Oliver Darcy

have left. So can you just paint with a broad brush what the media looks like right now?

it's actually quite vulnerable. And you're seeing that in different signs. I guess our symptoms are appearing every day, whether it's Joe and Mika maybe going down to Malongo to kiss the ring, or whether it's Jeff Bezos and Patrick Sunchion, you know, having blocked their newspapers for making endorsements, or whether it's CNN putting dishonest MAGA voices like Scott Jennings

on the air. I think you're seeing throughout the landscape troubling signs as Donald Trump prepares to has sent to the Oval office once again.

actually quite wild. You don't even want to spend money, and you get these ads that are like, you know, and I'm thinking, I'm getting these ads and I'm like, I didn't even know this product exists, but this looks like it was built specifically for me. And that targeting is really alluding to these advertise And so you've seen all that ad money that used to maybe be spent in the you know, glossy pages of Vogue or people used to advertise on in different number of different areas.

You've seen a lot of the advertising dollars go to the duopoly of Google and Meta, and that's put a lot of financial pressure on publishers. And you've seen newspapers

go under. You know, they really can't make ends meet anymore, whether that's the local newspapers that are in the communities, because a lot of small businesses now rather spend their money online versus in the local paper or whether that's on the national level where you're seeing papers like the Los Angeles Times or the Washington Post really really struggle to make ends meet, and a large part of that is because of the advertising environment. It's not friendly to them.

not so good. On the national level, you're seeing a lot of these one time giants shrink, you know, year after year, and so La Conde and Asks is a good example. You know that that company has has continued to shrink over the years. It was once this huge behemoth and now it's it's you know, every other It feels like every few months they're doing some sort of layoffs, and they're trying to figure out how to transition from a print business to a digital business with a digital

ad environment not being good. I think a good example, I guess is Vox Media, which owns New York Magazine, but also the Verge ear some of these other Internet brands. You're you're seeing Jim Bankoff, who's the CEO over there, really look for other revenue streams, whether and generally this is becoming a subscription subscription play where they're asking people

to subscribe directly to their publications. It's not great, I guess on the national level either, where these big publishers are shrinking and really struggling to I guess, to stay alive and find revenue streams that are while. And then on the television side, there's another whole issue, which is that these also one time giants are facing an existential threat in that people are cutting the cord. Every single year, millions of Americans are cutting the cord. And what does

that mean. That means that the revenue stream these these cable companies, in particular cable news companies are fueled in part by Cape or mostly by cable carriage fees. Their business model is collapsing underneath them, and less people are watching them, so that means less advertiser dollars because every time someone cuts the cord, there goes another potential person

you can meet with advertising dollars. And so a company like CNN or MSNBC or even Fox News, and then also there's just a linear channels like ABC News, NBC News. They're all losing audience, and so the game really has become not whether you can grow your audience, but how you can hold on to the audience you have long enough to transition to a digital play that will work.

And of course, as we just discussed on digital, there are all these problems because the advertising market's not great either. So really what it's coming down to, I think for all of these players is how to compel reader's viewers to pay for direct to consumer subscriptions. And I think at some point it's going to be challenging because people

will only pay for a subscription to so many things. Right, you have a Netflix account, you might have an Hbo account, you might have a New York Times subscription, But how many subscriptions can you convince people to pay for before they're just over it.

four thousand journalists in the workforce. They're just stationed across the world and they're all getting paid whether they go on air or not. Right, And you might be able to find a model where like let's say, like a Kaitlin Collins, you know, can have a let's say five ten million dollar business built around her, but that's not going to supplant or dig you out of the hole.

For a billion dollar company. You know, if CNN is making let's say eight hundred million dollars a year right now, maybe seven hundred and it was making over a billion, you know during the Trump years under a former chief

Jeff Zucker, you know, that's that's a profit. And so even if you can build like a ten million dollar business around Kaitlin Collins and a ten million dollar business around Anderson Cooper doing something on streaming, that is nowhere near the profit margin these companies have been operating, and so then they need to dramatically downsize. And as they downsize, there goes a lot of the reporting that they that

they're paying for. And so the trick I think really is I think you're seeing this with Mark Thompson at CNN, is he knows that he needs to really slim down CNN, get it much much leaner and focused on digital. And the reality is for these companies to survive, they're all going to have to get a lot smaller, and that's going to be very, very painful over the next few years.

So I guess the question is, yes, there is a way to get news out to people in in a profitable way online, It's just not going to replace the profits that these companies have been making and so you're going to have to cut a lot of journalists in the process.

