Let's talk about delivery systems because you spend a lot of time thinking about this and we're doing this on linear TV although you can see us on YouTube and everywhere else.

Um are the journalism values of PBS, the New York Times, the Atlantic, uh CBS, etc., etc., AP Reuters.

Are these transferable to the platforms that you're very comfortable with?

Absolutely.

We're growing like crazy.

Like I don't I think we pro I do hourlong interviews.

I just did one on Iran this morning.

Like we do substantive things.

It's the the issue is understanding the product you're making.

Like journalists don't like to think of it like that, but it's the news business, right?

You have to make money at it.

And so you have to figure out should you make money through advertising?

Should you do subscription?

Should you make do merchandise?

Should you do events?

So one of the things I did when I started is I had an event business.

I had advertising.

I had like we were looking for lots of different revenue streams.

It just you have to figure out what the right one is.

The other thing is the idea that young people only want tiny little silly things is not true.

They watch substantively, but it just depends on where they're watching.

And like PBS is a really good example.

I my son, I was doing an a thing for uh one of the PBS the big PBS shows.

And my son called me during it and I'm like, "Oh, I'm doing this taping."

And he said, "Oh, I love that show.

I watch it all the time."

And I I was like, "Oh, oh, you watch PBS?"

And he goes, "No, I watch YouTube."

What's the difference?

It's there's not a difference.

YouTube is television now.

And if you aren't hurdling towards it at this point, and someday it won't be, but if if if if you aren't hurdling towards YouTube right now, you're making an enormous mistake as a media company.

Right.

So for you, quality, attention span, all these issues are platform agnostic when it comes to these.

Correct.

Do you I mean that's the most hopeful thing I've heard in a while.

The idea that young people actually have attention spans, which I think is what you're suggesting.

They just have attention spans for good things.

They're very discerning media media people.

It's just let's make things that they like.

They do pay attention.

They do like longer things.

I think it's just the question of what we spent a lot of time on the distribution system.

And when when I was at the Washington Post, I'm like when I started covering AOL, which I was the first reporter to do that, I thought everything that can be digitized will be digitized.

So why are we doing this thing with the paper?

I never understood it.

And when I went to the Wall Street Journal, we were in one of those meetings, and you've been in a hundred of these, like, how do we get young people to read the the newspaper?

And it's all old people in the room, which is my favorite part.

And I happen to have been a young person at the time.

And I put up my hand, and they they seldom invited me to meetings of this.

And I go, "Well, tape a joint between every page.

I don't know, something like that."

And they're like, "That's not funny."

I'm like, "No, it is actually that's a good good idea because they're not reading the print paper.

So, give it to them.

If they want to if you if they want to eat it, put it on salami and give it to them.

Like, what do you care?"

And I think that's what what has happened.

I would just I wouldn't put a joint in every page because that could run up your that could run up your costs a lot.

the um how do we let's talk about AI because it's another area that you're thinking about uh all the time.

How do we keep AI we're heading to an election obviously 28.

Uh how do we keep AI fakery from just totally tsunamiing our understanding of reality?

I have to say I am I pay a lot of attention to AI now.

Look what the damage the internet has done.

Look at the damage.

And this is the internet on steroids.

Wait, stop.

Just go back to this.

What is the just define the damage that the internet has done to politics or the ability for malevolent players to screw with people like all the time like the the the the information flood before we used to have an information desert with a lot of people we did people didn't have a lot of choices maybe a local station now they have a flood and so that's just as bad as a desert like either way it's not a good thing and so with with AI you can really do things and on the good part you could solve cancer maybe on the bad part.

On an interesting part, you like the West Wing, we're going to make you 10 more ep 10 more episodes, 10 more seasons.

We don't even need to find the actors anymore.

That's kind of cool.

Like, explain how that would work.

Oh, they would they feed the show.

The show has seven, eight seasons, whatever it is.

You feed it in and you make it again, right?

You tell you you you you tell the AI just go make a new make and I and I would like there to be more this I would like this to happen.

There's all kinds of things, but it could also create all kinds of confusion, especially around video.

That's if you initially everyone was like, "Oh, it's got six fingers or three."

Well, today it does, but go back and look at early internet websites, right?

You know, the the biggest most popular website at the beginning of the internet was um was a camera pointed at a a coffee pot that was making coffee, right?

We're way beyond that.

And you couldn't have what you have to do is anticipate what you can't anticipate.

Could you have anticipated when the app store started Uber?

