JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Good evening, and welcome to a special edition of Washington Week.

Our subject tonight is the future of the media, Washington media, corporate media, all media.

And my guest is one of the great analysts and interpreters of our communications future, Kara Swisher.

She is the host of the podcast "On with Kara Swisher," and the co-host of "Pivot."

And she's great, and I'm glad you're here.

KARA SWISHER, Co-Host, "Pivot": Thank you.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Yeah.

KARA SWISHER: The future of media.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: The future, you are.

KARA SWISHER: All right.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You are the future of media.

KARA SWISHER: I'm kind of old.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You know what the future of media is?

KARA SWISHER: What?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Washington Week with The Atlantic.

KARA SWISHER: Oh, OK. JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That's -- yeah.

KARA SWISHER: All right.

OK. JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I just -- you heard it here -- KARA SWISHER: Yeah.

OK. Good.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: -- first and possibly last.

KARA SWISHER: Yeah.

T.V.

numbers are -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: No, we're good.

KARA SWISHER: OK. JEFFREY GOLDBERG: We're good.

Everybody at home, we're good.

KARA SWISHER: All right.

OK. JEFFREY GOLDBERG: We're great.

KARA SWISHER: All right.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: All right, Kara.

First things first, let's talk about Donald Trump and his relationship to the media.

KARA SWISHER: Sure.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I want you to watch something, actually, before we go into this.

This is Trump just the other day.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: These networks and these cable networks are real losers.

They're gutless losers.

I say that to CNN because I watch it.

I have no choice.

I've got to watch that garbage.

It's all garbage.

It's all fake news.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So the large question is, 10 years, what have you learned about Washington media in particular by watching Washington media cover Trump?

But, you know, the specific question on that is, what is he doing there?

What's this performance about?

KARA SWISHER: Well, this is a lot of his old performances.

He does a lot of oldies and he's very good at them.

You know, he's -- I think here it's interesting.

He's talking about cable and calling them losers, and yet he can't stop talking about them, which it make -- which says more about Donald Trump than about cable.

He's right, in fact, that cable's gone down precipitously and that viewers are going elsewhere and everything else.

But he has a fixation on it, and I would say that would be a weakness of his.

But in the case of people covering him, is they're covering - - they don't understand what a phenomena he is from a media point of view.

You don't love to give Donald Trump a compliment some of the time, but he's really good at media, or the new media, almost by accident but also intuitively.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

So when he's going after CNN, does he -- is he really angry at CNN or is that a professional wrestling performance?

KARA SWISHER: Well, you've been in that situation where he said, right?

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That is true.

That is true.

KARA SWISHER: What's the first thing he said to you?

I'm going to get your ratings up.

Everything is about ratings for Donald Trump and about performance and performative behavior.

Like, we obliterated them.

Like, they didn't obliterate them, but he felt he had to say it, and so he sets the tone.

And he does understand, again, in a lizard brain that he has here, because I wouldn't say he's modern in terms of, he's somewhat of a Luddite when it comes to technology.

KARA SWISHER: But he does understand how it moves through the system.

And he has always done that, whether it was back -- way back in the day when he did "The Apprentice" or to now.

He is the one who really has -- everyone thought Obama was the digital president, but this is the guy who is.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That's interesting.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You think Trump is better at digital than Barack Obama?

KARA SWISHER: Absolutely.

Yes, yeah.

He understands the nature of it, the virality, the posting, the ability to get things going and then move on to the next thing.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: The domination of the cycle.

KARA SWISHER: Domination, or just the spectacle of it.

KARA SWISHER: He does understand it, and he understands the speed of it.

And the word they use is snackable moments.

That's what he does really well.

And then you move on.

And then the media, the older media, is caught here, like, looking at what he said, but he's gone on to the next thing.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You know, what's so interesting about this is, we talked about this when I was on your podcast, in the Signal controversy.

KARA SWISHER: Right.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: What -- I asked him, you know, what did you learn from that?

Or why did you think that I was, quote, successful?

That's what he posted in the Signal moment.

KARA SWISHER: Right.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And he said, well, because you got a lot of attention.

KARA SWISHER: Right.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It wasn't that we plugged a gap in the national security communications apparatus.

KARA SWISHER: Right.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: It was like -- KARA SWISHER: Good job on that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: -- it was like -- and it was that the news cycle didn't belong to him for several hours.

And whoever can take the news cycle away from him gets his kind of attention.

KARA SWISHER: Yeah, yeah.

It was good on you.

It was like you created a moment, and a viral moment.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

KARA SWISHER: And so he understands virality better than almost any politician.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, talk about the Washington press corps, and take us from the escalator moment, when we're dealing with this.

Because remember, the escalator moment was also the Mexican rapist moment.

KARA SWISHER: It was.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: That was when, oh, we're going there?

KARA SWISHER: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And so take us through this, and give me your analysis.

How well is the Washington media writ large doing, the mainstream traditional media?

