S2, Ep1 | Media in Meltdown and Climate in Crisis, with Kendra Pierre-Louis

Media in Meltdown and Climate in Crisis, with Kendra Pierre-Louis.mp3

Amy [00:00:13] Hey, Hotcakes, welcome to Hot Take, the podcast, where we talk about all the ways we're talking and not talking about the climate crisis. I'm Amy Westervelt

Mary [00:00:23] And I'm Mary Annaise Heglar. And we're so excited to be watching season two today. We had a lot of fun during season one, but we also learned a lot. And we're planning to do things a little bit differently this season.

[00:00:34] Yeah, we're going to have more episodes focused on specific themes and put less effort into doing a comprehensive review of the entire climate.

[00:00:44] We have a newsletter for that. Right.

[00:00:47] And if you're not subscribe to that, look for Sign-Up information in the show notes and on our Twitter. Speaking of themed episodes, I'm really, really excited about this one.

[00:00:56] Me too. This episode, we're gonna be talking about the great reckoning that's happening in media outlets all over the country for the past month. And we have the perfect guest along to talk about that with us.

[00:01:07] We do. Our guest today is Kendra PR Louis, formerly of The New York Times Climate Desk and currently at Gimlet. She is a super smart reporter and talented writer. Also, she is a black woman and there are precious few of us in the climate stories telling space. So I'm especially glad to have her on.

[00:01:24] Me too. Also, I have known Kendra and her writing for ages. I loved her stuff with popular science. I appreciate her hatred of MeOh.

[00:01:36] Same. Same. Yeah, I'm super excited.

[00:01:39] She always really smart take on both the media and climate, which are like our two favorite things to talk about.

[00:01:45] Exactly. Exactly. All right. You think it's time.

[00:01:49] It's time to talk about climate.

[00:02:03] Welcome, Ken Drilled. We're really, really excited to have you on the show. Thank you so much for taking the time. Thank you guys so much for having me. Yeah. So I've heard you say before that you've had an unconventional path to journalism. What exactly was that path like? How did you get into journalism and specifically climate journalism?

[00:02:22] So I started getting interested in climate issues sort of when I was in college. But I was an economics major.

[00:02:29] I wasn't a science major or anything, but I did take some classes on sustainable development. And then I graduated, took a bunch of sort of random, not odd jobs, but like jobs that I didn't really know what I was going to do with. So like I worked corporate communications for the Princeton Review for a little bit. And then I moved to France and taught English for a little bit. And when I got back from France, I was working at a job at sort of, um, you know, a public policy NGO, I guess is a good way of freezing it.

[00:02:59] And a friend was like, you never shut up about the environment. Maybe you should do something. So I applied to grad school for Sustainable Development and this tiny school in Vermont, Idaho, and graduated with a masters degree in public policy analysis and advocacy in sustainable development. And originally, when I went into the program, I had this idea that I would like go overseas and travel the world and do development work or something. And when I get out of the program, the one thing that was very good to me is that if we want to do anything about the environment, you sort of have to start jaded states just because of how disproportionate impact is.

[00:03:37] And so after that, I abstract a bunch of jobs, if you like.

[00:03:40] Each one of the times they finished school was sort of punctuated by a recession of some sort or the other. So that is also a factor in the bouncing around in jobs. I was interning with a sustainability consultancy firm after grad school and they had this idea for a book and I got a book deal.

[00:03:56] And shortly after I got a job working at one of the larger museums, New York City kind of doing work that was closer to environmental stuff, but it just wasn't like a great fit.

[00:04:05] So I bounced around a little bit more and finally eventually ended up working for an affordable housing nonprofit, doing more sustainability stuff and communication stuff.

[00:04:13] And at that time does. You're on the time I started freelancing a one hour, I got a mentor through the Society of Environmental Journalism Journalists. The strength of the book. And I started freelancing and I gave myself essentially a year where I was like. Either you make enough money from freelancing so you can quit or you get a job in journalism or you go to journalism scrape and the first you didn't happen. So I went into J school. I applied to a few programs and I ended up getting Mighty, Mighty. I started I'm 18 2015 and I finished in 2016.

[00:04:49] And then from there, it's pretty straightforward. You know, I did like an internship ionize at M.I.T. and then I got a job, a pop star. But it is a lot of bouncing around, a lot, you know, like the first piece I ever got published in a national publication once before I ever went to J school. Right. Yeah, that was it. Yeah. That was like Newsweek, I think. And then I got right before. Right. As I was going to M.I.T., I got published in The Washington Post. But it wasn't sustainable and I couldn't get a job in journalism. So it just meet sort of meet's ends. And then, you know, I, I after I graduated, I did a little bit of freelancing and then pretty quickly went to work for paper science. And then from there I went to the Times and Damit Gimlet.

[00:05:27] So you say like you never shut up about the environment. What were when did you start getting freaked out about the environment?

[00:05:34] I still don't know from freaked out. Maybe I should be. But am I especially interested in. Definitely. From a place of like curiosity and wonder.

[00:05:43] My freshman year. You were my freshman year of college. We were required to take these like freshmen writing seminars and it seemed like they really wanted to encourage better writing.

[00:05:57] But the way that you applied for them was you sort of rank them from one to five. And whichever one fit your schedule is the one that you got. So like you're supposed to pick your classes first and then they would like try and sladden this writing seminar. And the one that I took my second semester was on experiencing the Natural World.

[00:06:13] And the teacher was a writer, but she's also a biologist by training and she would spend every Friday, we would have to go on a field trip. Mm hmm. And, you know, sometimes it just.

[00:06:23] I went to Cornell for undergrad, so it was a month ago, which is pretty outdoorsy. And so sometimes it'd just be like hiking the Borgese on campus. There was a weekend trip or we had to go cross-country skiing and we went.

[00:06:33] Cornell owns its own people's Europe producing lab, basically. OK. It's a very learned guy.

[00:06:43] You really went cross-country skiing during this camping trip. She didn't tell us you were going, but we were like in this forest. And it turns out we're skiing to this Maple sirup lab as they were sugaring. And I got to eat maple sirup out of the boiler fresh for the first time.

[00:07:02] No, I feel like a lot of my thinking and a lot of my injuries kind of.

[00:07:08] Reframed around that class, which was, you know, we definitely talked about some of the problems with the environment and, you know, a lot of environmental catastrophes, I think we read a chapter from Ishmael, but a lot of images like wonder and Joy and getting to experience.

[00:07:22] What would you say is the key difference between a science journalist and a climate journalist?

