Keyana Corliss: [00:00:04] Welcome to Just Checking In.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:00:06] I'm Becky Buckman.
Keyana Corliss: [00:00:07] And I'm Keyana Corliss. Each week we'll use humor, a little irony, and definitely some self-deprecation to dive into the world of high tech corporate comms.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:00:16] We'll use our expertise and less than serious take on the tech news cycle to bring you the best in the business, across comms and media, for one-of-a-kind insights and perspectives you won't hear anywhere else.
Keyana Corliss: [00:00:27] Get ready to laugh.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:00:28] This is...
Keyana Corliss: [00:00:29] ... Just Checking In.
Keyana Corliss: [00:00:34] All right. I would like to say that I knew our guest today back when he wasn't famous. But actually, I have known Moshehh Oinouou for more than a decade, and he has always been a big deal. Mosheh is an Emmy, Murrow, and Webby Award winning producer who has led teams at just about every outlet under the sun. So Fox News, Bloomberg, CNBC, CBS, am I missing any? That's it?
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:00:57] I think that covers most of them. Yeah.
Keyana Corliss: [00:00:59] You name it, he's run it. And he was the youngest-ever producer of CBS Evening News. You guys can't see him. But he actually, he looks great.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:01:07] It's a skin regimen my wife has put me on.
Keyana Corliss: [00:01:09] I love it.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:01:10] Moisturizing.
Keyana Corliss: [00:01:11] I'm telling you guys, Mosheh has done it all. Now. In 2020, Mosheh started what he is now super famous for. It's what Becky and I call the future of news. He launched Mo News devoted to curating verified and balanced news. It's how I get all of my news on Instagram. He quickly built a very highly engaged following at Mosheh - M O S H E H - for those of you on Instagram and the daily Mo News podcast and newsletter. So now you're basically an Instagram influencer. He's got almost 500,000 followers. So Mosheh, welcome to Just Checking In. I cannot believe you're doing our little podcast. I feel so honored.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:01:46] I'm so happy to be here. I got to be honest with you, Keyana, I, we do, you know, go way back to a time not so long ago where I don't think when we initially met that anybody conceived of using social media for news. It was a way to, you know, check in with your friends. Speaking of Just Checking In.
Keyana Corliss: [00:02:04] It was like the, it was like the anti-news, like people said--
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:02:07] --it was a break from news. Yeah. It was a break from news. You know, you only got your friends' pictures from their brunches and their kids and that was it. And all of these platforms have evolved into places where you get your news. So it just felt like a natural home to go after spending a bit of time in traditional news.
Keyana Corliss: [00:02:25] Okay, so tell us how Mo News came about because it actually started during Covid. I remember this very, very vividly because we did actually follow each other as friends on Instagram, like it was our brunch pictures, and then during Covid, you started Mo News.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:02:38] Yeah, I mean, ultimately it was my personal Instagram account and you were one of the several hundred people, friends and family, who, you know, it was a private account because I had worked in media organizations and I wanted to keep myself private. And four years ago this month, as we speak here in March of 2024, I remember getting the text messages from people, friends and family again, who are like, what is going on? And it happened to be the first time in my adult life where I was not in a newsroom for a major news event, which was freaking me out because I didn't have the constant streams of information and reporters and producers. So now I'm just like everybody else, I'm a regular person. And I find out that getting the news sucks. Being a consumer of news sucks if you're trying to get a comprehensive understanding for everything that's going on, especially at a time of like international crisis and pandemic and questions and doubts. So I did what I knew best, which is let me synthesize what is going on. I'm going to watch the Cuomo briefing and the Fauci briefing and read a whole bunch of newspapers and break it down for Keyana and several hundred friends and family. And suddenly, you know, I'm getting a lot of engagement there. And my then-girlfriend, now wife, is like, Mosheh, you got to open this up. Like, I think people would really enjoy this. I'm like, are you sure? Like, I don't know. Fine, I'll do it. Suddenly, within a few weeks, March into April, we're all stuck at home, etc, i now have thousands of followers. It then passes 10,000, then passes 20,000. Now suddenly celebrities are following me. Somehow the music industry finds out about me. So Ryan Tedder follows me and then Joe Jonas follows me.