KARA SWISHER: Badly, if they're -- if following him.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Still?

KARA SWISHER: Yes, some of it.

No, some of the people that are doing the investigative stuff, they're doing their job great.

This -- they're uncovering it.

The question is, how much do people actually care?

And that's a very different discussion to be having.

But one of the things that they -- when they -- when he came down that escalator, I tell this story a lot.

But I was at a Washington party.

It was a barbecue, and everyone was making fun of him.

Like, oh, how silly.

This is so silly.

I had watched all "The Apprentices."

I liked "The Apprentice."

I thought it was a good show.

I knew it was wrestling.

I got it.

It was not really business.

And he isn't a very good business person.

But it didn't -- it hardly mattered.

It was a good story.

And I said, oh, I don't know.

I think he's kind of appealing.

And they were like, oh, it's ridiculous.

He's a clown.

I'm like, yeah, but I like him, and I'm a lesbian from San Francisco.

Like, what does that say?

And I have liberal leanings.

And it was interesting that they didn't take the seriousness of what he was aspirational.

He looked like a business person.

He was people's version of a rich person.

And he played the part really well.

And I think they tried to pretend that didn't matter, so much so that if you remember, "The Huffington Post" put him in the entertainment section.

And I got in an argument with her.

I'm like, no, he has sense of humor.

He's got speed.

He does understand digital really well, intuitively, at the very least.

Maybe he is, you know, covfefe, whatever.

KARA SWISHER: But he does understand.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: He's not great at spelling or typing, which is, by the way, weirdly part of the charm.

KARA SWISHER: Right, exactly.

But it doesn't matter.

He's into it.

And he does understand the speed and virality.

And that's when everything started to change with Twitter, which was, it used to be about context, speed for sure, the internet, and getting the right thing, Google.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: So if you were the czar of all mainstream media, which you're not, but if you were, and you were in charge of telling the mainstream newspapers, the networks, "CNN," "The Atlantic," "The New Yorker," et cetera, the wire services, this is the way you should cover Donald Trump.

This would be the way to do it.

What would that way be?

KARA SWISHER: I think you have to, look, there's a part for investigative reporting, which is very different, right?

It is, like you have to do, look at the -- accountability journalism is critical.

And reporting is the best way to handle it.

Like this, he says this, this is what happened.

He says this, but one of the things they were doing is they sort of lived in this.

I remember being in the biggest argument with "The Washington Post" editor about the word lie.

They wouldn't use the word lie.

They were living in a different era than this guy was.

And so I was like, he's lying.

And they're like, yeah, we can't say lie because we don't know his intent.

I'm like, well, then you've already lost the thing he is.

And one of the difficulties was, is sort of saying what was happening.

They wanted - - they were assuming everything was the same, the same rules applied.

And it didn't with this guy because he was able to go around them.

They hardly mattered, especially with the people that voted for him.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

So let me ask you this, is trust in the mainstream media low because of Trump's attacks or because we're bad at our jobs or both or something else entirely?

KARA SWISHER: I don't pay a lot of attention to that because trust in the media has always been bad, going back to revolutionary times.

I mean, like, sorry, they jailed journalists then.

They didn't like journalists was an ick profession.

There was only a period of time when we were heroes, which is during Watergate.

And so media love has not been a great big thing for a long, long time.

I do think one of the things is we're not making things.

We don't look at media as a little bit like product.

We're not making things people want to consume.

And there are ways to look at "The Atlantic."

You're growing like crazy.

Why is that?

It's not because you're doing like viral videos.

I don't see Jeff Goldberg, like, Mr.

Beast burying himself in six feet of earth and seeing what happens.

Like, you know -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Although that's not a bad idea.

KARA SWISHER: I think it's a great idea.

You're making products people want to buy.

Like, and I think that's got lost among the media, not understanding the financial dynamics for sure, which was that Facebook and Google were sucking up all the oxygen in advertising and not shifting fast enough in that regard and still making the same.

It was like butter churns.

I kept going -- when I was at "The Washington Post."

I was like, we're making butter churns, like nobody wants a butter churn.

Like, you know, and -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You felt that at "The Washington Post?"

KARA SWISHER: I did.

I did.

And then at "The Wall Street Journal," when we were -- which is why I kept creating all these entrepreneurial digital forward things first.

At one point when I was writing, I remember at the journal I was writing up earnings and I was like, why am I doing this?

Why am I spending this many minutes of my life writing something a computer could do like and a computer will do it?

And they were like, well, we have to write the earnings.

I'm like, yes, but I'm not adding.

There was nothing additive to what I was doing.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

It was just matching things -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: -- of 10 other people were doing.

KARA SWISHER: We also didn't -- one of the things we did, I think, pioneer at our different sites that we did all things D and recode was we were telling you what was happening.

And you all do that very well at "The Atlantic."

I was in -- I did a story about Webvan and I did the reporting and I wrote this is going to -- is a disaster, right?

