Pod Insights On with Kara Swisher The Media CEOs Betting Big on Journalism’s Future: Jim Bankoff & Meredith Kopit Levien About this episode In a challenging decade for media, New York Times President and CEO Meredith Kopit Levien and Vox Media CEO Jim Bankoff have bucked trends and found ways to grow their respective organizations. Meredith has overseen a massive expansion of the Times’ digital subscriber base since becoming CEO in 2020. And after spending decades scaling up Vox Media, Jim is splitting the company between James Murdoch's Lupa Systems and Penske Media Corporation.
In a live interview recorded at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France, Kara talks to Jim and Meredith about how they’ve adapted to a changing media landscape and the effects of AI on the publishing business. They also talk about the importance of independent journalism, the waning public trust in media, and how news organizations can earn it back.
(A note to listeners: Vox Media is the parent company of the Vox Media Podcast Network, which produces “On with Kara Swisher.”)
Come see Kara live in DC. She is sitting down with Former Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo on July 16 at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center, and you can be in the room. Register now.
Questions? Comments? Email us at [email protected] or find us on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok, Threads, and Bluesky @onwithkaraswisher.
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Transcript Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:00 Kara Swisher? We are doing a podcast and we would ask you, if you fucking talk back there, I'm coming back and doing things to you that I used to do to Mark Zuckerberg before he stopped talking to me.
0:20 Kara Swisher? Hi, everyone. From New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is On with Kara Swisher, and I'm Kara Swisher. On today's show, I'm talking to two huge names in the media business. Meredith Kopit-Levien, president and CEO of The New York Times, and Jim Bankoff, CEO of Vox Media, which produces this very podcast. Both Meredith and Jim have successfully led their companies through huge changes in the industry. Jim spent decades building Vox Media into a big media company, but now he's splitting it up. He's selling the Vox Media Podcast Network, Vox and New York Magazine, to James Murdoch's company, Lupa Systems. Jim will serve as the CEO of a new company that carries the Vox Media name under Lupa. Penske Media Corporation is acquiring Vox Media's remaining brands.
1:03 Kara Swisher? Meredith originally joined The New York Times as its head of advertising, but since becoming the company's CEO in 2020, she's led a huge expansion of The Times's digital products. Last year, The Times added nearly 1.5 million digital subscribers. I really wanted to pair Meredith and Jim, not because I wanted to kiss up to someone who used to be my boss, or someone who used to be my boss, both of them were in some ways, but because they're really at the cusp of real changes in media and actually are doing pretty well by being innovative and shifting over time. They're also people who have presided over pretty great media brands and brands that have a lot of high quality, and I really want to talk about where things are. Both of them are on a trajectory that is strong, while others suffer, so it's a good
1:47 Kara Swisher? time to talk about that and more. All right, let's get into our conversation with Jim and Meredith. Our expert question comes from investigative journalist and author Theo Baker. This interview was recorded in front of a live audience at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in Cannes, France. It was a lot of fun, there was a lot of rosé, but it was also a really insightful conversation about how media companies can find success in a very challenging environment right now. I do want to focus on what works. At the same time, it's a very dicey situation, especially given the Trump administration's attacks on companies like The New York Times and many others. So, stick around.
2:32 Kara Swisher? Jim and Meredith, thanks for coming on, on.
2:38 Kara Swisher? Okay, we're going to cover a lot of ground in this conversation. We're going to talk about the changing media landscapes, which I think is important to everyone. Obviously, AI, because you have to. And then rebuilding trust in journalism and where we are with mergers and acquisitions. But I want to start with some recent headlines for both of you. Jim, you're selling Vox Media's podcast network, vox.com, and New York Magazine to James Murdoch's Lupus Systems. The deal is reportedly worth more than $300 million. Penske Media Corporation is acquiring the remaining sites, Eater, PopSugar, SB Nation, The Dodo, and The Verge. Now, I have to disclose, part of it came from ideas I had talking to you about splitting it all.
3:16 Speaker 01 All the good things do.
3:17 Kara Swisher? No, but we discussed it for a long time. So, talk about why you think splitting the company is in the best interest and why this is the correct configuration.