They just couldn't figure out how to make the jump, and so they didn't and so ultimately what happened was they were kind of shrunk and they were kind of replaced by things that were not as good or not as fulsome but in some ways they were. So can you sort of like go along with me and try to think of ways in which these news comeanies. Isn't there like a way to sort of make this work or you think it's really just not suited.

going to be really tough. I think the Times, the New York Times, has done a really good job of offering a very polished premium offering that adds a lot of value to people's lie and offers great reporting. I think that the issue too, though, to some extent, is how many New York Times is do you need? Right, Molly, if you subscribe to the New York Times, now, do you really need another one? Do you want to pay for three or four New York Times is? I don't know.

And so you know, because The Times has sort of taken up the market there, and it's possible that maybe like CNN could offer a very differentiated product with with live video around the world that would be interesting. Maybe that would be a differentiation enough for you just to pay for it. But I think that's the challenge as well,

Like there are only so many subscriptions. I think people will pay for and maybe there can be some bundling in the future, maybe like at some point we see the Newer Times in Journal and CNN bundle, or maybe CNN and the New York Times get together. I think there's gonna be more consolidation that happens because there's too much, just too many offerings, and it's people are going to be fatigued. And I also just continue to think that these massive companies are going to have to slim down

dramatically just to survive. And that's not to say, like, look like as these companies also slim down, other things will grow, Right, So you have newer companies like Pop or Axios or these newer age companies that pop up and maybe fill a little bit of that void. But as as technology progresses, things are disrupted, and I think we're just continuing to live through that, right.

they're gonna mean, they're obviously getting paid regardless. And I think that if you're someone like Mark Thompson, you have to figure out how to get them to create content every single day, even if it doesn't go to air and adds something of value, because if you're adding something of value, people will I think, pay for it. And that's what I've seen with my own company status is every single day I wake up and I'm trying to

add value. I'm trying to tell you something you don't know, to give you pieces of information that you were unaware of before. Because I think that when you have a strong product like that that tells people, it informs people, it's interesting to read, they will pay for it. It's just a matter of doing that on a consistent basis. I also think as well that you have to stand for something, Molly. I think people that read me know pretty well where I stand on very important issues, and

you can't be like milk toast. You have to have a little flavor, you have to have a little edge, and you have to be breaking news. And I think if you can create a dish that has those ingredients, people will be intrigued by it hopefully pay for it. And that's where I've been aiming to do a status Let's.

And I try really carefully to when I write, though I'm largely on the opinion side and not reporting, I'm pretty careful to keep mindful of my values as much as possible, which is not always as possible as I would like it to be. Sometimes I have to make choices, but you are a reporter, so I'm hoping you could talk about that because I think it's interesting and I think, more importantly than that, it is what is needed right now.

an opinion for me to to. You know, if I was writing a story to describe that as flatly an American for some reason, some people would argue that's an opinion, and then you get into I guess what is opinion and what is fact. I think that there are a lot of people in the press corps who are worried about being seen as partisan for stating I guess obvious facts, and Cash Battel is an extremist. That's another fact. Steve Bannon is an extremist, Pete Heg Seth is a conspiracy theorist.

These are well documented facts, and at times you'll see like the Associated Press, I think, had a story many months ago that called Cash Battel a conspiracy theorist or said that he has a long history trafficking and conspiracy theories, which he actually does. But for some reason, news organizations shy away from those labels when writing or reporting on these figures. And I'm not sure why. I don't think it's an opinion.

CEO Bob Iger. And these guys do not want to be drawn into the culture wars for a lot of reasons, but one because half of the country is still their potential customer base. You know, they want Republicans and Democrats

going to Walt Disney World. News organizations are trying to tread softly because I think they want to maintain credibility with both halves of the country, and the truth is kind of pitting them against each other because I think that for a lot of people who lean left, they're frustrated not seeing conspiracy theorists called conspiracy theorists, and then on the right, if you do do that, then they get alienated and think that you're a leftist and you're biased,

and so it's really a difficult pickle these companies are in. I happen to think that as journalists, our job is not to think whether the truth will offend people, but it's to report things fairly and accurately. And I don't think you can tell the story of Cash Betel in a fair accurate way without very strongly mentioning, you know, in the headlines and the leads of stories that this is an extremist who has been appointed or named as

the potential next FBI director. I don't think that's an opinion I think that's a matter of fact, and I think news organizations have the duty to tell the public what's actually happening. She answer your question when I write, I'm just writing these as you know, I'm just writing that Cash Betel is an extremist. And so I think because a lot of other people don't write like that, maybe they think Oller is like an opinion guy or whatever. I don't think that's an opinion. I just I'm just

writing a matter of fact. And when I was at CNN, we called Fox News a right wing propaganda network in news copy because they are, and if anyone has any questions about that, I'm happy to refer to them to you know, a large volume of articles and documents from the dominion case that very much indicates that is exactly what they are. And I think journalists need to actually, frankly, have a little more backbone and when they're covering these these entities.