This is a disaster.

And an editor came to me and said, well, you need to have someone else say that.

I'm like, yeah, but I did the reporting and it's a -- I can do math.

It's a disaster.

We should just say it.

And then the reader trusts us more because they're taking our -- we've done the work.

You reported analysis is valuable to people.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

KARA SWISHER: And they're like, well, you need to get someone else to say it.

And also you need to say some people say it's not -- it's going to go well.

And I was like, nobody intelligent says that.

Why should we do that?

And I think readers really trust people who, one, tell them after doing reporting what they think happened.

KARA SWISHER: And then secondly, being right later.

And I think that's one of the things.

But being right later depends on the reporting you do at the top of it.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

Let me ask you, since we both started our professional careers more or less at the "The Washington Post," which was a juggernaut.

KARA SWISHER: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And I think we both have -- KARA SWISHER: Fun.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: -- very fond feelings and memories of "The Washington Post."

Jeff Bezos, who bought it a number of years ago -- KARA SWISHER: Yeah.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: -- did fine as an owner through the first Trump term.

KARA SWISHER: Sure.

I don't remember that but.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Well, OK, then we can pick apart that in a second.

But he had Martin Baron as editor.

KARA SWISHER: Yeah.

Fantastic.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: And they held the Trump team to account, just like you would hold any administration to account.

And then something changed.

You are the anthropologist of the billionaire tech bro elite.

What happened at "The Washington Post" over the last three or four years?

KARA SWISHER: I don't think he prepared for post-Trump.

I think he wasn't involved and he should have been involved, actually a little more involved.

And I think what they did is they sort of rode on the Trump entertainment train.

And then they did -- and then you saw "The New York Times" add Wordle.

When they did Wordle everyone sort of laughed at him like, oh, good idea.

That's a great idea.

Like daily use was something you want people to do in some fashion, along with the other stuff.

But you could see news at "The New York Times" was sort of doing this.

It wasn't doing this.

You had to start to bring in other things.

And "The Post" was really -- used to be really good at that.

This -- they introduced -- Ben Bradley introduced the style section, the food section.

They were so innovative in terms of their product.

And Bezos never innovated.

That was my feeling, by not being around, because he could care less.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: There's another side of this -- KARA SWISHER: Right.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: -- which is that now he seems to be giving in to -- KARA SWISHER: Yes.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: -- demands of the Trump administration.

How do you explain that part?

KARA SWISHER: Because he wants things.

Because during the first one, remember, it was "The Washington Post"-Bezos.

Remember, they kept affiliating.

He started not getting contracts of things that he actually cared about, which was space travel, things to do with his other companies, Blue Origin, possibilities of attacks on Amazon.

Those are things he actually cares about.

I don't think he could care less about the media, honestly.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: But you really don't think, going back to your dissent before, you don't think that he did a good job in his early years as owner of "The Washington Post?"

KARA SWISHER: I think he didn't.

I think he staying away is always a good thing.

But staying away is a bad thing.

He never innovated.

And he has innovative ideas.

And he never did innovative things during that period of time that "The New York Times" did.

So I look at "The New York Times" and I look at them.

They had every opportunity to do the same thing and a better owner, by the way, who did understand where things were going digitally.

They -- it's fine, but they didn't do anything to take advantage of the next thing -- JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right.

KARA SWISHER: -- or whatever.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Are you surprised at all by the behavior of some of the network giants?

KARA SWISHER: No.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: You know where I'm going with this question.

KARA SWISHER: Yeah.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Why aren't you surprised?

KARA SWISHER: Because their interests have always been for shareholders.

And now when they're in distress because of tech companies, which has taken away their businesses and hollowed out like, you know, "ABC" is a shadow of itself.

So is CBS.

It's you know, it's lovely that someone like David Ellison wants to own it, but it's only because he has a rich dad, right?

It's not a business that's growing and maybe he could make it one.

But at this point, it's not.

And so they are under enormous pressure from a business point of view, from everything being taken away, like by the tech giants.

And now they have to protect what they have with shareholders.

And so, no, I -- there's no plus for them as a CEO, especially if you're paid for the stock price or cutting costs to get in a fight with the Trump administration.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: What about your everlasting soul?

KARA SWISHER: Well, yes, there's that.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I mean, no, and I'm not.

KARA SWISHER: I'm sorry.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: I'm not joking, you know, at the end of your life, don't you want to stand -- KARA SWISHER: Absolutely.

JEFFREY GOLDBERG: -- don't you want to be remembered as a Kay Graham and not as, I don't know, someone who just gave in to power?

KARA SWISHER: Maybe if you were in an industry that was growing, maybe you would.

But when you're in an industry that's diminishing and that you could -- it could mess up your other businesses.

Everything is about shareholder value, including with the tech guys.

Why do you think they were sitting in the front row?

Do you think they love Trump?

A little bit.

Not very much.

He's useful to them and they're definitely useful to him.