Media and tech aren’t just intersecting — they’re fully intertwined. And to understand how those worlds work, and what they mean for you, veteran journalist Pet...
Matt Belloni: what the Oscars tell us about Hollywood
We had to stop recording this one for a minute, because Matt Belloni got a text. More on that below.
Big picture: Matt is a longtime Hollywood reporter - and lawyer before that - who now has the industry's ear via his writing at Puck and his The Town podcast. I asked him to talk about what lies ahead for the Oscars, the out-of-step TV production that still has big audiences and prestige; and the current state of Hollywood, the business. Also discussed here: Awards party catering, and the most popular movie executive who isn't Bob Iger.
For the record: When we started recording this podcast, the audience for Sunday's Oscar awards had declined yet again. By the end of it, new numbers meant it was the most popular show in the last five years. Obviously we would have preferred to know that in advance.
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43:48
Free speech is under attack
The most useful class I ever took in college was a media law class, where I learned two things: 1) Journalists in the U.S. (along every other American citizen) have enormous freedom to say and write what they want, without fear of a defamation suit and 2) this freedom exists largely because of New York Times v Sullivan, a seminal Supreme Court case.
Now NYT v Sullivan is under concerted attack, from a group that includes wealthy and powerful people and companies; lawyers who see an opportunity; and, of course, Donald Trump.
David Enrich, an editor who oversees business investigations at the Times, gets to do his work in large part because of the court precedent set decades ago. His upcoming book Murder the Truth takes us on a tour of incidents that show what losing NYT v Sullivan could mean for journalism in the U.S. — and how powerful people are already chipping away at press freedom.
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53:21
Matthew Ball: Why the games business is broken
Everyone knows that video games are giant, fast-growing business that's going to swamp traditional media.
Except that's not true: The games business is now in a prolonged and confusing funk. Investor and analyst Matthew Ball has been diving deep into the industry, so I asked him to take a stab at explaining what's going on. Bonus question: When does the face computer's moment finally arrive?
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38:03
BuzzFeed wants to build a… social network?
A decade ago BuzzFeed was the bleeding edge of digital media, and Serious People thought it was going to be a threat to the likes of the New York Times. Many rounds of layoffs and asset sales later, BuzzFeed is a much more modest operation.
But say this for Jonah Peretti: He continues to pitch Very Big Ideas for his company. Now the BuzzFeed CEO thinks he can create an internet that doesn’t run on content that makes you feel lousy, and that he can also create his own social network. I am… skeptical, but I wanted to hear him out, and now you can make up your own mind.
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34:52
Why Michael Lewis is worried about the sports betting boom
It’s hard to remember now. But just a few years ago, sports betting was illegal in almost all of United States. And sports leagues and the media companies that worked with them wanted nothing to do with anything that even referenced gambling.
Things are very, very different now! And it happened so quickly that very few people have stopped to ask what any of this means for America, and what it will mean down the road.
Those questions — and the reasons why so few of us are posing them — turn out to be a great topic for Michael Lewis. You can hear him grappling with them in the excellent new season of his “Against the Rules” podcast series. And I was delighted to discuss all of it with him on my show. It also gave me an opportunity to discuss “The Fifth Risk” - his 2018 book about Donald Trump’s first attempt to take over federal government, which is extra-timely right now. And I couldn’t let him go without a brief chat about crypto and Sam Bankman-Fried.
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Media and tech aren’t just intersecting — they’re fully intertwined. And to understand how those worlds work, and what they mean for you, veteran journalist Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers - and gets them to spell it out in plain, BS-free English.
Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
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