two years, do they need a union?
00:38:21
If you're mobile and people who are just staying at a company,
00:38:25
where everybody who's skilled is moving around, it's like while
00:38:28
you're staying there, you know, I just think go to a new job.
00:38:32
I know the job hopping is another form of empowerment that
00:38:35
if you don't think you're going to get it from a union or if you
00:38:38
don't think a union is necessary or you don't believe in the the
00:38:41
purpose of a union. Yeah.
00:38:43
Leaving your job, every couple of years and negotiating to go
00:38:46
from, you know, Google to Facebook.
00:38:49
Apple Uber is another way of empowering yourself.
00:38:54
What was the last thing I wanted to talk about?
00:38:56
You know, the Verge came out with a piece.
00:38:59
A we're going to push back what, you know?
00:39:00
Well, here's here's the red M. Audience loves on background.
00:39:04
I mean, this is who's listening this by cast.
00:39:07
Certainly, no. No, I'm not joking before
00:39:08
letters are for our young people and yeah, everybody in this
00:39:12
story shaping and Founders who want to know how it's how these
00:39:15
things actually get talked about.
00:39:18
Yeah, explain explain what the verge's stance was and they're
00:39:21
very little diverges, basically. I mean like every reporter wants
00:39:26
to have more official company statements on the record and
00:39:30
less sort of with weird on background attribution and then
00:39:35
it basically had a list of absurd cases, Tom, do you want
00:39:40
to pull it up and read a few? Okay, so the Article is headline
00:39:44
updating The Verge background policy and it's nilay.
00:39:47
Patel, who is the editor-in-chief go, he's the
00:39:49
main guy, he's the main guy at the Verge and he basically is
00:39:52
saying we as a company or as a media organization have made the
00:39:55
decision that we will no longer allow companies to comment on
00:39:58
background quoted as a source familiar with the matter or a
00:40:01
person close to the company. I don't even think they want to
00:40:03
do spokesperson if they just want to name the name and it's
00:40:07
as the examples that he gives in here a major car companies head
00:40:12
of communications Has told us in April Fool's joke was actually
00:40:15
real on background. The joke was not real, that's
00:40:17
just lying. Yeah, that's the music, man.
00:40:20
That's not a good example. A food delivery company insisted
00:40:22
on discussing the popularity of chicken wings on background and
00:40:26
these are pretty stupid, right? I have you like my big beef with
00:40:30
them. Is it agree with you?
00:40:31
Look dumb example, right? They trivialize the real.
00:40:34
They don't really give you the plausible case for, why
00:40:38
backgrounds good why companies would want to do it.
00:40:41
And, and the Very Just how one-sided and sort of laughable
00:40:47
and seemingly like inarguable their post is to me is exactly
00:40:52
the reason background is good because companies can't trust
00:40:55
reporters all the time to fairly construe their argument but
00:41:00
still feels entitled to defend themselves.
00:41:02
So if you're in a case where you don't trust a reporter but you
00:41:05
still feel like you should be able to be heard, you talk to
00:41:08
them on background and say listen here's the argument you
00:41:12
misuse my Words, whenever I give you something on the record, but
00:41:15
here it is. Yeah, I thought that post was
00:41:18
sort of, just like a classic argument for why I wouldn't
00:41:22
trust reporters for just like every word I'm saying, on the
00:41:26
record, I guess where I come down on this is you as a
00:41:30
reporter are I guess a media organization should just make
00:41:33
whatever decision that makes the story as transparent as possible
00:41:37
as who you were talking to you for it and if you're talking to
00:41:40
sources, that can't be named because they would be fired
00:41:42
then. You make that clear in the story
00:41:44
which a lot of organizations do, and if it's a company, you
00:41:47
should just afford them the same level of transparency.
00:41:50
And I do think it's annoying and probably misleading to
00:41:54
audiences, or to readers to say a source close to the company
00:41:58
when it really should be the company.