3:27 Speaker 01 It's about focus. The media landscape, I think we're going to talk about a lot, is changing. There was a time where we were building, building, building. We're proud of our legacy, I think, of the vintage of companies that were funded 15 years ago. We emerged as a leader. We had great brands. I won't rattle them off, but whether it's Eater, or whether it's New York Magazine, The Cut, etc., we're proud of everything we've built. But at one point, it was about scale. And it was about aggregating scale. And now it's about focus and getting the businesses in the right position to succeed. And we think we have a lot of growth runway. And we want to get the podcast business, which we'll talk about, New York Magazine,
4:10 Speaker 01 which we'll talk about, in a position to succeed. I call them our talent platforms. And then the publishing businesses, which are merging in with the Penske Publishing businesses, are going to have a lot in common. We'll talk a lot about publishing, I'm sure. But they need to come together. They need to find common strategies where they can succeed. They need to find leverage. That business is going to be a very successful business. Jay will be the controlling shareholder of it, and then Ryan Polly. Who currently works with us is going to lead the operations of it. He's an amazing executive.
4:42 Kara Swisher? So when you say things change, which is it? Did you make a mistake? What exactly changed? Because you told Peter Kafka, who used to work for me, it makes sense to split up now. And I know things go through their cycles. But what is the digital publishing model now? For a business like, you know, New York Magazine versus a box.com?
5:01 Speaker 01 So there was, there was a time where we were aggregating scale. Um, and the search is just about no longer relevant to a publishing business, not entirely, but mostly with the onset of AI and AI overviews. Social long ago, whether it was how X treated publishers, formerly Twitter, whether it's how Meta and the Facebook properties treat publishers, irrelevant to us, really. I mean, we know they're there, we work with them. I don't want to exaggerate it. But those quote unquote, audience platforms that gave us opportunity, by the way, as a modern media publisher, we built on that. But we knew that things were going to change. We knew that we couldn't trust those platforms to have too much leverage on our business. And sure enough, it happened. And so now thankfully, we were able to build strong brands.
5:47 Speaker 01 Certainly, the New York Times has built one of the strongest brands. And those brands will succeed by appealing to their audiences first and foremost, being smart about the platforms, knowing they exist, but building a loyal connection. You're part of our portfolio. You have your own business that we help you with. And you succeed, not because of any platform, you succeed in spite of a platform. New York Magazine, same thing, direct subscription relationship.
6:15 Kara Swisher? So Meredith, um, I remember years ago when you were going to visit Google. What did I tell you? Don't go there, want to kill you, essentially. And they were going to give you all these deals and stuff like that. So talk a little bit about where it puts the New York Times. Cause you've been sort of building, not artisanally, but sort of one center place. How do you look at the environment right now? And what's changed for the Times, for example? Cause you're one of the few that succeed at this.
6:40 Speaker 02 I mean, listen, I say whatever success we've had means we've lived to fight another day, right? On behalf of journalism in the, in the public's interest and our business and the industry.
6:54 Speaker 02 The core of our strategy for a very long time has been to do high-quality news journalism and make lifestyle products that are so goddamn good that people seek them out and ask for them by name and form a habit with them, make like real room for them in their lives and love them so much they do them with the people they love, their friends and family. That is the big idea here. And I would say there were a few things that we decided like a long, long time ago that are still playing out now and really helping The Times succeed. Like one through eight on a list of 10 is we just kept
7:37 Speaker 02 investing in the journalism. I've been at The Times 13 years. I think there were about 1,300 people in the newsroom when I got there, something like that. More than a decade ago, now there are 2,300 and counting. And we added a 550 person sports newsroom with The Athletic. And we have a couple hundred people doing product reviews. So we kept investing in rare and valuable coverage that is getting more rare and more valuable, done in a deeply resourced way to a very, very high standard. That is the most important reason The Times is succeeding. And we basically said, we are screwed if we
8:18 Speaker 02 are not in direct relationships with our users. We said, we don't really make money if we can't get people to come to our destinations. We said, people have to have a daily habit with the things we do. I get asked a lot, like, what else should be in your portfolio? And I say, well, the bar is really high for things that people do every day or almost every day. And then we also said, you know, we don't exist in a vacuum. We're in an information ecosystem shaped, to your point, by a very small number of very big companies who dominate consumer attention, change consumer behavior at, you know, billion people's scale. And we have to exist on those platforms so our stuff can be found. But we've got to do-
9:03 Speaker 02 With real care and calibration.
