Good morning, Peepsen, and welcome to wok app Daily with Me Your Girl Danielle Moody pre recording from the home Bunker, Folks. On today's show, we welcome back to the microphone the producer of woka app Daily Andrew Marcello, to kind of dig into a conversation on media and the failings of media and what we have learned as people continue to turn off corporate mainstream media and tune into other outlets.
Whether this is just a blip of this moment of anger and frustration, or if it is really time to move away from what was the legacy fourth Estate and
build something new. Right now, there are conversations that bubbling around with Donald Trump kind of remaking as he's going to just everything in America, but remaking the White House Press Corps and getting rid of those that are detractors to him, but also ushering in a new age of new media, potentially replacing the abcs and the NBCs of the world with the bro podcasters that he frequented and
his administration has frequented in the past. Now, obviously I disagree with Trump on a lot of things, on everything actually, but on this in terms of where does legacy media and new media fit as America is being remade? I think is a really important question because storytelling and the narrative, as we have seen with this past election, is what
people held onto. It didn't matter what was actually fact, It mattered what they felt about it, right, A lot of their feelings came from what they heard from particular people and particular outlets. So if we don't open our minds up and recognizing that everyone is not getting their information in the same place which we've known, but that no longer can folks rely on the fourth estate in the way that it did, where does that leave us
and where do we go from here? So we get into that conversation Andrew and I which is coming up next, folks, I am happy to welcome back on the microphone the producer of WOKF Andrew Marcello, who has been on providing a lot of insight into not only the gamer male, toxic male, toxic perspectives from a gamer no, no, no no, I'm saying that you were bringing perspective to us on like the rise of toxic male ideology, thinking kind of what has become the magaway and showed us how it
was seated in gaming, you know. And I continue to use that show Andrew by the Way, as like a primer for people who keep saying, I don't understand what happened to men, I don't understand what. I don't understand where all of this is coming from. And I was just like, well, here's one perspective that I think is important.
But today, as we are counting down the days until January twentieth, which is the inauguration of Donald Trump for a second regime, we are watching as mainstream corporate media just obeys in advance, capitulates to his anger, to his threats. We have seen it most recently with Morning Joe on MSNBC, with Mika and Joe admitting to their viewers that they went down to mar A Lago to go clear the air,
right to go and restart conversations, as they've said. We've watched it with The Washington Post deciding that they were not going to endorse a candidate for the first time in their paper's history. We watched it with the La Times. We've seen it now with Meta as Zuckerberg congratulating Donald Trump on his victory. Can't wait to work with you. Tell us what you make of this moment in media.
In two words, I would say, my take is that it's not good. Yeah, it's scary. As someone who works in media, even if I'm not working on a mainstream media outlet, I have heard and seen reports. I haven't heard directly, not to imply that, but I have seen reports of people at major media outlets, particularly at MSNBC and CNBC, are really worried about their future. And this
is before we've even had an inauguration. I don't feel that, at least right away, we will be thrust into a right wing monoculture.
Oh interesting, you don't feel like that will happen right away.
I don't because of how many people in America, including how many people on the right, believe in the First Amendment, whatever their interpretation of the First Amendment is. I don't think. I hope, I'm optimistic that all of those things overnight on January twenty third, or whatever it's going to be, there's not going to be a mass shut down of mainstream media sources.
That are.
Critical of power. However, that being said, I don't think there's going to be a formal shut down of these organizations. I don't think you know you asked about mainstream outlets such as cable news, but I don't think, you know, the New York Times or the Washington Post will disappear overnight. I don't think MSNBC and CNN, especially NBC News, or
any network news organizations will disappear overnight. But something I am scared of, and something that we're seeing happen right now, to go back to your question, is we're seeing these legacy media organizations very quickly capitulate. Right so, even if it's not going to be like front page, Trump is our dear leader, I fear that there will be a rapidly slow, insidious creep of There will be a creeping fascism.
I don't know if you've heard that term before, but this is a I think a perfect application for it. I think we're going to see a creeping of fascism in our news media at essentially all mainstream corporate levels, and that is very scary.
You know, it's funny because I don't think I've heard the term, but I don't think that this is a creep. If we want to be honest about that, I think that we could say then that for the last nine years, corporate mainstream media has been creeping fascism, has been capitulating, has been sanewashing, whatever the phrases that we want to use. If we had had a robust fourth estate, then the
people of this country would have been educated. With every move that Donald Trump made, both during his presidency and.