Keyana Corliss: [00:04:06] I was gonna say, aren't you boys with Joe Jonas?
Rebecca Buckman: [00:04:09] Yeah. Yeah, that's big.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:04:10] He, and of course at the time he was married with Sophie Turner, would both come onto my Instagram Live. So I started doing weekly Lives or a couple times a week initially where I was answering people's questions like, guys, what do you want to know? This is what we know. This is what we don't know. And trying to be very straightforward with people. So it began as essentially a way to help friends and family, and then became a way to help strangers and people, you know, started to get their news on Instagram. And it was not a place for that. Right? Twitter was where you did that, every other feed, Instagram was still sort of, you know, pictures of your avocado toast and artistic photos, etc. but then suddenly, I think 2020 became the year where news became natural to people on Instagram. And what I liked about it in particular is Instagram has Instagram Stories, which was the last place you could really tell a chronological story on social media, that was not algorithmic, so I could say this happened, this happened, this happened and this happened, and stories go away after 24 hours. But because of the pace of news, it felt like the right place. So that's where things began. And essentially it was an exercise for pure boredom and to help friends and family that I thought was the thing before the thing, and only to realize a few months later, as Joe Jonas is messaging me and the like, that, oh, this is the next thing. I gotta to figure this out.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:05:28] But there's so many fascinating things about what you're doing. And as an ex-journalist, I'm, you know, keenly interested in this because of course I don't want news to die. I want there to be a future of news. So like one is your delivery, your distribution mechanism, which is over Instagram, which is fascinating. And I think I've seen some statistic like, you know, your average consumer on your Instagram channel is like way, way younger, 30 years younger, than the average nightly news, you know, consumer.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:05:54] It's actually the complete opposite, right? 10% of nightly news watchers are ages 25 to 54. 90% of my consumers are 25 to 54.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:06:02] Yes. I don't know how much you market this, but also you're curating the news in, I think, a non-biased, nonpartisan way.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:06:12] I think there's a number of selling points. Number one, go to where the people are. Like they're on Instagram, give them news on Instagram. And I worked at very large corporations like CBS, etc. we never took Instagram seriously. And they're all still, legacy media, is trying to figure out the platform. So take the platform seriously. It's where people are, number one. Number two, cater the content to that platform. So you can't just, like some traditional media is still doing this today on their main feeds, headline, photo, link. Go read the story on our website. No, they're on the platform. Give them what they came for. Three, tone: conversational. Again, speaking to the platform. Four, transparency. People these days, they want some authority, but they also want the feeling like tell me when you don't know stuff. You know, I don't want to find out that you told me something and it turned out not to be true, which you know has become a huge issue, especially in light of what I was covering initially, which was Covid before it became a general news feed. So I will be like, listen, nobody really knows what's going to happen here. This is what some people are saying. This is their history of telling the truth or being right about stuff. So that transparency, I think, goes a long way. So I think there's a--
Keyana Corliss: [00:07:21] -- I think you do a really good job of that, by the way. Like when you post something and you're like, this is what they're saying, I haven't verified this or I don't know this yet or we don't know this yet. And you're like, okay, cool, like I can, I'm not, you know, I got it.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:07:34] Yeah. And I think that's really important, is like, just be open. We're not gods, you know, like on the evening news tonight let me tell you exactly what's happened. No, we actually don't know what's happening. We actually sometimes, to be honest with you, like, having been there, we found out about the story about a half hour before we went to air with it. And this is some basic stuff that we know. And then most importantly, frankly, is that as a news organization, the vast majority of them, even today, do not engage with their audience, do not have a conversation with their audience, and don't even use social media in that way. They use social media as a listening tool for like, reactions to their stories, but they don't use it for like, well, what do people want to know next about? Like, how did people react to our coverage? Let's engage with them. And so I think that's what I try to do on Instagram. And what I have found is like, you know, I'll put up a story about schools or education. I have thousands and thousands of teachers who follow me, who tell me about their experiences, and then I'll post their experiences.