[00:07:29] I definitely think of myself like I trained. I went to grad school for a science journalism and I definitely anchor everything in the science of climate change, I think. But I think the biggest difference is that, like, I don't just or I try very really not to just stop at the science rate. So I'm not just going to tell you that the Earth has warmed by whatever one point. What I remember at one point one degree Celsius like that isn't particularly useful information for most. All right. Like, I think the biggest difference is that it's not enough to sort of chronicle the changes you need to contextualize it to people so that they understand why it matters and also how it impacts their lives. Yeah, it really, really matters that it's not just a science. You have to weave in culture. You have to weave in context. You have to even history when you're Jammey, tell these stories. Right.

[00:08:20] Right. Yeah. I love that, though, because I feel like that's something that we talk about a lot that like a lot of climate coverage still doesn't do that. And it does stick with just the science and not all of the social implications.

[00:08:34] Yeah. Pressure like. So we think the things that you got when, like, you start off as a journalist in climate science is, you know, like I know how to read a study. Lagu Yeah. Like those kinds of things I think are really, really important. I know whether or not you should report on the study. Right. You know, I've had definitely had fights with editors over whether certain things should be reported on.

[00:08:55] What do you think are the most important climate stories not being told right now?

[00:09:00] So I don't think we're adequately covering solutions months one. I don't think we're, I don't know, recovering solutions. And also, I don't think recovering solutions that aren't sexy.

[00:09:11] Yes. I was just going to say that we are. But it's like all the wrong ones. I don't know.

[00:09:16] It's. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we like very sexy, very new. Very tech. Yes. Oriented solutions. And there are lots and lots of things that we can be doing that are not sexy. Where all the efficiency stories. I feel like we never hear about that. Yeah. Weatherization is a really hard one to do. So what's winterization? It's basically your house leaks and it's making it so it leaks. It's insulating. It's like caulking. It's really boring, really basic things that often don't even require that much money. You know, like if you've ever been at a house in winter and you've sort of put the plastic over the windows, to some, that is because those windows are bad or they're not yet properly. Right. So, like, if you just properly insulate your home, you have probably costs. Right. So you're using less energy. So you're reducing greenhouse gas emissions. And you've noticed a different rate like you have, right. Fundamentally changed your life, but your energy bill goes down. So that's just like one that like it's pretty kind of low hanging. And the other thing I think is [00:10:25]we don't talk enough about how much the ways in which we live are embedded in the structures of our society. [6.3s] Mm hmm. So, like, you know, Mary and I live in New York, so we don't have to have a car. Right. I'm guessing we're not.

[00:10:40] Amy Lives is relatively rural, and she kind of had a car and it kind of city like a four wheel drive car because we get 20 feet of snow in box.

[00:10:52] So, like, I can't maybe get the worst of all.

[00:10:57] Well, people were like, I can't believe you have an SUV and you claim to care about the environment. I'm like, I literally I couldn't get out of my house if I didn't have that car, so.

[00:11:08] Right. A little bit like. Yeah. Tied in here. Right. And so how do we make it so that you're right. I did a great lake. Like I think that there's so much focus on individuals and not enough on like a lot of the fact that, like, the reason I don't own a car is not because I'm a good person. Right. It's because I live in New York City. Right. Right. I remember I didn't learn to drive until I was 27. And the year before I learned to drive, a friend was like, oh, I just assumed you didn't know how to drive because your environment is like now. I just never had to learn.

[00:11:53] Main reason we wanted to have you on the show, Kendra, is also because, you know, you're awesome and we wanted to have you on the show since, you know, we launched. Honestly, Drilled shirtless for a long time. Yeah. But now it's just the perfect time to have you on because there's just been so much going on with the media. I call it the great media meltdown of 20/20 where like it's like the metoo movement. But for race and we're going to talk for the sake of this show specifically about how it's affected the media industry. So just really quickly, in the past month, we've seen public resignations of top editors at The New York Times in the opinion section. The Philadelphia Inquirer. Bonnot Petite, Pittsburgh Gazette. Which one of my favorites, black staff, were told that they couldn't cover the protests because they would be biased. The L.A. Times had this internal uprising because of insensitive coverage of the protests and is hiring practice and that seems to still be going on.

[00:12:52] They also lost a food editor. That's right. The food editor. Yeah, he stepped down for sexual harassment. But apparently it was a toxic workspace thing. And then just now. Well, I think the Refinery29 global president and chief content officer has stepped in. Wow.

[00:13:09] Yeah. Yeah. That was another one that got like. We've got you back. Yeah.

[00:13:16] Twenty. That's the motto of twenty. Twenty is Life comes at you fast. And also, Vogue has been in hot water for its hiring practices and content and everything. So it just really seems like, you know.

[00:13:29] Yeah. It's it's all kind of coming to a head and it seems like it all started. I can't really tell which one came. First was the New York Times op ed from Senator Tom Cotton or the Philadelphia Inquirer as op ed about buildings matter and things like they were both at the same time. And both of them kind of sparked this public show of protest from the black staff and people of color working there, said The New York Times. People took to Twitter to say, this op ed is running this piece. It puts black New York Times staff in danger. I think that was like the running tweet.

[00:14:07] And then at the Philadelphia Inquirer, black staff and staff of color did a mass sick out.

[00:14:14] The the tech team at the Times also did a virtual walkout. They didn't work for a day, right?

[00:14:22] Yeah. Maybe it will be useful to, like, just recap what was in the Tom Cotton op ed and just like some of the optics around it. I'm going to put Amy on the spot because you wrote about that from the newsletter. Knows all about it. Yeah. I mean, so Tom Cotton, who drinks. No.

[00:14:36] Who eats birthday cake regularly and drinks milk and makes chocolate milk in his mouth with Milliyet in a Hershey Square.

[00:14:44] He was tweeting about this and then turned it into an op ed that he thought that the president should send in military forces to crush the protests.

[00:14:57] And he I mean, the op ed included a bunch of inaccuracies, too. So there were a lot of things around. Yeah. What the protesters were doing and the logistics of sending military in the first place and, you know, all of that, like it was just honestly just read like a ranty right wing Twitter thread that I would just ignore. But here it is in The New York Times opinion section. And I think the headline was Mr. President. But they asked for it. Yeah, they turned out. We found out later that, in fact, that had been commissioned, not pitch. So that was I was like, oh, my God. Right. I think it was Dorene. Say Felix to right about like, oh, my God. I bet this was like, you know, hey.

[00:15:46] Interesting tweet. Do you want to turn it into an op ed? And then it started to put a sleep.

[00:15:53] Oh, I don't think I've ever seen anything like that where the staff of a paper and particularly the and it wasn't just the black staff. But it seems like it was led by the black staff publicly.

[00:16:05] You know, so I don't fuck with this, Ron.

[00:16:09] It's actually. So I think there's a great thing to point out, which is the Times has two sides. One is the newsroom side of it, which is the opinion side.