9:05 Kara Swisher? Without understanding.
9:07 Speaker 02 To ultimately.
9:07 Kara Swisher? Now, early this week, you spoke with Axios about the Times' ongoing lawsuits against OpenAI, Microsoft perplexity over copyright infringements. You said the Times worked hard to, quote, "build resilience against them." Talk about specific ways you can do that beyond suing them, because to me suing is just the beginning of a negotiation in a lot of ways.
9:28 Speaker 02 Look, the stakes are really, really high in what we're suing for. The, you know, to the best of our knowledge, some meaningful number of the companies that make these models have taken our stuff. They've used it without compensation, without our control over how our, our content is used, and they build, you know, products and experiences that can ultimately compete with us. That is, you know, bad for the New York Times. That is bad for the industry. That is bad for journalism, for creators. And by the way, who's it really bad for? The public, which relies.
10:03 Kara Swisher? No, I get that, but you're right now.
10:04 Speaker 02 So, so, so, let me just say this. The, the other side of that coin is, what are we really fighting for here? Sustainable, fair value exchange for the intellectual property produced by journalism, publishers, other creators. New York Times spent something close to $2 billion last year making our stuff.
10:25 Kara Swisher? Right, right. But AG, AG Sulzberger, your publisher, said that AI lawsuits have already cost more than $20 million.
10:33 Speaker 02 Yeah.
10:33 Kara Swisher? And that news organizations should band together. And as you know, Scott talks about that they should have banned it together a long time ago. Like, he discusses that when he happened to have been on the board of the New York Times, I believe.
10:44 Speaker 02 Before I was there.
10:45 Kara Swisher? Yes.
10:45 Speaker 02 Long time ago.
10:46 Kara Swisher? Yes. Uh, will you have him back? No, probably not. But when, it's, it's a struggle to get everyone to go along, because some people are making these deals, others are not. How can you band together more?
10:58 Speaker 02 Let, let, let me say a few things. Um, first, we are suing, and we have also, we made a deal with Amazon. You know, Amazon was willing to pay us what we saw as a fair price to use our work across their experiences. That are made in generative AI. That made sense to us and we have said we are absolutely open. We, we think the right system here is sustainable, fair value exchange for publishers, such that what you are getting reflects the value of what you're producing and so that you have control over your work. That is what we are fighting for.
11:36 Kara Swisher? I get that, but do you, I mean, do you really have power, either of you, over these companies? Or not? How do you?
11:41 Speaker 02 The public needs high, the thing that the LLMs are not going to do, they're not going to go out, they're not going to do the core act of journalism.
11:51 Kara Swisher? They're not going to report.
11:53 Speaker 02 They're not, they're, they're not going to go out and report. And what we are fighting for is a sustainable business model for professional journalists to go out.
12:03 Kara Swisher? I understand, but I'm asking, let me ask Jim, first, do you have any leverage? Do you feel that the leverage is?
12:09 Speaker 01 Ultimately, the leverage is going to be to opt out of these platforms. And ultimately, right now, because of the monopoly situation, it's hard to do that. But increasingly, every day, it's becoming easier. I'll give you, in our case, an example might be Eater. Just like you said, you know, it's not, we're not, Eater does some really good journalism. They also do great restaurant reviews. And I, I don't think that the Google bots are going out to eat at these restaurants to get to know the chefs, to get to know the owners.
12:38 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
12:39 Speaker 01 Yet, I go to Google and I search and use, anyone know Eater out there? Anyone use Eater? Like, a good show of hands. Thank you. Eater's awesome.
12:47 Kara Swisher? That's awesome.
12:48 Speaker 01 And you, you used to go and you'd find the blue link. Google would be a great server. It'd be great for the Google people that could sell ads against those links. It'd be great for us in that we would get the value exchange. If Eater's not there, if the New York Times isn't there, all of a sudden, you're going to have, what, synthetic AI information? Or maybe information that is scraped and gamed off of who knows what Reddit, maybe, but not even? So you're going to have like really bad information. Then what does Google have after that? I'm using Google as an example, but it could be any of these platforms. Um, and so ultimately, I do think that the highest quality ones, the ones that needs us to. Their business model to do the quality work, to employ the people that do the quality work. And by the way, we'll get into humans because there are certain things that only humans can do.