Keyana Corliss: [00:08:29] Yeah.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:08:30] And I think that is something people appreciate. Is that like, all right, I'm turning it over to you guys right now. You're informed, you're smart. And we find that like in a variety of ways, like I did a story about how the Chinese are looking to buy farms up in the US. And I find out that there's a farmer in North Dakota who was approached by a Chinese buyer. So we have an incredible community around the world, and there is, very infrequently is there a time where I put up a story and I don't find someone in my community who actually knows directly about that story?
Keyana Corliss: [00:09:00] You get, I think, reactions on both sides like, what was it? Someone is like, you're too pro-Israel, and then you'll get someone who's like, you're too pro-Hamas. And you're like, apparently I am everything. And you post all of that stuff. Like, I think you're very transparent, but it's very interesting, like the different reactions you get from people.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:09:18] I think there's a couple of subjects that are very triggering for people, and if they see a story that does not follow their worldview, they suddenly say it's biased. I'm like, no, it just so happened that something you believe in, someone or something did something that wasn't so great today, like that happens. And I think the problem that we've encountered in social media and frankly, now, unfortunately, in the real world is people live in bubbles, like, literally people are moving away from areas where, so they don't have to talk to people who disagree with them politically. You see this among Gen Zers who, like, they won't even have a college roommate who they disagree with politically anymore. They can't stand it. Frankly, you see it more on the left than the right, frankly, if you look at the survey data. Either way, you know, people then on social media, like see something, oh, what do you mean, my side is losing? And everything is turned into, like, you know, for and against with no shades of gray. And so then, you know, my realization is, well, those aren't my people. Like, they, you know, and I'll sometimes message them directly, like, hey, listen, you probably need a news source that is progressive. You probably need a conservative news source. This is probably not the place for you.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:10:22] Yeah.
Keyana Corliss: [00:10:23] Does it bother you at all or do you just kind of like, you're like, listen, follow me or don't.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:10:28] Nah, I'd be lying if I said it didn't bother me. I mean, this is the thing. Like, it's personal. It's my name on the account, it's my face on the page. And so suddenly, if someone's like, Mosheh, you don't know what you're talking about, you're biased, you're terrible at your job. Even if I get 100 compliments that day, I will linger on the complaint. So, yeah, I mean, there are times where I'm like, yeah, it does take a mental health toll.
Keyana Corliss: [00:10:52] Guys, be nice to Mosheh. Don't be jerks.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:10:54] I know. He's very influential. Do people, my question is, do people pitch you stories? Because in some sense you're a curator and an aggregator of news. But in another sense, you're still being a journalist. Like I read in the New York Times, you just had a sit down interview with Tony Blinken, which is crazy.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:11:10] The State Department reached out and they said, listen, we understand people are getting news on Instagram.
Keyana Corliss: [00:11:13] I'm sorry, the State Department pitched you?
Rebecca Buckman: [00:11:24] Yeah, the State Department.
Keyana Corliss: [00:11:15] How did I get you on this podcast? What is happening?
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:11:19] They call... You, great timing. I prioritize requests from you. You know that. So listen. The secretary's office pitches me on, like, a late Thursday. Can we talk Friday morning? Call Friday morning. Hey, we have time with the Secretary of State Monday. Can you make it to DC? Can I make it to DC? Yeah, I'll be there. So I'm there. And it only reinforces the fact that at the White House now, at the State Department, they have realized that you do need to reach out to 'quote' alternative media, digital media, because you're missing a whole number of people, a whole number of voters. Like my constituency, right, are informed, very independent-minded. Three quarters of the audience is women. This is this election this year, suburban women. So you want to reach several hundred thousand of them, like immediately, one fell swoop? Come to Mo News. Like you might get that audience on the Today Show. Same number, actually. A couple hundred thousand women, 25 to 54, given the age of the demographic. So there's a realization now from major entities, and by the way, corporations, we have a partnership coming up with Procter and Gamble who realized that if they also want to sell Tide detergent, they have to be reaching out to us, too. You should go to a place where people have become accustomed to reliable news and information. And so I think you see it in the corporate side. And I think you see on the political side as well.