[00:16:18] And opinion has more latitude in what they're allowed to tweet. The newsroom side is regulated by social media guidelines that you can Google There, public. And one of them is you're not allowed to disparage the institution, essentially. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

[00:16:33] So do you think that's probably true at other papers, too? Or is that really unique to New York Times?

[00:16:40] I think it's true it's true of other papers, too. Yeah. Other papers, too. Yeah. Yeah. The other thing I think it's worth noting. I guess it's two, three things. One is that there are those guidelines, but they're not equally applied. So like some people can get away with tweeting things more than other people can get away with. And generally the line is what makes someone uncomfortable. So obviously, their biases within that, right, because they're there, class and their race implications of who gets to be the arbiter of what is acceptable content. Right. And then the third thing is that, like, not everyone. So the time to the union. But not everyone who tweeted that tweet was in the union.

[00:17:26] Yes, which means there was even more remarkable. Right. Yes, they took a greater risk.

[00:17:30] They were taking a bigger risk. And also, we think, though, there's a reason why the claim that they made was that it it it affected the safety of, um, staff members because employers are required to legally provide a safe working environment. Mm hmm. So. Punishing people for that statement. Edges like teeters on the edge of, I believe, of employment loss, because you are you are allowed to speak publicly about work conditions. Right. And you can't stop employees from, like, discussing her conditions for obvious reasons. I should say I have was not you know, I was out. I'm not employed by The New York Times. I was out the door. So this is not coming from I had no I'm not privy to any of those conversations. I knew what you know, based on Twitter.

[00:18:24] Yes, I am. That's like speculation like this is happening.

[00:18:29] Yeah, but the union also came out against the op ed, I believe, just the next day. Yeah.

[00:18:36] So it was a pretty remarkable rebuke from within the organization and with outside of it, too, because this is definitely not the first time the New York Times opinion section has piss people off. Right. This is not the first time there's been like a public uproar. Bret Stephens exists. So this felt really different. And I wonder if it's like also because of like the larger protests, which just seemed to have a whole different hold on the country.

[00:19:03] I was out to Code Switch recently and they were Taeyang. They interviewed a sociologist, I want to say, who had said back in March, essentially that we were going to have a bunch of social movements right now.

[00:19:14] She didn't think it was she she like didn't predict this at all.

[00:19:20] I want to be really clear, but essentially one of the things that they said on the podcast about why they think this time it's different is because one of the things kind of create social unrest is distrust in the government. And I think if you're a black American, you've kind of had an undercurrent of distrust in the government for a while. But if you're a white American, I don't know if that's been as true in such a visceral way. And I think if you're an aware person and you're looking at how the federal government or maybe even how your state has been handling covered and looking at across the border in Canada or looking at New Zealand, New Zealand, Taiwan, Korea, South Korea.

[00:20:01] Yeah, Japan, I could keep going. Yeah. You are asking questions like, why are we not more like them? Mm hmm, yeah. So Coagulating has has kind of sued Mission Trust in a way that I don't think existed before. For larger swaths of people in the United States.

[00:20:21] And I think.

[00:20:24] Then George Floyd happening kind of.

[00:20:27] Fomented again, this undercurrent of mistrust in police officers who are essentially actors of the state.

[00:20:35] And then seeing the brutality on display by police officers, who are you are you know, in your ironically, the protests are happening because of police brutality and they're just like blatantly doing inequality. I know. Yeah. Right. Right. And they were beating up Yandell. I think, actually. Yeah.

[00:20:56] And you're gassing white and journalism people and specifically journalists. And then I think so all of that was happening.

[00:21:02] But then when you're reading a lot of the reporting and I did write about this for Neimann, it was like violence was happening, but it wasn't specific. And I think that the all of that kind of like people who were paying attention and seeing this and yelling this and then that happened and you're telling it, you're essentially putting out an opinion piece asking for an escalation of even more violence against. And brown people in this country is egregious, right? And the fact that it was and I think that's kind of break the logjam in media and that's like when people are like, I'm getting paid this much, this person is toxic. There have been whisperer networks for aboriginals of color, have whisperer networks forever. I can probably give you a list. You know, five pages long of people that I will never work for because based on the whisper network. But like that. Yeah. Healthy, right. Because you have to be in journalism for a certain amount of time to get access to the secret net roots, which means that you have to undergo a certain degree of grace. Mm hmm.

[00:22:03] Right. For someone who doesn't know what a whisper network is.

[00:22:06] How would you explain it? Because I understand. But I would be interested in your words.

[00:22:11] Yeah. So a whisper network intentionally is communities of people. So there, there, ones for journals of color, I think. And then there are also one for women journalists. Which essentially tells you which institutions or people you know, by map, word of mouth, essentially, you should not work for warlike ways of navigating around there, structures.

[00:22:34] Right, I think. Yeah. It's also like it exists in different industries, too, so it exists and like the nonprofit world, like which organization that's a work for. And I think people often think of whisper networks as working among those with power, like, you get blackballed in any given industry. But like. And then. But they don't think about how marginalized people also who use whisper networks. And so they're always like, well, we put the job out and then people of color didn't apply or women didn't apply and they didn't. They are not realizing that, like, oh, actually, they talk about you, too.

[00:23:10] Your reputation matters, too. I did. Yeah.

[00:23:14] Tweet that I said something. I can't remember the exact reading, but I was like, if you have a job application out, like no people of color applying your age, probably because it reports to a toxic person in real life.

[00:23:25] I just thought of another reason why I think this time was different in the media, because so many media outlets sort of posted these things like we're in solidarity with Black Lives Matter.

[00:23:36] Like Refinery29 and all these other places don't like the blackout Tuesday. And because this movement is different, the response to them just being like we're listening and learning was way more of like you've been listening and learning for a long fucking time. Like you should know what to do now. Like, if you're still learning, you failed the class. Like, sorry.

[00:23:56] So it's a number of journalists who were showing receipts, like the people who are coming forward with details, who sort of like it's not my silence is not worth this industry, essentially. Right, exactly.

[00:24:08] A lot of people feeling like they have so little to lose this time. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:24:13] You talk a little bit, Kendra, about the journalism awards problem, too, and how race plays into who gets kind of put forward for what.