13:33 Speaker 01 There are certain things that we only want from humans. And I think ultimately that's starting to happen. The more, the more they try to obviate us, the more and more we'll go into our corner.
13:44 Kara Swisher? Besides the public good, what leverage do you have?
13:47 Speaker 02 Wait, I was, let me tie a bow on that. The leverage is even the L L Ms will need an information ecosystem with high quality, independently produced, verified information. If they don't have it, their products will not ultimately be good either. We all want to live in a society where quality information is available. And I believe they do too.
14:11 Kara Swisher? You believe they do too.
14:12 Speaker 02 I think that these are information companies. These are information tools. And I think information at a certain point for you to have a healthy functioning democracy, you have to have high quality information and people have to be able to identify the difference.
14:30 Kara Swisher? Yeah, I really noticed them fighting back against the Trump administration. Wait, they were in the front row of the inauguration. I don't think they care at all. I think they don't care what information's out there, whether it's a cat, Q and on, or the New York Times. I, I firmly don't believe that. You and I have a disagreement on it, but that gets us to these deals. Obviously Vox Media got bought by a billionaire named James Murdoch, the finest of the Murdochs. But as I always say, it's a low bar. No, he's fine. I like him a lot, actually. He's perfectly fine. He does care about journalism, but, but people are worried about the influence of these companies. Cause all the tech companies are now coming for Hollywood, for media, for everybody else.
15:11 Kara Swisher? And it's very clear and the sort of the ongoing traffic accident of CBS is really quite stunning. So first, Jim, talk about what convinced you this particular billionaire was good for Vox Media? Cause I know you talked to Versant and others.
15:25 Speaker 01 What's the the Maya Angelou quote like when you someone tells you who they are, believe them, right? And and I think James and Catherine are telling us who they are by what they the actions they're taking in their lives, the other types of things that they are investing in. Big supporters of journalism, period, not just us, but American Journalism Project, the 19th, you know, on and on. They have a small investment in the Bulwark, and you can kind of see what they're doing. They it goes beyond that, though. They are stewards of culture. They are majority owners in Art Basel and in Tribeca Film Festival. So you can sense by what they're doing, what their actions are, what they care about. And they saw us as
16:06 Speaker 01 a nice, I believe, I won't speak for them, but I think an intersection of a lot of things they care about, quality journalism through what we're doing at New York Magazine, and what we're doing at Vox, and what we're doing at the Vox Media Podcast Network. But they also see us the intersection with culture and the other properties they're trying to make flourish, including the ones I just mentioned. I've seen high net worth people own things. I've seen corporations and public companies own things. I've seen employee led collectives own things. And all of those things could be amazing and prosper as the New York Times has, or as say, I'm someone other than us, the the Atlantic is prospering. I've seen other structures fail,
16:50 Speaker 01 and it doesn't really matter so much what the structure is, whether it's PE backed, whether it's venture backed, whether it is a nonprofit, whether it's a high net worth individual. What matters is the values of that institution, the protections of that, the structures of those institutions, and the commitment to that. And it can happen, bad things, toxic things can happen in any one of those ownership structures if they're not managed by great people who know what they're doing, who are committed to principles.
17:16 Kara Swisher? Sure, but let me give each of you one thing. You can decide which ones you want to take. One of you takes what's happening at CBS, and one of you take what's happening at Washington Post.
17:25 Speaker 02 I'll I'll take the Washington Post.
17:29 Speaker 01 You got first pick.
17:31 Speaker 02 Well, it's interesting. I got to the New York Times in the summer of 2013. And somewhere in like my early weeks of being there, Bezos bought the Post. I was like on our executive floor. I was brand new. I was there to run advertising. And my mom called and was like, honey, honey, that man just bought the Washington Post. I was like, I work at the New York Times. I know. Anyway, what I want to say is a few things. One, I, you're not gonna like this, but I see no evidence. I don't read the Post as often as I used to, mostly because I'm busy and reading a lot of New York Times stuff. But I see no evidence, I know of no evidence, that their news report
18:13 Speaker 02 has been compromised in any way. And I still know plenty of people who work there. And they are doing good work. They are doing independent reporting as best as I can tell in the news report. I want to say that. That's the first thing. The second thing, it is a shitty day at the New York Times and a shitty day in journalism when any major news organization lays off large numbers of journalists. A really shitty day. I, and, and you know, people ask me a lot, don't you benefit when somebody goes down who you compete with directly? My answer is hard no. And here, here's why. Every time someone else in the American public or the global public
18:56 Speaker 02 who used to have high quality, independently reported journalism as a part of their daily life and as like relevant to them at a local level or a regional level. Every time a little bit of that goes away, fewer people understand what independent journalism is and why it matters. More people think a media diet largely shaped by algorithms that match your own worldview, that's good enough and that is bad. That is bad for the public, bad for the New York Times.