Keyana Corliss: [00:12:37] That's insane. So okay, we talked about how you have a bunch of, you know, celebrity buddies like Joe Jonas. Do you still talk to him, by the way?
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:12:46] He is very interesting.
Keyana Corliss: [00:12:47] Or is he going through a thing?
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:12:49] Is he going...? Have you googled him lately?
Keyana Corliss: [00:12:51] Well, that's what I'm saying. Is he going through a thing?
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:12:54] I think he's still checks the stories. He's not as engaged as he once was. Sort of peak Covid, first couple years, he was. Nick Jonas, incidentally, was very engaged on Ukraine stuff. Him and Priyanka. So we have two of the three Jonas Brothers. Kevin, for some reason, has ever become engaged on our page, but we have Joe.
Keyana Corliss: [00:13:09] Kevin just chills, man. Kevin's getting the other two...
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:13:11] Like, I don't need to stress myself out with news.
Keyana Corliss: [00:13:18] Besides sharing this podcast, Becky and I have a bunch of things in common. For example, we both love a good train wreck of a PR story, and I'm assuming we both like a good glass of wine. Actually, this podcast was created over a drink. You know, we both share that. And we're both members of a comms and brand marketing expert community called Mixing Board.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:13:37] Yes. And thank you very much to Mixing Board for working to raise the value of our industry and for producing this podcast.
Keyana Corliss: [00:13:44] So Mixing Board has a very cool, savvy way of tapping the collective networks of their super connected community so that organizations can find right senior comms and marketing talent fast. If you are hiring for a full-time role, or trying to find the exact right consultant and want the expert guidance for an extremely reasonable price, I could not recommend Mixing Board's Talent Network more. The way it works is that Mixing Board shares the opportunity with the community - and this community is incredible, you guys, it is a who's who - and ask their members to submit candidates that they think would be perfect for the position. Most of the time, these folks are folks they've worked with or they've directly known for years, and they will quickly share back a super qualified list of candidates and make connections where there's interest. Go to the Talent Network page at MixingBoard.com for more info and mention Just Checking In for a special rate. The talent that comes out of Mixing Board is incredible. It is a really great way to find top notch talent. So I encourage you guys all to go.
Keyana Corliss: [00:14:45] And obviously we talked about some of the guests that you've had and the people that you're starting to, you know, you've been interviewing and so and so forth. But like, so you have a podcast as well.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:14:53] We do a daily podcast. And then I'll do interviews as well.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:14:46] Every day. That's a lot of pressure.
Keyana Corliss: [00:14:49] I haven't gotten an invite to that one but that's okay.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:15:00] Yeah. It's like, it runs about a half an hour to 45 minutes every day where we break down 10 to 12 headlines, me and a friend Jill, and we kind of keep the same tone as the Instagram account where, listen, guys, all right, let's begin today with what's going on in the Middle East. This is what you need to know. By the way, there's a report about Hamas. This is the way Hamas works. By the way, now let's go to Trump and the legal stuff. This is what matters there. And so, you know, and then media stories in particular, we try to break down that wall like, hey, this is how a newsroom works. If you're curious as to why this is getting covered this way, this is where journalists fall on this issue or this is where they don't have information. So I think that's another bit, to answer your previous question, that people appreciate is that, like, Mosheh let's you inside the newsroom and how the decisions get made.
Keyana Corliss: [00:15:40] Yeah. Because otherwise I learn from, well, you and, you know, shout out to like Jenna and Megan on how the newsroom works or from The Morning Show, which I love.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:15:48] Yeah, I mean, but you're very--
Rebecca Buckman: [00:15:50] -- is that accurate?
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:15:52] Morning show?