[00:24:23] So it's very different, obviously, if you're freelance. Oftentimes, if you're freelance, you have to submit yourself. Generally, his news organizations want to promote their staff. For these reasons, I like paying your salary. We want to get you up. That said, to the we most submission, most awards, the way they work in journalism is you have to pay to submit. So that's just like an obvious thing. And so most institutions make decisions about whose work will get submitted there,. Oftentimes there are kind of two ways in which that sort of prioritizes white men. First, if your sort of like where people get placed in the newsroom and what beats them around to cover. Mm hmm. And very often, you know, like political reporting is skewed very white now. And that's considered a procedure placement. So so they're just like that fundamental aspect of like who gets to be nut jobs and then who gets the time to do sort of these bigger, deeper projects that are sort of held off as prestige. And often, again, there's a bias towards giving white men that role. And you'll often hear in newsrooms like someone will come up and an idea and they'll be like, oh, you're not. They won't say it this explicitly, but they're like. This other white man is a perfect person for this kind of a piece that you just raise and you're like, man, I just raised it like, why? And that happens all the time. Karen Tía. I'm not sure that you know the same. She's an opinion writer at The Washington Post. And it just came out that this path Pulitzer's use and she's got a phenomenal opinion writer. It's really beautiful while research things. And they didn't include her in a Pulitzer admissions year. They didn't select her work. And so, yeah, you can submit on your own it is an option in many cases, but then you're taking the cost on your own. So that's an extra literal financial cost. And then you have to think through how to package your work together. And all of that assumes, of course, that you have had the time and space to do the kind of work that wins awards. Right. And the reason awards matter, just like broadly, is because there's a cachet, especially with some of the bigger ones. And it can open doors. It can get you better pay. You can do all sorts of things. But oftentimes the people who sort of reap the most benefit from those awards, again, are right now.

[00:26:51] You've written a bit about this, I think, in Kate Aronoff has written about this. But like, the thing that really annoys me is that the infiltration of people whose only apparent qualification is that they're white men. So I'm talking about like, is it Johnson's effort?

[00:27:06] Yes.

[00:27:07] Are you. I'm Jonathan. Just like arriving and being there. They're end up being me. Yeah.

[00:27:13] And them being upheld is like a valid ring in which. For what? For no reason that I can discern, like there doesn't seem to be any like. Actual understanding of the broader issues or actual wrestling with the complexities contexts. But one of the things that I do think has changed is that like now there is more political climate reporting, like climate running as a form of political reporting. And I think that that. I have complicated feelings about that. Lots of kids have complicated feelings about the way we're political or putting happens in this country broadly, which is a lot of inside baseball and a lot of like watching the game and not enough of like these are people's lives and these policies have consequences. And I need to understand the implications of this policy. And this and political reporting often doesn't provide that. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[00:28:13] Another thing we wanted to talk about is how like this isn't just white men like white women are a big part of this problem.

[00:28:22] So another part of this fallout has been, like we were saying at Refinery29, it's finished show. Vogue has been in the crosshairs. The wing, which is not really an outlet. There's definitely a media darling and like a connection hot spot for people. And media has been in hot water. And there's probably a bunch of others that are missing. And there is this really good piece that came out recently called The End of the Girl. Boss is here and I can't resist the urge to read a quick excerpt from it.

[00:28:52] So indulge me.

[00:28:55] The gap between everything that successful men took for granted and everything that ambitious women won, it became outrageous, tender for the girl bosses fire. Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential run was the match that lit the flame. It was the total. It was a total girl boss move to run again. After losing the primary to Obama in 2008, the white girl boss and so many of them were, white said at the unique intersection of oppression and privilege. She saw gender, gender inequity everywhere she looked. This gave her something to wage war against racial inequity. It was never really on her radar.

[00:29:33] I actually am really thrilled to see white women be called to the mat on this stuff because I do feel like a lot of them hiding behind patriarchy. And this is beyond justice, you know, in the media. I think that light is always like dismantle the patriarchy. But like, the closer you get is like, are you really trying to dismantle the page for sure? Or you're just trying to remake it in your own image.

[00:29:54] And like, I need to know what the end goal is so I can decide if I belong here or not. So, yeah, I don't know.

[00:30:01] You know what. Yeah. I guess differences, though, that I think is important. And I'm going to be really careful about how easy this is that the role of the media is to be a watchdog, is to look at government and look at companies, society. Society was supposed to investigate. We're supposed to shine a light into places. But partly and Amy might be able to speak more to this than I can just because of the media consolidation and just the way the media has shaped up in the post Internet age, where a lot of media outlets are financially struggling.

[00:30:39] It's also a very, for lack of a better word, incestuous. Yeah.

[00:30:47] Yelled rape.

[00:30:48] So, like you, even though you don't work at publication X, you may not want to piss off publication X because you might want a job. There, five years ran a line, right?

[00:31:01] Yeah. And so. I have.

[00:31:07] So there is a inherent disincentive to investigate ourselves.

[00:31:13] I mean, this is actually part of why I started doing so much kind of just on my own, because the vast majority of national outlets are not open to media criticism of anything that they are also complicit in. They're just not.

[00:31:31] And like I had a couple of stories where editors, you know, I would write it. They'd be like, oh, yeah, this is great.

[00:31:37] And then they would just sort of like slowly and surgically remove any mention of anything that they are also like that they have also done in the past or that they still do today or whatever.

[00:31:48] And I just was like the other thing I want to point out is you've talked a lot about race in journalism. But I also think it's really important to talk about the level of affluence that a lot of people in journalism have. And also the the bifurcation of like Whelton journals and so, like entry level job. It is not uncommon for there to be a 20 thousand dollar. Twenty five thousand dollar a year fellowship for journalism in at an elite publication in a in a high cost rate like so. Not that many people can take those jobs even if you can take those jobs. Even if you decide to make it work where you do the fellowship during the day and you're like wait tables at night, well, the colleague that comes from an affluent family and that's giving them money under the table is like using the time that you're working, waiting tables to network. Great. Like that is like a cognac difference. And oftentimes they tell people that there's like affluence. In in journalism, and they look at me and they're like they think, you know, they think like the upper middle class suburb down the road, we're like that has a really nice swimming pool. And I'm and I'm not talking. I mean, yes, that that that is true.

[00:32:51] There is also that kind of wealth in journalism. But I'm also talking about like extreme levels of like generational walls, like people that really don't need to work.

[00:33:03] Yeah, you can take an unpaid internship. I mean, that's really all I mean, right.

[00:33:08] I mean, people who as adults probably don't live on their galleries. It's what I'm telling you.

[00:33:12] Like, yeah, like There,. You know, they're out there, too.

[00:33:15] They're making decent grown up money. But they are so affluent that they don't actually need. The money that like you and I live off of Jimmy.

[00:33:25] Yeah. Like, they don't need to support themselves with their job. Yeah.

[00:33:28] And so that totally skews the way that they view the world and their reporting rate. In many cases, they have and have more in common with the power structures that they are recruiting on and the people that they're extensively reporting to. Yes, for sure.

[00:33:54] It's not just white people, nonblacks are also responsible for combating Antep blackness. I'm glad that people are starting to write about this because I think this is something that I've thought about as a mixed person and also like someone who gets assumed white most of the time. My name's Amy Westervelt. Hello.