19:27 Kara Swisher? But may I know, two New York Times reporters just reported Bezos desperately sucking-
19:32 Speaker 02 In an extraordinary new book that I think went on sale today.
19:35 Kara Swisher? But talked about him insulting the Post directly to the president, sucking up in a way that is even for someone who's from San Francisco finds a little gross.
19:47 Kara Swisher? And essentially saying, I don't like the people there. I don't like the investment. He's done enormous damage to that brand. Enormous. And I think you have to put it at the foot of Jeff Bezos. When he does stuff like that, how do you react to that? Because you can't. The news report is good, but it's in spite of him, not because of him. You have benefited in that you've hired a lot of the people. So has The Atlantic, so have many others, so has The Wall Street Journal. So how do you assess his ownership? I want a very honest answer of like in terms. It's succeeding in the news report despite him. Despite him, I would say.
20:23 Speaker 02 I, you know, I run a, I run a company. I run a, you know, a company that has in some ways.
20:29 Kara Swisher? Their business, their business is falling off.
20:30 Speaker 02 The eyes of the world on it. And I mean this earnestly. You know, it is hard to know what goes on inside another company. It is hard to know how leadership has an impact, how it makes its decisions. What I can tell you from my vantage point is the journalists who work at The New York Times. I believe, they believe that when someone comes after them for their reporting and they've done the work to our standard, they know the institution is going to back them. And that is why so much talent stays for a long, long time. In some cases, a whole career at The New York Times. And I think that really matters.
21:11 Speaker 02 And whether you're talking about CBS, Washington Post, any of these places. What matters is even Murdoch, like, is the ownership going to invest in the product? The story of The New York Times is a story of investment. And we are going to make something that is rare and valuable and important to people at scale because we can invest in it. And are they going to protect at all costs the public's interest in the independence of that product?
21:39 Kara Swisher? So you're not going to answer it, but I'm going to ask you, try one final time. Is he a good business owner of The Washington Post? Should he sell it?
21:46 Speaker 02 I don't think that's for me to decide.
21:48 Kara Swisher? I'd like you.
21:49 Speaker 02 And I would, I am for all ownership structures that do the two things that I just said.
21:56 Kara Swisher? Okay, alright.
21:56 Speaker 02 Make Americans have a better relationship with high-quality independent journalism and make a great product that is independent reporting-based.
22:05 Kara Swisher? The answer is no to that. Go ahead, go ahead.
22:07 Speaker 01 So I think as a steward, those two companies, other companies, you, you covered this for decades. You know that media needs to evolve and media needs to change.
22:17 Kara Swisher? Absolutely.
22:17 Speaker 01 When Meredith came in and, and Mark, you all changed the New York Times for the better. There were hard decisions and unpopular decisions that had to be made. There were people who were hired, there were people who were fired, there were people who chose to leave. Yet, it was all done in service of growing and protecting that institution. And I will add, it was done with extraordinary competence and ultimately success. So, these two organizations, other institutions like them, also likely need to change. That's a fair argument. You know better than anyone. If you don't innovate, if you don't change, particularly in the, what I think is the fastest-changing industry, media, where technology changes, taste change,
23:00 Speaker 01 society changes, we have to change along with it. So let's, let's state that those organizations perhaps needed to change. The Post, Free Jeff, et cetera. Question is, how do you execute? How do you do it successfully? How do you do it with grace and competence that attracts people rather than repels them?
23:18 Kara Swisher? Repels them.