Rebecca Buckman: [00:15:53] Yeah.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:15:53] It is at times. At times yes, at times no, at times literally so triggering to me as a former executive producer that like, I had to like, I can't watch this. This is triggering.
Keyana Corliss: [00:16:03] This is how we feel about--
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:16:03] -- Trauma--
Keyana Corliss: [00:16:04] -- Silicon Valley. Do you remember that show?
Rebecca Buckman: [00:16:06] Right? Yeah, Silicon Valley was too accurate. Too accurate.
Keyana Corliss: [00:16:09] Silicon Valley literally triggered the crap out of me. Like, even today, like ten years later, I'm like, I can't watch this. This is triggering me.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:16:16] You're very lucky, Keyana. You know, you mentioned our mutual friends Jenna and Megan, like, you happen to be friends with two very senior people inside two major newsrooms at CBS and Fox. 99.9% of people don't have that. So, like, you have unique insight, whereas the majority of people like they always, you know, will jump on the worst possible scenario. Oh, well, the media is, you know, getting paid to say, like I was like, don't ascribe to malicious intent or profit what you can ascribe to pure negligence and incompetence.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:16:45] Okay. But we're talking about Fox where you used to work and I will not disclose my political feelings, but I'm sure many people can guess them based on where I live and what I used to do, but what is up with Fox? I mean, it's basically just become the communications arm, right, of one of our political parties. Like, what is Fox's future?
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:17:04] Well, let's first talk about the past real quickly. I would look at Fox News's history in like four distinct eras. There was Era One, you know, first of all, CNN launches in 1980, and then in a matter of months in 96, you get MSNBC and Fox News launching as competitors. MS is kind of NBC Two. MS finally goes political liberal in 04 about eight years in. Fox immediately is like we're the counterweight. But we have news and we have an opinion page. News during the day, opinion page at night. Sort of the same way--
Rebecca Buckman: [00:17:35] -- like The Journal--
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:17:35] -- newspaper. Correct. That was the origin of Fox. That goes from 96 to 01. 01, 911 happens and it becomes like we're going to be more rah rah, and we happen to have a president in power who's a Republican. Clinton was the first era of Fox, right? Now you have Bush and there's a close relationship there. But even so, and that was the era of Fox I was in, I was at Fox from 04 to 09. So just to give you a sense, I left 15 years ago. That era of Fox, I remember because I was there covering it, you know, Katrina happens, Iraq's going south, Fox is covering it in a very negative way, even though it's not good for the team.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:18:11] Right.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:18:11] What did Fox discover during that time? The ratings collapsed. Because guess what, your audience doesn't want to hear bad stuff about their side.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:18:18] Yeah.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:18:18] Fast forward to the Obama era. Obama is elected and now you've entered Era Three of Fox. And that is we're the counterweight to the president. And we're much more powerful now. And we can, you know, Roger Ailes, who's the, you know, founding president there, who's no longer there, who passed away, is like, we're going to influence who the next nominee for president is. And Fox also starts, you know, putting on guests who are questioning whether the president was born in America. So it starts dabbling in that stuff, still doing news, but the opinion more and more is creeping into the daytime. Fast forward to 2016, Era Four of Fox, the Trump era. Where if the candidate is now saying the sky is purple, you're like, well, you know, Trump is saying the sky is purple. Can you believe Democrats don't agree with that? And so now you've entered the opinion zone. Plus the facts are optional zone. So I think that that has been the evolution. But that also is the evolution of the audience. And when you let the audience dictate what's going on in the news, the audience may lead you astray. And if you disagree with that audience, they might go away. Hence the, you know, growth and creation of networks like Newsmax and One America News Network, which make Fox at times look liberal, frankly.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:19:31] Wow.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:19:32] Because they're so far right. So we were like, oh, Fox doesn't agree with X, I'm going to go to One American News. And so you've seen that move. And that's just one example of just on the right end of the spectrum where that's going.
Keyana Corliss: [00:19:43] I feel like you could you tell the exact same story on the left side too, to be fair.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:19:48] Yeah.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:19:48] But is it the exact? I mean, that's my question for you. Is it the exact same? I don't know, it's similar.