[00:34:16] But I definitely have been in the position where, like, you know, things are happening that I know are not quite right. And I feel like it's like not my place to say something. And I think a lot of people who are in media in general, like just to get over that, like it's absolutely your place to say something if you see bad shit happening.

[00:34:40] Right. If you say something, you say. Exactly.

[00:34:42] So I want to read this like a little bit from this. There was an op ed from Amanda Zamora called Overcoming Systemic Racism Begins in Our Own Newsrooms. And she talks about this a little bit like she has grappled with, you know, when when she should say something and, you know, worrying about like appropriateness and respectability. Which actually I think is you were kind of getting at this before, Kendra. I think it's like part of what's been good about this whole reckoning is that so many people have spoken out that maybe people feel a little bit less like if I say anything, I'm going to ruin my career about it. I don't know.

[00:35:23] [00:35:23]What's interesting is that, like, they're like white men have been accused of like sexual harassment and plagiarism who have managed to get up for better or worse. Yeah. It often just feels like media as an institution has a very thin. Yes. Is very. And so the difference in those two scenarios is you're you're harming an individual. And I'm not minimizing that. But pointing out flaws with an institution means that the institution has to reckon with it, has to reckon with it. Right. [27.8s]

[00:35:51] [00:35:51]Like, it's my you to be like, oh, you did a bad thing to a person who reference institution. We'll let you go even although they don't always do that. [8.3s]

[00:35:59] [00:35:59]Yeah. Like we have H.R. policies that deal with that. [2.3s]

[00:36:02] [00:36:02]That's. Yeah. But there aren't really great policies to point out the fact that your institution is problem. [4.8s]

[00:36:07] [00:36:07]That's a really good point. [0.8s] OK. So this is called overcoming systemic racism begins in our own newsrooms by Amanda Sub Maura. And it was in Poynter as much as I've grappled with this dual identity. I know. I've also benefited from it.

[00:36:28] Employers have gladly ticked their diversity boxes on account of my being Hispanic while I've reaped all the benefits of being white, including the ability to use my voice in ways that my black and brown colleagues never could. And well, I knew these things. I rarely speak about them throughout my 18 years in professional journalism. I have been profoundly uncomfortable claiming my full identity to Latin next upbringing that informs my desire to make journalism more diverse and responsive to the communities we serve and the white privilege that affords me a life and career that shouldn't be any more accessible to me simply because I am less of a threat to my white colleagues. But I've come to realize that no matter how much quote unquote good we think we do through our journalism, elevating voices, exposing wrongdoing, holding the powerful to account, the silence we wield within our own newsrooms is as dangerous as it is hypocritical.

[00:37:26] I love that. So I do think I hope that this is like a broader and more lasting change in media.

[00:37:33] I got to say, one of the most up noxious creatures to me is the Wolke.

[00:37:39] You know, I mean, like the ones who like they like want your adulation and gratitude as like their protectors from all of this other racism. And like, they always see racism as something that exists. And other people and their job as the good one, because they have deemed themselves good, is to like be your shield and be your savings. I actually bet you're really fucking racist and I really love for you to do. Yeah.

[00:38:06] Also, like I will say that I'm third to one. I definitely it's too farseeing to me. I didn't talk in school until some grade. You know, it would talk and talk in school that I would talk if I was picked on, but I wouldn't speak up. You know, I was never wanted out of Malfi, kid. I was the quiet kid corner with her face in a book you never copy, unignorable.

[00:38:28] And then some great aide, a teacher who like, kind of told me out, Michelle. But that was still pretty much de facto my like in school personality through like until college, really. And I bring this up because, like, I definitely did speak up at my last job. And it definitely. Wasn't always welcomed. But I also want to say that there were people, there were white women who were actually allies who didn't attract attention, turns out who quietly did the work. Yes, it is possible it can happen. And I just want to acknowledge their existence.

[00:39:09] Yeah. Them that also like thing it is, you have to exist.

[00:39:14] I'm hoping, you know, there's been this rush of people buying all of these books about race and race theory. And I'm hoping some people actually read them and take something away from it. But the thing that I think the other reason I wanted to bring up is I actually like. I didn't start speaking up until the year I turned into my mid thirties, basically. And what the way Freeze did and the way that I it worked for me as someone who, like many of us, is women. You grew up very Catholic, have been sort of conditioned not to be aggressive, to be sort of like quiet is. I wasn't so much speaking up so much as I was spreading the discomfort around, because oftentimes your interactions with people and they're making me profoundly uncomfortable and they get away with it. Right. They get to be in the action of feeling comfort while they're pushing their discomfort on me. And so I just rephrase it as like I'm going to share this discomfort. Like, you can have some, too. We can all be comfortable together. Yeah. Right. The thing that I realized is that a lot of people, a lot of white people or and I think this is just like I think it's probably true of anyone who lives in a place where they're the dominant group, are not used to being uncomfortable with it like that is not a team part of their life. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

[00:40:31] But back to this PSA Amy was reading from. I think what's so interesting about it is like it's what we're dealing with is more so anti blackness than anything else. And so a lot of the times, you know, these organizations, these outlets will be like, well, we have a diverse newsroom.

[00:40:48] We've got like, you know, they'll bring out other people of color who work there who are already like a precious minority or so like they love all people of color into one group. The L.A. Times is a heavily black city. And I've got like one black person on the Metro that screams like that's a problem when you put it right.

[00:41:07] And then they'll be like, oh, but there's this fifteen people of color on the metro desk, which is already like a minority.

[00:41:13] And they'll be like, yes, Minori, we're working on it. But then you dig in deeper and it's like one black person and that's just not acceptable.

[00:41:19] And this is an I don't know, I can't speak to the L.A. Times. And this is just in general, I don't know. I don't know the demographics of the Star Tribune. So I'm not at all disparaging them. But it's also not enough to be like, what? Great Lake Minneapolis is a pretty Somali, right? Great. Yeah. Yeah, I like it really. Like, you know, like you can't bring me There, and expect me. I don't know, I don't know much about symbolical great diversity is more complicated than black or white. You know, Mary is from Mississippi, Alabama and both of them. Yeah. Know I'm from New York and I'm for some American. My parents are from Haiti. Right. We have this big differences in common, but we also have different. Yes. But, you know, my mom thinks she's Haitian. That's why my middle name is Haitian. So really?

[00:42:11] Yeah, that's what my Haitian novel. She's a French.

[00:42:17] There's like there's like this long love story between African-Americans specifically in the South and, like, adoring Haiti. The next thing we wanted to talk about is like this bigger idea of what the fuck even is objectivity.

[00:42:52] And so this is from a reckoning over objectivity led by black journalists by Wesley Lowery.