00:41:59
And I think as reporters you should push back as much as
00:42:02
possible to not use that language when it comes to using
00:42:05
their name. Specifically, I don't really
00:42:07
care that much. I mean my big issue with the
00:42:09
Verge is like yeah it's purely from a reporter's point of view
00:42:12
on something that has a lot. Lot to do with PR and it doesn't
00:42:15
really surface what PR people think, which is bad reporting.
00:42:19
Well sometimes it's like, oh, I won't attribute that because I
00:42:22
sort of know. I know, I know it 90% from
00:42:26
something else, but I might not have done it.
00:42:27
If the pr person was like, yes, you're right on that, right?
00:42:30
But then you're not actually attributing it because now
00:42:32
you're sort of and you're not attributing it to them, or their
00:42:34
times a, we give people that benefit of the doubt because we
00:42:37
need them for something else, right?
00:42:39
Be realistic or there, sometimes we don't give people the benefit
00:42:41
of the doubt because they've screwed us.
00:42:43
Right. So, I mean, so I just think that
00:42:45
this, this idea that you're either presenting wreck
00:42:49
information on the record you're presenting on the background and
00:42:52
then is simply a transparency issue as a little bit
00:42:55
simplistic. I just think we're in a case
00:42:56
where companies like to say no comment and then they want to
00:43:00
include within the story. Something that doesn't sound
00:43:03
like it's coming from the company that clearly is and what
00:43:06
you want. There's so many ways to get that
00:43:07
information out those. Not the company, you know, get
00:43:10
one of your gajillion board members to say something or get
00:43:12
some Buddy, who was in the meeting and question to say
00:43:15
something, you don't have to write and it gets it.
00:43:17
What is it? What?
00:43:17
I call the journal, the Barney rule would but reporters like to
00:43:19
play all sorts of, I mean, reporters, love to play naive
00:43:23
when it's like, oh, this executive at Facebook is talking
00:43:27
me on background, that's not authorized, that's a source but
00:43:30
come on, like it. Like, it's got to be coordinated
00:43:33
with the company in some cases and they're not going to stop
00:43:37
taking that information and putting in the store.
00:43:38
So, I, I just think a lot of these Tech reporters.
00:43:41
It's not, they're just mad that it's Sloppy on the that is
00:43:44
coming from calms. I'm actually agree with you.
00:43:47
I'm just saying that, exactly, I think that Communications
00:43:51
departments if they're good, get lots of information to reporters
00:43:54
that don't come from the company, right?
00:43:57
You have you have you ever written a profile of someone
00:43:59
before? Right?
00:43:59
All right. Let's just, let's just insist
00:44:01
the dark arts, you know, get a little more Savvy, you know,
00:44:04
just they can't have columns in the title they if you were in a
00:44:07
profile, you know, you call the company or like, I want to write
00:44:10
a profile of Jamie dimon. It's like, you don't talk But
00:44:13
all I can do for comment and then somebody get called out of
00:44:16
the blue. Random people who may have known
00:44:17
Jamie dimon. His art teacher likes it like
00:44:20
that. That's a right.
00:44:22
But I like that version of the Arts.
00:44:24
It's not some purists sure. I guess if you take it as total
00:44:27
like realpolitik, it's like yeah, we're pushing back against
00:44:30
lame background information from Commerce department.
00:44:34
So that's really what we mean. We want you to really work for
00:44:36
it. Makes it seem like it's, we want
00:44:38
it spicy. So we have the artifice to give
00:44:40
our readers like a seemingly. Well, reported Worried that was
00:44:43
actually assisted by company. I have a feeling we're going to
00:44:47
revisit this issue with the pr person and you can on the record
00:44:50
and we'll take him to, we'll take him to the wood shed on
00:44:53
this particular practice, and they can tell us their dark arts
00:44:56
and how they get all of their cool friends to call us.
00:44:58
And we suddenly have board members that never wanted to
00:45:00
return a folk before sink very positive things.
00:45:14
Goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,
00:45:17
goodbye. Goodbye.
00:45:14
Goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye,
00:45:17
goodbye. Goodbye.