Keyana Corliss: [00:19:53] It's close enough, probably.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:19:54] Yeah.
Keyana Corliss: [00:19:54] Well I actually think that's why you're doing so well, Mo.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:19:57] Right.
Keyana Corliss: [00:19:57] People want to hear just the middle.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:20:00] And they're tired of it.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:20:01] And that's the problem is, is the business is intertwined with all of this, which is to make a business in cable news. You cannot be down the middle. Which is why for a while, CNN went to CNN, MSNBC 2, basically, during the Trump era. You know, you could, if I just played the audio for you, you'd have a hard time telling the difference at times between CNN and MSNBC for about a four year period. When they tried to go back into the center last year, the ratings collapsed further because now you pissed off liberals who think that you're, you know, so they're going back to MS.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:20:29] Yeah.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:20:29] So to have a business in cable news, you got to be on one extreme. To have a business and do really well on social media, you got to be on an extreme. That tends to do well. Preach the gospel to your side. And so I've been breaking with that, and I think it limits my growth. We've grown in a strong way, but not as well as I would have if I picked a team. Picking a team does really well these days. And so I think that, you know, there's a few of us, like to steal the marine motto, like the few, the proud, those of us doing straight news.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:20:59] The nonpartisan, the few, the proud, the nonpartisan.
Keyana Corliss: [00:21:01] The nonpartisan.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:21:02] It's literally a handful of us that were featured in that New York Times story recently.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:21:06] A lot of what the discussion in our circles has to do with the declining number of journalists. So, as you know, because of all these broad dynamics we've been talking about, because of the business model problems, you know, at mainstream news publications, there's layoffs, you know, entire publications are folding up. What happens to the future of journalists? Like, you've been lucky. You have this amazing background, you've carved out this amazing niche, and there's probably a few people who could do something similar. But can everybody do that? Does everybody have to start a Substack?
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:21:38] It's terrible. I mean, listen, at the end of the day, some publications have folded because they had a bad business plan. Right? Or, you know, they weren't covering the issues that their audience cared about. At the same time, the business model itself is broken. So even if you're doing great work to make a profit and do well and to scale is very challenging, and you're in an unfortunate period right now. And, you know, I'm preaching to the choir here, but 25% of the country is now a news desert, meaning there's no daily publication in a quarter of the country. And when local news goes away, you don't know the basic information. What is your mayor doing? Who's polluting nearby? What developers are taking advantage or corrupt? Those are issues. CNN is not covering that stuff. Your local newspaper was. And that's a problem.
Keyana Corliss: [00:22:23] Those are the things also that actually affect people and they don't realize.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:22:25] Yeah, the school board. Right, if you have kids.
Keyana Corliss: [00:22:28] Those are actually what affect your daily life.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:22:29] Yeah.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:22:30] And the problem is that all politics, all news, has become nationalized. So now you blame the existing president or Congress for the stuff that really is a local issue, because there's no way to understand why it is that way. So you turn on the news and all you get is what's happening out of Washington. And there's also this over-indexing of importance in Washington when so many important things are happening at a local level, actual influential things. So you bring up the larger dilemma, which is what happens to journalism. The national organizations, you know, they'll figure out a way to survive. A lot of digital startups have had trouble. The fact is that for a long time, publications survived off of advertising. Well, what if advertisers realized, what if brands realized, that they can be much more strategic and get better ROI if they advertise via Google and Facebook and the like? They don't need to put out an ad in the local newspaper anymore. So what has happened to the newspaper and TV when the car dealer can reach people strategically through social media and doesn't need to buy the ad on the local news? And those were always like the biggest advertisers when it comes to local news. So we've only seen the beginning of, sadly, of this collapse. But like you lost classified ads because of Craigslist 20 years ago. Classified ads was like 40% of revenue for media.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:23:43] Exactly.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:23:44] And then you lost regular advertising. And then we're about to see the cookie collapse on Google. They're going to kill off cookies because they already have everyone's information. So, you know, that's going to be an issue in terms of gathering information on your audience. And then on top of that, with AI, Google's not going to need to send you to a news website anymore. They're going to keep you. And when you answer questions and you would have clicked on a link to the newspaper or news site, you're going to get it all on Google. And so it's only going to get harder as a news organization. So what do you got to do? Well, some of them sadly, will go to the more extreme content because they got to click, they got to get you to click. It's a huge challenge to your question about what journalists do. Yeah, they could create a Substack, they could create a podcast, but it's a lot of work, whereas it's an entrepreneurship, you're an entrepreneur now. You're a business person now, which some journalists are not keen on being, they like to write because they like to write, they like to report because they like to report. And so that itself is a challenge. And so for a while we thought Zuckerberg was spending a couple hundred million dollars a year to like, save, quote/unquote news. They seem to be over that now. So, you know, I don't know.