[00:43:02] Since American journalism's pivot many decades ago from an openly partizan press to a model of professed objectivity, the mainstream is elaborate. It considers objective truth to be decided almost exclusively by white reporters and their mostly white bosses. And those selective truths have been calibrated to avoid offending the sensibilities of white readers on opinion pages to countries of acceptable public debate have largely been determined through the gaze of white editors. The views and inclinations of whiteness are accepted as objective, neutral. Black and brown reporters and editors challenges as conventions. It's not uncommon for them to be pushed out, reprimanded or robbed of new opportunities. Those of us advancing this argument know that a fairness and truth focus will have different healthy interpretations. We also know that neutral, objective journalism is constructed atop a pyramid of subjective decision making, which stories to cover, how intensely to cover those stories, which sources to seek out and include, which pieces of information are highlighted and which are downplayed. No journalistic process is objective, and no individual journalist is objective because no human being is. Neutral objectivity trips over itself to find ways to avoid telling the truth. Neutral objectivity insists we use clunky euphemisms like officer involved, shooting moral clarity and a faithful adherence to grammar and syntax. But demand reads words that most precisely mean the thing we're trying to communicate.

[00:44:21] The police shot someone.

[00:44:25] Yeah, I think this piece is actually one of the most foundational, if you want to understand what's happening with our our media landscape right now, actually, because after reading it, I understand that when people say objectivity, it sounds like it's really what I mean as neutrality and neutrality is always in service of the status quo.

[00:44:47] Exactly. Yeah.

[00:44:50] Yeah. I mean, it's it's mean. There's so. There's been quite a few different history books that have tried to get at. Like where objectivity came from. And this idea in the press that you should be objective, quote unquote.

[00:45:06] But mostly it seems to have arrived right alongside advertising.

[00:45:14] So, like, even from the beginning, it was sort of the idea was to cover up stuff.

[00:45:20] That's to me, that's the idea of objectivity, is to cover up the truth.

[00:45:26] Under this kind of mask of, you know, quote unquote balance or objectivity. Humans are not objective. Everybody has personal experiences that they bring to their reporting.

[00:45:40] And forever, the the you know, the idea has been that the sort of the white and usually male experience is the default and therefore the sort of center objective truth. It's just. Yeah, I think. Yeah. You know, a lot of people have been arguing for the dismantling of that for a long time. And I hope that this is like the nail in the coffin. But we'll see. It's.

[00:46:08] Yeah. I don't know his I feel like even after a lot of the papers started kind of properly reporting what was happening with the protests and using the the active voice in describing police behavior instead of defaulting to passive voice. And yeah, I think more recently, cutting out the police unions. Still, I was going through and so a lot of publications are kind of continuing to do it wrong.

[00:46:31] This was a really interesting piece to see published in The New York Times, because it really is like super critical of the media industry at large. And specifically of The New York Times. And I'm thinking about what you're saying earlier about like media industry doesn't really like to criticize itself. So to me, I don't know, maybe this is just like people somebody covering their own ass. But it does seem very fascinating to me that they publish something this scathing of the way that news is reporting.

[00:47:04] It's important to note a couple of things. One, it published in the wake of the Tom Cotton op ed. So, yeah, and the media fallout. But also, like, I think your readers may not know and feel comfortable saying this because The Daily Beast wrote it up. Otherwise, I don't like hearing people's laundry. But like so Wesley Lowery was he's now at CBS and Ribhi, but he was at The Washington Post. He's a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist for his work on policing. He did a ton and he went out to God. We're in St. Louis, where did the guy from outside St. Louis live? He was killed four years ago. Ferguson. Ferguson. Ferguson is like many.

[00:47:46] There are too many. Yeah, right. He he he went out to Ferguson and that and he ended up creating this database of policing and it won the Pulitzer. And shortly not shortly after, but at some point afterwards, The New York Times ran a story about the origin of the Tea Party. And he wrote a tweet that said and their origin of the Tea Party completely framed it as a.

[00:48:07] Grassroots movement that was about small government and about reclaiming ownership. And it completely alighted past the fact that there is also a racism element as to why the Tea Party formed and because they are worried about losing out as the demographic shift in United States.

[00:48:23] So Wesley tweeted the link to that story and tweeted, put in a comment about how like it doesn't include it's like a historical because it excluded this kind of very key part of the Tea Party identity. He almost got fired over it. Wow. Marty Baron, apparently I don't.

[00:48:42] This is all based on reporting. Who's that? Marty Baron, who's had the. Oh, God. But he's like the head of the publisher. Editor. Editor for The Washington Post. He's the publisher of The Washington Post. Apparently pulled him into a meeting and was like, you should listen to me. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And like, came dangerously close to hiring him. And this is a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter who's also a young black man. He's I think he's barely 30. And, you know, shortly, not long afterwards, was we left, relatively speaking and, you know, my understanding is that was definitely a factor in his decision to go. But also, he was right. Like nothing. He got in jail for a tweet that was technically accurate. And eventually The New York Times updated their story to include like a sentence about like racial animus or something. But like he fundamentally almost get fired over making a tweet that was factually correct. But meet somebody in power uncomfortable. Right.

[00:49:50] So L.A. Times is going to try to recruit more people of color and more black people.

[00:49:55] Bonaparte Tee's says they're gonna try to do the same thing. And going to, like, overhaul US coverage to censor rather than patronize the contributions of marginalized people. Washington Post in The New York Times are also trying to do some overhauling of their hiring practices. I know Washington Post is hiring of race in America. A writer with Beats Beatson, criminal justice in Nash, white nationalism, domestic terrorism and health disparities. Interestingly, not climate. But we'll get to that. And yeah, The New York Times is trying to get someone at the top of the company.

[00:50:31] So this has a lot to me like what I'm really familiar with in nonprofit spaces, which is like basically creating a diversity officer position.

[00:50:40] And those can go well and those can go not well. And yeah, what do we think of these efforts?

[00:50:49] I think that they will only work if you put people in position with hiring and firing capacity. Yes.

[00:50:57] Because oftentimes everybody knows who the toxic person is. But they're in a position of power and they can't be moved. And so you can't get anything done. Right. With those gift cards.

[00:51:09] And, you know, both of you guys know this writing and being added, it is actually a very.

[00:51:16] Intimate thing. It is.

[00:51:19] And so you have to trust your editor as much as they trust you as a reporter. In fact, in many ways you actually do trust your editor more because they get the final say. Yeah. And so if your editor it's problematic. If your editors resist, if you're under sexist creditors, homophobic. If your editor is not receptive to pushback from a reporter because the reporter knows more, which generally like we do not miss way, but we are the ones who spent hours and hours and hours actually doing. The research on this topic. Then you're still gonna get the same final product.