Maybe nobody, you know, somebody did, but you at the beginning you didn't like you didn't know.

And so I can you could see all kinds of really interesting media applications for AI.

You could also see easily dangerous ones.

What would you do to stop the the wave the coming wave of unreality that could affect look on the American domestic level?

It can affect our politics and and maybe violence at the margins, but we just saw uh Mountain Head, I think that's what Mountain Head uh you know, Jesse, who was success, he he also Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, which is great.

And it wasn't as crazy and satirical.

It kind of felt like, oh, this this these are things that could happen.

You could ferment large-scale violence by the introduction of fake video.

How does it stop?

How does it not happen?

One of the great lines in that was like, well, you got something funny like Snoopy with a giant penis.

There was remember that or you have this.

And what was what was interesting about that movie is there was a guy in it who was the the good AI guy.

Right.

Right.

But was he so good?

Because what he said is what would you what you would feel like if you if information cancer was there and you had the cure.

He was more interested in the money he could make doing it.

And so the question is, should we put um um there's ways to to follow this video to make sure it's real.

Should we legislate that?

Should we That's the kind of stuff our legislators should be and are not thinking about whatsoever.

But they did no they did no legislation against tech companies.

They let them run rampant across our media.

They let them run rampant across our politics.

And you know, these are these are digital arms dealers in a very very clear way.

And we never did anything about it.

And we're not going to under this administration.

You know these people better than almost any reporter.

Any sense that they know that they're riding a a very wild horse and that they have to get this under control before an election goes sideways?

They don't care.

I wish you you would understand that.

Everyone's like, "How could they?"

I'm like, "They don't care.

They're interested in shareholder value."

And you must I know you're you're down with the soul thing.

They don't care.

And they don't think they're to blame, by the way.

They think people are to blame.

They think cable is to blame.

The media is to blame.

They are they are the biggest blamethrowers in history.

They're just making stuff and however people use it, it's it's sort of the guns don't kill people, people kill people.

Well, it's like a it's it's the the drug dealer analogy is if they want to I mean, I can't control somebody wants drugs.

Of course you can.

Of course you can.

And one of the things is they've never been subject to any regulation.

And the regulation they've been subject to is is helpful to them.

Section 230.

They can do whatever they want.

And let me tell you, sometimes that leads to great things.

Sometimes it leads to precise, you know, this amazing EO Wilson line, the you know the the primat the the evolutionary biologist.

Uh he says that the central challenge of our age is we have paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions, and godlike technology.

Right.

Exactly.

And so it's it's that's that's what we're we're heading into.

But they're also rich.

That is the part you're not figuring in.

These people are I'm waiting to fund your technology.

Right.

It's it's they have now power to they were not interested in Washington.

I had Bill Gates to the Washington Post once and he's like, "Gh, Washington."

Like, he used to be like that.

I don't have a lobbyist here.

He was in front of Mrs. Graham, the rest in those lunches they used to have upstairs.

I don't care about Washington.

They care about Washington, which is why they're here buying, you know, the coin operated president, right?

The um there's so much to talk about.

We have time for one more question.

It's a little bit of a impossible one, but try anyway.

10 years from now, how do you think we're going to be getting our information?

Obviously, Washington Week and The Atlantic and your podcasts, but put those aside.

No, I'll be dead.

Probably put You're not going to be dead.

You're very healthy.

I'll be old.

And uh we're all going to be older, right?

How are we getting information?

You know, I do think there's a real business for good information and really good reporting.

I don't think that ever changes.

I really don't.

That's the interesting thing about Substack, by the way.

There's not a lot of reporting on it.

No, there's not.

But there's there's interesting insight in into part.

But that doesn't mean you can't still make a business.

You know, to me, you run toward where people have a need and they have a need for great good information.

And I think that doesn't change.

What what they you do have to understand is the delivery.

You're going to get everything in your eyes.

There's going to be you're going to be wearing things.

Um they're not going to look like what they they're a little heavy right now, but everything will be if you s if you see one movie, watch Minority Report.

That was writ that was done.

They had they had consultants that I think were brilliant in terms of where things were going.

Everything will be will be monitored, surveiled.

They'll know when you walk in.

They'll know what you want.

And that's that that to me.

And so make good products rather than bad ones.

They'll sell just as well.

Um but the bad products will also, just like Twinkies do, be very popular.

We're going to have to leave it there for now.

Your assignment at home is to watch Minority Report.

Um, I want to thank you all for watching.