After, I don't think enough people noticed some of the writing on the wall, or writing on the all sends grammar than I mean. I don't think a lot of people noticed the signs that were happening in the first Trump administration. The New York Times firing their public editor Jeff Bezos, acquiring the New York Post or sorry, the Washington Post, that either happened shortly before or shortly after the election of Trump. NBC News being led by a right wing whatever the name is of the person who
runs NBC News. I remember at the time somebody who was right wing took over, and that meant NBC News and also MSNBC were actually being run with a conservative at the top. And I think a lot of people didn't pay attention to those things happening in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen.
That is fair in terms of who was in the c suite, right and who is in the c suite dictates what goes on the front page is considered as headline news. And you know, over the last nine years, we have watched as this country has turned into an overt oligarch right, like, oligarchy and the presence of wealth and power has always been the foundations of our part
of the foundation of our democracy. However, it's now overt right that you have a Mark Zuckerberg saying on the day of the you know, congratulations, can't wait to work with you, so excited about what the future holds. And well, thanks Mark Zuckerberg, because you spent the election cycle suppressing the algorithm so that we couldn't be talking about politics on your sites like threads and Facebook and Instagram. Right, so it's like we've already experienced what that suppression looks
like in social media. And and when you have places like the Washington Post bought by Jeff Bezos that was more concerned with his Amazon contracts than he was with democracy, making decisions that are not about the readers but are about his shareholders and his own literal self interests. What do you think that that is doing to the faith that people have, And whether or not. We are seeing already that they're turning away from these places, but where do they turn to?
You think To answer the last question, I think where things will go probably with distrust in the mainstream media, sources will continue to be a fracturing, a decentralization. I think you've already seen it with the right wing, and we've seen it in conversations that you and me have had talking about Breitbart News, and to extrapolate a little further,
the Daily Wire and quote unquote sources like that. The Onion now owns Alex Jones's former outlet and they're going to be turning that into some kind of satire website, but for a time that was a major source as well. What I don't think having said that, I don't think we're going to see a left wing Bright Bart, a left wing Daily Caller, And the reason for that is because I don't see there being money put behind something
like that. And so in lieu of that, I think where people who are liberal minded will probably continue to go is online sources, websites, social media platforms, YouTube, live streaming. But I think also about like that's on the left, and that's liberal minded people like you, even have stuff like the Young Turks. But then there's a whole lot of people who are in the median and I actually can't say because I genuinely have no insight where the median person is going to go. A lot of people
still watch TV. So maybe what will happen is people who are actively politically minded on the right and on what is the left in America will find those sources for themselves with the power of the Internet and the power of non traditional media sources. But for the countless millions who are in the median, I think they're probably going to keep watching TV and also hear stuff from
their fringe friends. So on a note that we ended a previous make sure that you are the friend in your median political person's friend's ear, because if it's not you on the left, it might be someone on the right.
I want to go back to something that you said with regard to not seeing the left version of some of the right wing and dare I say white supremacy extremist sites that you named not seeing a left wing version of that? Do you think that we need a left wing version of that? As some people have said, Oh, we need our version of Joe Rogan, we need our version of X, Y and Z. When you hear that, how does that land for you?
The left had version of Joe Rogan. His name was John Stewart, and I think he's actually back on TV a little bit. But like, I have a trigger finger reaction sort of when people say, like, we need a left wing version of Joe Rogan, because I understand what it's really getting at, which is, like, Joe Rogan is a very popular figure among disaffected young white men, sis straight, et cetera. And the thing with Joe Rogan is he's a useful idiot. Please don't get mad at me, Joe Rogan.
Don't come after me with lawyers. But like you know what I mean, he's someone who he can have anyone on his show. If Kamala Harris had gone on his show, did she I don't.
Did you know she didn't?
She didn't.
But if she had, though, if she could have said anything for twenty minutes and.
It would go oh huh yeah, oh huh wow. Oh I didn't know that, But don't people say? And then something his producer feeds him and then she says an oh wow, oh I never thought it out it that way and conservatives have a great time with someone who is wide eyed and someone who will easily believe what they're being told and not to be critical of it for themselves and for their audience. I definitely I do not think that the left needs that. I don't think
the left needs a Joe Rogan. I think what the left needs is someone who is strongly spoken, someone who can easily articulate left wing views and perspectives, which is why my mind first went to John Stuart because he was someone who was liberally minded, left of center, and could easily articulate these ideas to an audience regardless of their intelligence level and regardless of their investment in.
The day to day news. And also something that John Stewart had was a well funded and consistent platform. Yep. And that's a really important part of it. That's the thing I'm pessimistic about at the moment, unfortunately.
I mean, the fact that you're only pessimistic about one thing is I think, great.
There's a lot of people who qualify for the first two things I said, but without the third thing, none of that matters.