[00:51:54] And we know that it has to like race, like climate has to be in exotically, not literally. Yes, but like it it. Yeah, it is. It is everything. If you're reporting on housing and you're not and you don't understand housing discrimination and you don't understand redlining, you're going to have a very bad, ah or, um, nuanced article rate like General, I'm probably going to have an inaccurate article that paints an accurate picture at best.

[00:52:22] Yeah, I think that it is very possible for these efforts if they're not done well, if they're are done in this like really reactionary knee-jerk sort of way could just become a Band-Aid on a gaping wound.

[00:52:34] And I'll I'll believe these places are serious when they start dismantling their bureaucracy, because that is really what entrenches and enforces and damn near guarantees white supremacy. Right.

[00:52:47] Because everybody has got like just a little bit enough of power that they can't really do anything except the people who, like, really want to, you know, enforce the status quo.

[00:52:57] And those are the people who wind up having all the power. So it's like HRR can't really fire someone they know is problematic because of all these other, like, hoops that they have to go through. And another person and the press another button, it just like that is what black people mean when we say the system is racist, like the system is literally racist.

[00:53:14] And it's one element, too, which is media is a very who knows who industry. And I didn't realize that. Yeah, sometimes you can't fire people because you know where the bodies are buried. Yeah. If you like. That's the other thing. There are some very bad people in media. Yes, that's true. Yes. Yes, I, I have been very used to sort of run of the mill. Kind of. Mockery. If that makes any sense. Like I said, I worked for a person at one point who was, you know, openly kind of sexist, kind of racist, kind of homophobic, like not a nice kid. But he actually wasn't a bad. I didn't say that's exactly. He wasn't. He wasn't like a nihilist. Like he didn't like it was his world view was really problematic. If that makes amends and I definitely wasn't this was pre journalism, just so you like. But it wasn't like he had a messed up world view. But it's not like something he reveled in. Do you I mean, it's not like he went around, like, attacking you, right? Like in his free time. Right. Right. I'm like I'm not at all like excusing it or anything, but like but there are people who are genuinely in media who generally enjoy drama and.

[00:54:31] Some power and control over people to a degree that I just did not understand when I became a journalist.

[00:54:38] I think there's a lot of real, like megalomaniacs in media.

[00:54:41] I mean, I really think there's like a lot of ego problems and a lot of like I mean, we saw it a little bit in that, like, post wave of media freight, like like there are lots of you know. But what I'm getting at is there are people who are like maybe not going to sexually harass you, but that are still like not great people and. Right.

[00:55:00] And There,. And I don't know what you do about those people, but those people are often not often, but like enough in positions of power or there, like or they're only mean to people below them, but not above them.

[00:55:12] They're like they're right. They're bullies. Their families. Yeah. That lake. When you when people come in and say this person has a problem, they're not hurt, the people who have power over that person, to them, that person is great.

[00:55:27] Exactly. And they've already, like, sort of painted the people underneath them as like a problem and making it seem like they're doing such a great job to be able to manage with these people.

[00:55:36] Yeah, that definitely happens. And I think this goes to something else I've seen you say on Twitter, which is like this weaponization of prestige that happens in media. I've definitely seen it as a freelancer with editors, editors who like you know, I've rented about this many times on the show, but like editors who are like, oh, that your experience didn't happen to you.

[00:55:56] I'm gonna edit that out. You're welcome. And then they're always shocked as fuck when I yell at them. And like when I fight back, because a lot of people, like, see the prestige and don't want to fight back or they see, like, the money and can't fight back. And so, like, they really, like, use There,. I'm just going to pick on Condé Nast or Hearst or like whatever masthead they have, it's like cower people and silence them. And like, I could totally see that being used as like a really powerful weapon against people early in their career for sure.

[00:56:30] And there's a flip side, too, which is like when I was repurchased or is it easier to say that I work for The New York Times to get them to pick up the phone, going to say we're for popular sites like that just to see.

[00:56:40] Yeah. Yeah. And so there's, you know, like.

[00:56:45] The institution can become your identity, and if, yeah, that identity and form, you become terrified of losing that identity, which is why to such a degree that lots of times people within institutions, if they're in because rightly, we need to be clear, like institutions overall can be problematic.

[00:57:05] But even within a problematic institution, there are pockets of it that are like. Not that they're good managers or good editors are places where you can find a way to work well within an institution. And so oftentimes some people are working in a situation within some of these procedure institutions that they find untenable. The solution that they find is just watch beeps and they move to a different place. And that allows them to get out of that situation. Of course, if you have an expertize or are very well known for that, you're essentially trading off your expertize for that institution. Right? Because it takes years to build up an expertize. So, you know, if Amy decides suddenly that she really wants to be a fashion reporter, she would have difficulty because nobody knows her as a fashion reporter. She has to build it. Right. And just so you're already kind of putting yourself at a disadvantage.

[00:57:54] Right. Right. And you're doing that because you're essentially trading off the work that you're doing for the institution. Yes.

[00:58:01] Yes. I see so many people doing that. I like big name outlets. And it's just like. Yeah. But it is how the system works. And it does help you get like your next job.

[00:58:22] So we are a climate.

[00:58:25] So, yeah. We're all climate people, so less tired together. Yeah.

[00:58:30] I mean actually the other activities I think like is the biggest place where I see so many parallels to climate and the false balance thing.

[00:58:39] I see the same thing that like, you know, because it's objectivity. I spent something like 20 years like elevating climate denial was messaging that wasn't real great. Like they were giving equal weight when we knew even you know, we knew for quite some time that the climate was warming like there wasn't a debate anymore. But you wouldn't know that if reading the newspapers.

[00:58:59] Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. I think another way that is related is like the lack of diversity in the newsroom. I think that speaks volumes as to why the concerns of people of color and the disproportionate impacts of climate on people of color and like low income communities really is not covered that well. Right. Like, I was reading an article about how like hurricane coverage.

[00:59:26] Very rarely covers communities of color in any sort of depth. And that's why, like, people don't make those connections. [00:59:34]They don't make the connection between racism and climate, because the stories will, by and large, not getting told because of who is in the room and who knows the answer. What question? [8.8s]

[00:59:45] [00:59:45]It's not always just who's in the room. It's who will let you do that story. [3.9s]

[00:59:51] [00:59:51]Right. And some newsrooms. And this is shifting, I think climate itself is seen as an activist issue. And so when you add climate and you add race, you're talking about two activist issues. And that's money. And so one of the things that's really interesting, it would be really fascinating if somebody sat down and quantified. If climate coverage this year in particular has changed versus last year, like in terms of covering communities of color. Because, you know, it is not the thing that I don't think is always silly, like when you're a freelancer, if you have an idea for spring, you want to do it. You pitch it and you can keep pitching. If you think it's important, you can keep pitching in until somebody says, yes, you can find someone. Yeah. Yes. But when you're on staff, you can pitch an idea and they say no and you can pitch it and they say no. And that's usually kind of the end of it. [48.3s] Right. And generally, you can't do the rules of the newsroom. You know, very. But like, it can be very difficult for you to that pitch someplace else.