Keyana Corliss: [00:24:49] You can't just save news, though, because it's to your point, there's like so many systemic issues, like you can't just throw money at it and, you know, it'll be fine. You know what I mean? There's just systemic issues.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:25:01] And a bunch of billionaires found that out. Warren Buffett found that out. Patrick Soon-Shiong, the billionaire who bought the LA Times, found that out. Jeff Bezos found that out with the Washington Post.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:25:09] Benioff bought Time.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:25:10] Benioff, Time is finding out the same issue. Like, oh my god, like it is really hard to.
Keyana Corliss: [00:25:15] You can't save journalism without the, okay, so this is, now that we are all depressed, I feel like we have to end on something happy.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:25:22] Yes. Okay.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:25:23] Yes.
Keyana Corliss: [00:25:23] Okay. So who has been the most interesting podcast host, or not host, guest--
Rebecca Buckman: [00:25:30] -- guest--
Keyana Corliss: [00:25:30] -- you have had?
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:25:31] Hmm. Hmm.
Keyana Corliss: [00:25:32] It can't be me because you haven't invited me.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:25:34] Right. We haven't been on.
Keyana Corliss: [00:25:35] So we would be after that.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:25:36] I want to see how this went first and then...
Rebecca Buckman: [00:25:42] Your invite is in the mail.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:25:43] I hate saying favorites, but I will say that one of my favorite guests, I've had him on a couple times, is the former CIA director, Mike Morrell. He's been on a couple times. He was, he happened to be the briefer for George W Bush on 911. He was traveling with him on 911.
Keyana Corliss: [00:25:58] Oh my gosh.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:25:59] Oh, wow. Is he in that photo where he's reading the book, you know, to the little kids? Remember that?
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:26:03] No, he's, no, that's only Andy Card, the Chief of Staff. No, no, Mike Morell was a junior. He's behind, he's probably on the phone being like what happened, like at that moment. And then probably told Andy Card, who then told Bush--
Rebecca Buckman: [00:26:14] -- who told Bush, okay--
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:26:16] -- so crazy this, ten years later, he happens to be the Deputy Director of the CIA as they make the decision to go after Bin Laden in Abbottabad.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:26:23] Oh wow.
Keyana Corliss: [00:26:24] Oh, wow.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:26:24] So he's the only person who was in the room for both of those events. Anyway. He's fascinating.
Keyana Corliss: [00:26:29] That's crazy.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:26:30] I mean, it's easy, he's like, been in the CIA for 30 years. Of course he has incredible stories, but I have found him,like his understanding of, like, Putin's mind, how China works, what happens around the world, terror threats. Love him. And I'll also put in a shout out to Ken Burns. The documentarian.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:26:49] Oh, wow.
Keyana Corliss: [00:26:50] Oh, yeah. Ken Burns Effect. I learned about that in journalism school.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:26:53] Amazing. Just like as somebody who, like, can take a really complex subject, like baseball, the Civil War, and he's like, I'm going to do it in multiple parts, make it compelling, especially he takes periods of history too, where there's no video available, and he tells stories in that way. So those are a couple of the guests that really immediately come to mind.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:27:15] Amazing.