23:19 Speaker 01 And, and that's part of the magic. I'd like to think that as stewards, we have an institution, New York Magazine, which I think is a magazine in full, which has been growing 25%. Our newsroom has not shrunk at all. It's under amazing editorial leadership of David Haskell, who I consider a partner in growing the business. It covers the full realm of culture. It won the ASME for Best Magazine this year. So, a ton of success. We inherited that leadership from the Walsderson family, who were great stewards of it. I think we had to innovate. We did not stand still. We introduced a paywall and grew it. We, you know, the Wassers Steens and us led the introduction of new verticals like The Cut and The Strategist
24:02 Speaker 01 in order to invulture, to make it more relevant to the digital age. So, point is, we had to change. And if you look at it where it is now versus where it was five years ago, it's a 57-year-old publication and you look at where it's come.
24:14 Kara Swisher? Okay.
24:15 Speaker 01 There are a lot of evolution, but it was always done with care. It was always done with principles.
24:18 Kara Swisher? So, how do you assess what, how the Ellison's are conducting themselves at CBS? You were working for them.
24:24 Speaker 01 Yeah, I will, I will say, I will say the jury is out. But you have to identify who is important, who is leadership and demonstrate competence and get faith. Get the people behind you to support that. Bring the ones that you want to bring along with you. Communicate to the organization. Effectively be competent leaders and, you know, I hope, just as you hope, that, that they will be. This story is not done.
24:47 Kara Swisher? I do too.
24:48 Speaker 01 They have, they have, they have, you know, a lot of public stuff has happened, but they have an opportunity with this merger with CBS, with now CNN, to really do great journalistic work. We're all hoping that they will, but it's going to require deft execution and smart leadership.
25:08 Kara Swisher? And the jury is out. So far, how do you assess it in this point in the game?
25:14 Speaker 01 Listen, there's been a lot of, there's just been a lot of noise in this point in the game and...
25:19 Kara Swisher? Actually, there's been a lot of damage.
25:20 Speaker 01 You know, but I don't want to dodge it. We saw what has happened with 60 Minutes. And again, their prerogative of honor to reset things. I don't think anyone wanted a reset of that nature. I don't think, I don't think it's safe to say that that was not part of the plan. Okay, so now what is the plan? And let's see, let's judge them based on what they accomplished. I was listening to Brian Stelter, talking to your old friend Peter Kafka about this topic. And, you know, Brian, who is at CNN, maybe he has to say this, maybe he doesn't, but he's going to try to give them the benefit of the doubt and see if they can rebuild that institution into something that is journalistically strong and carries on the tradition of, of fearless journalism. And that's how they will be judged. They'll have one shot to build that trust.
26:05 Speaker 01 They have a strong lead-in with NFL football every Sunday and they'll have an opportunity to do that. They'll have an opportunity to rebuild that project for the digital world too, which I know is, that's an example. That's, that's something that they want to do. They claim they're doing. So, let's see if they can actually do it.
26:20 Kara Swisher? Right. See, I'm going to go back to your Maya Angelou quote. When people show you who they are, believe them. I think they've shown us who they are pretty actively for a long time. But you keep believing, don't stop believing.
26:33 Speaker 02 I think, can I just say, I do think what you're hearing from both of us is...
26:38 Kara Swisher? One hopes they would be better people.
26:40 Speaker 02 The public is better off when there are more institutions doing high-quality, independent, creative, brilliant, surprising journalism.
26:52 Kara Swisher? Certainly, yes.
26:53 Speaker 02 And I think what you're hearing from both of us is, we wish for more of that.
26:58 Speaker 01 And then, by the way, the humans who have been working in these institutions, many of them are prospering and doing better than ever through platforms. We seek to be one of those platforms.
27:10 Kara Swisher? Yes, we're gonna ask you about that now.
27:12 Speaker 01 You partner with us on that platform. And so, out of this institution crumbling, for whatever reason, crumbling because of Google, crumbling because of different types of ownership, comes opportunity and comes enlightenment. And a lot of people are walking up and down the croisette here in Cannes, celebrating that and prospering from that.
27:30 Kara Swisher? No, I get that. I understand where you are, but you're wrong.
27:34 Speaker 01 By the way, this is my daily conversation with her.
27:37 Speaker 02 I can't imagine what it's like to work with her every day.
27:39 Kara Swisher? I actually know these people and know a lot more than you do about what's going on inside. But it's bad. You wouldn't want to work for them, and I shall not be, as you know.