[01:00:48] If you have rules or you can't just get on medium. Yeah. I mean, I'm not disagreeing with you.

[01:00:52] I absolutely think that, like, who's in the room, it's absolutely a factor. But I also think that you can have the right people in the room.

[01:00:57] But if the people on an editorial position are the wrong people, their stories still are going through.

[01:01:04] Yeah. So it matters who's in the room and where they sit in the room. Right. So, yeah.

[01:01:09] Because if you have someone with that perspective and there, an editor, they can assign that piece. Right. So it actually. Right. It doesn't know. It doesn't go up. It can go. Right.

[01:01:19] Right. And I think that has to do with like why so many of the climate stories are just about like regurgitation of scientific reports, because I think a lot of white men sees climate as just like a simple science problem, like put the thing where the thing needs to go and then, like, we've got the problem and they don't see, like, the bigger political problems with it. They don't see the bigger historical context.

[01:01:43] And so is covered in this really technical the balkinization you write, like the local reporters, cover the physical parts of climate science, Friday's science, parts of climate, and then, like the cultural people, cause of the cultural climate and the accurate science reporter. And you're trying I can speak from experience and you're trying to kind of weave together some of the historical and the cultural components you face a lot of years back, even if you're right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[01:02:07] And also, this makes me worry about, like, how many black writers and journalists have been just pushed out of the industry altogether because of these toxic work environment and toxic and also really hard to meet back financially.

[01:02:22] I mean, it's so hard to make a living as a dress and like it was hard ten years ago and it's only gotten worse.

[01:02:30] And I don't know, like I don't know how we fix that problem of, like, the deeply entrenched problem of media's business model. The fact that it's fundamentally opposed to the role that it should play in society, which is to inform people and to shine a light on, you know, bad behavior and all these things like how can you do that if it's totally dependent on powerful advertisers or access to powerful politicians? And you have to be independently wealthy to open it.

[01:03:04] The other thing I want to I want to kind of push back on it, which this is maybe very like an ego thing, but like the L.A. Times food editor who allegedly I don't know if you know the full sweep, which is he actually lived in New York and you never lived in California. Now, very you know, he would buy a parent. Allegedly.

[01:03:23] I'm going off of the tweets, alleged carpetbagger and disappear like once a month.

[01:03:28] And, yeah, once a month for a week. But anyway, apparently he was making three hundred thousand dollars a year. And so you bring this up because like we often say that there's no money in journalism and that they're like, I'm not minimizing the budget issues and I'm not minimizing the financing. But I also want to point out that there are some people who are making a ton of money yet journalism, and also that television journalism, for example, is absurdly guessable, are like lucrative, you know. And I tweeted this during the elections, but like, it makes me bananas every time I watch. The debate, which is that like those anchors that are interrogating or president candidates about their policies and especially as approaching like middle class Americans sort of are literal millionaires, rightly like Leah, like when Elizabeth Warren is on that stage talking about her tax plan, the tax plan that she is floating will hurt their net worth will hurt them worth of the anchors that are grilling her. Right. Yeah, it won't hurt my worth because my net worth is negative. I have student loans.

[01:04:30] And TV journalism. That's one we haven't really talked about here yet. I haven't heard much about like this fall out happening with them, but I assume it's coming and they are especially egregious when it comes to climate coverage.

[01:04:46] One. One thing that I guess I just want to quickly correct. TV reporting actually is my major problem as like print or new media, which is that like, you know, like the TV anchor for your local station that like probably makes like 30 or 40 grand a year.

[01:05:02] To be clear, if that guy is, you know, that guy is not a millionaire. But Jake Tapper and like the ones we know by name and one is really poorly are like, yeah, and or MSNBC or whatever many of them are.

[01:05:14] Yes. Dreamily, incredibly, incredibly wealthy.

[01:05:17] Anyway, it's just important to point that out lately.

[01:05:21] But somehow it's become very gauche to point out that different people have different passengers.

[01:05:47] OK. What do you call a laughing jar of Mannie's you LML?

[01:05:56] I insult everyone treated here.

[01:06:01] So a mantra jive Manet's at me earlier and I was like, what the hell man, you your you're canceled. I've canceled.

[01:06:10] You put up with me.

[01:06:13] Can wait.

[01:06:16] All right. What did the man they say when the refrigerator door was opened?

[01:06:22] I. I'm bad at jokes and I hate Mamie's, so neither gendering meet it closed the door. I'm dressing any leftover cabbage can and will be shredded and mixed with mayonnaise is coleslaw.

[01:06:40] No.

[01:06:42] Also there are lots and lots of delicious vinegar based coleslaw. Thank you. You don't need minutes. You need minutes for nothing.

[01:06:50] What's the difference between mayonnaise and Iole? Is this a joke or do you want to know in your life there isn't a difference there. And the joke is a Yoli did a semester abroad.

[01:07:01] There actually is a different I. What's the difference?

[01:07:06] See you. You know, my my Mayeux hatred is correct because I actually knew this. So Mayeux Mayo, I believe he's like an emotion of like Exxon oil. But I only emotion of garlic and oil. Oh, I didn't know that. OK.

[01:07:23] Mm hmm. All right. Speaking of eggs, I'm so tired from eating mayonnaise all day. I'm exhausted. I'm.

[01:07:49] Great. So great to talk to her. She was the perfect guest to open up season two.

[01:07:55] Yeah, I completely agree. And to our listeners, if you have ideas for guests or themes, please do send them to us. You can e-mail us at hot takes at Critical Frequency, There, Orwig. That's hot takes plural. And you can send in questions for us there. And we might just answer them on the show or in the newsletter, which you should be subscribe to.

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[01:09:03] Yet we felt really strongly that story, this important shouldn't live behind a paywall. So we produce a free newsletter that has the roundup of stories, plus at least one piece of original content from us and teasers for the premium newsletter.

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[01:09:34] Yeah. And you should follow us individually to an at Mary Hechler. And Amy is at Amy WRVO. You should also follow Kendra. Kendra writes, She's actually become my favorite person on Twitter, so make sure that you do that.

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[01:09:57] Okay. That's it for this episode. Be on the lookout for more in the coming weeks. We're also going to play around more with episode lengths and types of guests we have on the show. So excited to bring all of that to you. Yeah, sure. Okay. Taxi eleganza.