And I wonder you know if you think then because money matters, right, Like money is what is when we're looking at the breakdowns in terms of how much money was given into investment in social media and into TV for this election, A lot of money Elon Musk put in, you know, almost one hundred and fifty million dollars. We know that Russia was paying right wing TikTokers, right and funneling money in to these different places to create this echo chamber. Is it necessary then that the left have
its own oligarch? You know, like if we're just all pawns on their chessboard, right, and Elon Musk can make a joke you know about well, how much does MSNBC cost? Because I can buy it right, like, and they would sell it to him because no one has any integrity, Like they don't care right about what would happen to the channel and the content and the you know, like they don't care right at the end of the day.
So it's like, do we just then try and like court and find our own billionaire oligarch that is like Elon Musk, but is for our issues.
I won't say exactly like Elon Musk, but I will agree I think the left rather than saying the left needs their own Joe Rogan. I actually do think people should be saying the left needs their own Elon Musk. Where is Warren Buffett? Where is beyond? Say there are billionaires who supposedly hold left wing views? Where are they? Where is their money?
I don't know. A part of me has always said that, Oh is it that you know the Bill Gates and Bill Gates is not a good right, He's not a good example, you know?
Is it that I was actually gonna say, maybe we need a left wing Bill Gates? Bill Gates, I know for all the good that he Okay, I will say Bill Gates' money has gone to good things in Africa, and.
It's philanthropy, right, But the fact is is that all of them are bad people to a certain extent.
Like that's not about to get on this mic and say Beyonce is a bad person, but she's self not Beyonce.
But like Beyonce has a fraction a fraction of the of the billions that we're talking about, right, Like a Beyonce and Oprah they have like a billion dollars, right, or two billion dollars. I'm talking about people that have tens of billions of dollars, right, hundreds of billions of dollars, Like when you're getting into that place, that's a different place, where like one hundred and fifty million dollars to Elon Musk is you know, ten dollars to an average person.
So like when I'm saying, is it understanding that the game is just all about money and needing to court? Who's got next? I guess is what I'm wondering. Or do they wake up on their own or are these people that supposedly have too much integrity to want to put their thumbs on the scale even though on the right they've literally put their entire body on the scale.
I'm looking at the list of billionaires right now. First of all, it's not promising, but second of all, it's you know, I remember when Warren Buffett was the wealthiest man in the world, and I think it was like between him and Bill Gates for a while, like neck and neck. Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and a lot of other tech guys have just so easily outpaced them. But at the same time, Warren Buffett still has one
hundred and fifty billion dollars. I used to hear so much about, you know, Warren Buffett, he has money coming in regardless, like he couldn't give it away fast enough, and from what I understood, he at least talked about wanting to give it away as quickly as he could. And this is something that he or any supposedly right minded, well minded whatever billionaire could possibly do. And maybe there should be more narrative around it. Maybe there should be
more public push for it. Maybe that's what we need. Maybe there needs to be more recognition that money is power. So much of money and power is concentrated behind right wing, conservative, fascist political organizing, that we should really be pushing some of these ultra billionaires to put their money where their mouths are.
Yeah, I don't know when I have to depend on the kindness, the clarity, and the consciousness of billionaires.
I know that the thing is we all do though, unfortunately, reshaping of society aside. If any of us who have a job, any of us who are making money right now, making income, at some point in the chain that is coming down. This makes it sound like I'm talking about
trickle down economics. It's not. Trickle down economics isn't real, but like in the current makeup of our capital economy, at some point the money is flowing down from a billionaire to pay your paycheck, and that's the unfortunate reality.
M M.
I mean it is for me, and I'm independently employed, so I can only imagine.
I know, and it just like leaves such a disgusting taste in my mouth and frankly, like I just want out.
I think that's something though, Like Bill, I understand, listen me too, but I think that maybe that's part of what gets reckoned with, you know, it is an uncomfortable feeling to have to reckon with, Like this whole system really is this horribly rigged long form device that ends up with instead of trickling down more like money, like rolling down a hill and getting smaller and smaller and smaller and smaller and small, small and small smaller till
it finally reaches your pocket. But if more of us can recognize that and reckon with that, then maybe we have a better chance at navigating how power really operates in the twenty first century world. Yeah, and without power, like we really we as a people and we as a political movement, like whatever, we don't have anything. If we don't have power, one, well, we will leave it there to just run in a different direction it did.
There's a lot on the mind, but we do we need to have a different conversation about.
Power, local billionaire and.
What that looks like, because this ain't it. Andrew As always, thank you so very much for everything you do for WOKF and giving us food for thought today. I appreciate you.
To any billionaires or legal representation of billionaires listening, everything that was stated in this interview was parody and is non actionable under fair use.
That is it for me here, Folks on Woke af AS always power to the people and to all the people. Power, get woke and stay woke as fuck.