27:49 Kara Swisher? We'll be back in a minute.
27:58 Kara Swisher? I did enjoy working for The Times, but one of the issues was control. So, you know, tech columnist Kevin Roos just announced he's leaving The New York Times. I'm sorry, I did help him a little bit, do that.
28:10 Speaker 02 So surprised.
28:11 Kara Swisher? I know, I know. Anywhere someone leaves, I am suddenly there quietly. But I think he was interested in being an entrepreneur. And I think some people, when they come to me and they said, "Should I go?" And I look at them and I go, "Stay where you are," because they don't have that entrepreneurial nature. But he's starting a new company with Casey Newton, who left The Verge in 2020, who I also... Helped leave the verge. Thanks. I just like taking reporters out of major institutions. So, talk a little bit about that changing part. Because right here in Cannes right now, there's 500 creators. The creator economy is the big topic, even over AI. And the power that individual creators and personal brands has that is increasingly becoming very good quality. So, talk a little bit about where it's going from a talent point of view.
28:56 Kara Swisher? There's pluses to working for The New York Times. I agree, the institutional support and everything else.
29:01 Speaker 02 I haven't even said anything and you agree.
29:03 Kara Swisher? I agree with that. But I also think you better start thinking about who creates value and how you pay them, which isn't nearly enough.
29:12 Speaker 02 The first thing I want to say is whenever anyone has this conversation, I think the thing that doesn't come up enough, or most times ever, is, you know, we wrote a story today about Myanmar. And I think that we're now, the world is in a fifth year of a civil war in Myanmar. And we've got a photographer on the ground there, Daniel Barahulek, and a reporter there who are telling the story of this brutal civil war in Myanmar. You probably have not heard, you might have heard of Daniel's name. He's a pretty famous photographer. You would not have heard of the reporter's name, I bet. We had 70 people on the ground in Ukraine last year.
29:56 Speaker 02 Fifth year of a grinding war that I can assure you, you know, the audience development models are not going to tell you that's the thing to cover.
30:05 Kara Swisher? To invest in.
30:06 Speaker 02 To make your business great. And so, I just, like, when people say, like, "Oh, creators, people should get their news from creators," you do need big honkin' institutions who are going to do the hard work of sending people places in as secure as possible a way, with as much support as possible, and as much expertise, and sometimes in language and everything else it takes to do that as possible, to get the public information about these really important things that are happening. I just think that never comes up in the country. Conversation and you know what that is? It is really goddamn expensive.
30:45 Kara Swisher? Right.
30:46 Speaker 02 To do that. And so the model of the New York Times is we have a lot of really hardworking, extraordinary journalists who you may not have heard of yet. And maybe their life's work is they want to report in a particular place. And you may not hear of them, but they are doing wildly important work that really matters. And we've got, we make stars, we hire stars, we're thrilled to have stars. We're especially thrilled to help a star be a bigger star. And I think the proposition at the New York Times, the talent proposition is best journalists in the world, doing the best work of their career with the industries.
31:27 Speaker 02 I think, and you can back me or not on this, most kind of well-resourced support structure, lawyers, security people.
31:35 Kara Swisher? Absolutely.
31:36 Speaker 02 You know, the, the whole apparatus of support, support when the administration or company or anybody else pushes back.
31:43 Kara Swisher? I, I understand all this, but how do you?
31:45 Speaker 02 Let me say one more thing, an audience, a giant audience. And when you were there, you said to me.
31:50 Kara Swisher? Yes.
31:51 Speaker 02 I think after your first column, whoo, big audience.
31:54 Kara Swisher? Yeah.
31:55 Speaker 02 Here at the New York Times.
31:56 Kara Swisher? I wouldn't say that today.
31:58 Speaker 02 You don't work there today.
31:59 Kara Swisher? I don't. What would you say? What I would say is.
32:01 Speaker 02 I mean, I think it's indisputable.
32:03 Kara Swisher? To be honest, I think you were the one person who did understand what was happening with create, create. I put myself in the creator bunch, I suppose.
32:11 Speaker 02 Yeah.
32:11 Kara Swisher? But.
32:11 Speaker 02 You're a journalist who is also.