Keyana Corliss: [00:27:16] I love it.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:27:16] Amazing. Hey, I was going to, one positive thing I was going to say on our previous discussion about like the journalism business model, just yesterday, not all news startups are doing badly. Some are succeeding, and one of them, who I think has really been kicking butt in our industry, is Jessica Lessin's The Information. They just won a ton of SABEW awards yesterday, you know, in all of their various categories. They're doing some great investigative work. So I don't know exactly how she's managed to do that, but they have figured out the model.
Keyana Corliss: [00:27:44] They would call me and they would know stuff before I did.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:27:46] Yeah.
Keyana Corliss: [00:27:47] I was like, how do you know this?
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:27:48] They've hired some really great reporters there. And that speaks to the whole thing, which is there are great reporters out there and people will pay for quality journalism. So a shout out to a buddy of mine who went to college with me, Jake Sherman, who co-founded Punchbowl News, which is a insider, like if you want to know what's happening in Congress, he's another one where, like, congressmen will be like, how do you know that? The White House will be like, how do you know that?
Keyana Corliss: [00:28:11] There's a couple people who are like, who is your source?
Rebecca Buckman: [00:28:14] Yeah.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:28:14] So The Information is that for Silicon Valley. Punchbowl is that for Washington. You know, and then I think like Axios has done a, you know, has built a really interesting model being platform agnostic, being like let's, you know, let's be newsletter-centric here. Let's adapt to how people are getting the news. They're getting into local news, right? Axios Local is launched in like 40 cities. So they're trying to figure out a new model for local news. So I think there's room for innovation. It's certainly something we're trying to do at Mo News. And you know it's sort of the Field of Dreams model. If I build it, they will come, as in the money will come and that's the hope.
Keyana Corliss: [00:28:45] Well, this has been amazing, Mosheh. Thank you so much for coming on this podcast. I still can't believe we got you on here. Everyone, if you're on Instagram @Mosheh - M O S H E H - he is the best. Also, his wife has incredible content on everything else. Like--
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:29:01] Her feed Instagram feed is much more relevant than mine.
Keyana Corliss: [00:29:05] Oh my God.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:29:05] She's like this is the food you need to buy. This is like a product that is like necessary in your house. Yes.
Keyana Corliss: [00:29:10] She's like PSA, this is the best spice you'll ever have. Like PSA, this is how you get this out of that. Like she's the best. And you guys just had a baby, so congratulations.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:29:20] Thank you.
Keyana Corliss: [00:29:20] Yeah. I can't believe you are just crushing it. And we've known each other for a very, very, very long time. Before the babies and the--.
Mosheh Oinounou: [00:29:28] When we were both residents of Washington, DC back in the day.
Keyana Corliss: [00:29:31] That's right.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:29:32] Oh, yeah.
Keyana Corliss: [00:29:33] That's right. It was a good time. Thank you so much. This was so much fun. Thank you for coming. And everyone go follow Mosheh. You will not regret it.
Rebecca Buckman: [00:29:41] So if SBS Comms sounds familiar, it's because you might have seen them recently listed as a Top Five Most Innovative Company in Fast Company's first ever PR and Brand Strategies category. They're one of the tech industry's hottest agencies that's attracted the attention of companies like American Express, Cloudflare, GitHub, Flexport, and more. SBS Comms embraces a modern ethos in technology comms, shedding outdated strategies for progress and results. SBS works across industries and with companies at all stages of growth, from industry leaders to those building tomorrow's consequential breakthroughs such as Air Company, Runway, Astro Forge, Versal, Light Matter and more. You can learn more about SBS at www.SBSComms.com, that's a lot of comms, or by checking out their very active Instagram account, where they post weekly roundups of media hits at @SBSComms. Just Checking In is produced by Astronomic Audio and underwritten by Mixing Board, a curated community of the most sought after communications and brand marketing leaders.
Keyana Corliss: [00:30:44] Thanks for listening to Just Checking In. Follow us at @KeyanaCorliss and @RebeccaBuckman.