32:13 Kara Swisher? The penny did drop as, and it's not just New York Times. It would be the same thing for the Wall Street Journal. What do I need you for? Like kind of thing. And so, and I get the, if I was reporting from Ukraine, it would be a very different thing. Correct? But, but what I'm wondering is how do you deal? You were one of the few people who understood this, is that you had to start changing compensation. And then I'm going to ask, because Jim was very, and he's not a pushover. It was that he understood that there's a very different partnership. So how, you're going to have an increasing number of people who are going to want a different compensation system.
32:46 Speaker 02 I, I think that the Times.
32:51 Speaker 02 Will continue to find its way to a model that accomplishes everything I've just described? Is it going to be for everyone? It wasn't for you. By the way, Kevin Roos, amazing journalist. I loved Hard Fork. I listened to most of the episodes. Casey Newton, they're amazing. I wish them well. Those guys want to do their own thing. I wish them all the luck in the world and we were lucky to have them like we were lucky to have you when we did. The other bit of it, Cara, you know, why did Jonathan Swan, who just wrote this book that Cara name checked, "Regime Change," come to the New York Times to work with Maggie Haberman, who is the best political reporter on earth?
33:33 Speaker 02 And they just wrote a book together. And I think they would say the things that I'm saying. So I'm just, I think the Times has shown itself to be a place that takes its obligations to the public very seriously. And also, as it does that, recognizes we operate in a broader market and world.
33:54 Kara Swisher? Jim, talk about how you look.
33:56 Speaker 01 I've obviously thought a lot about this. And my, I don't think there is a wrong answer. Everything you said is true. Let me give you my framework for it. Are there independent creators here? Yeah, I see some hands going up. So you all know, like, there's, there's lanes. And I'm going to do two poles. On one pole, way over to one extreme, is the full independent creator. You all who know, those of you who do it, know how hard it is. You are creating your own content. You are feeding the algorithmic beast day in, day out. You're trying to do your brand deals or have help do your brand deals. You are hustling. You are focused on your audience. You are focused on making a living. And then you are focused on audience growth. You are focused on business things. You know, maybe
34:39 Speaker 01 you got into it because of the passion of what you had to say, but then you very quickly realize there are other things that go along into it. So you reach this new level. And this new level is, do you want to hire an assistant? Do you want to hire help? Do you want to hire a production crew? Do you want to hire a sales team ultimately? And for a lot of people, let's use the shining example of this, not in journalism, but in entertainment, is Mr. Beast, who said yes to all those questions and hit a grand slam home run. And that's one person. And then you look at the success rate for those. And I'm not saying this to be discouraging. If you're a creator, you should go for it. If but just know that's what it takes and that's not for everyone. The other pole, the other side is the institution.
35:23 Speaker 01 And in my, my New York Times is the pinnacle of a great institution. There are other ones. I can point to the Wall Street Journal. I can point to ESPN. I can even point to New York Magazine, which we run, which for my money is obviously the best magazine journalism based institution. And what makes an institution great? It's the people, but it's the people who are put into a system to succeed based on the values and the proposition of that institution. And that means often, and this is not a negative, it's actually a positive, conforming to the institution. What does it mean to conform to the institution? Sometimes it's editorial standards. Sometimes it's like, hey, you're on this beat. We don't want you talking about that thing, even though you might have feelings,
36:08 Speaker 01 even though you might want to report on that. That's just not what we hired you to. And there's a career ladder and give it a couple of years in your job and we'll get you into that other thing. But if you want to, if it's Tuesday and you want to do something else on Thursday, that's just not what this place is about. Or in your case, hey, I like my salary. I like my healthcare. You pay me well, but I'm doing really well here. Shouldn't I get a cut of the action? And there are very few institutions that are set up around that. Not a negative because the institution is great for all the reasons you just said. And we need those institutions. I manage not only New York Magazine, but I manage Vox, which is an emerging institution as well. We created a different model, though, to take advantage, which I say is in the middle
36:52 Speaker 01 of those two poles, which is I want to have that flexibility either and that motivation as an entrepreneur, as a journalist, as a creator. I want the creative freedom. I want the financial motivation. But I don't want to do all the other things. I don't want to have my own legal team. I do not necessarily want to have my own production team. I do not want to have my own sales team. Maybe I want one of those things. I want three of those things, but maybe I want someone else to do that. And maybe I want to be part of a like minded portfolio of people who want the same thing. And maybe if I'm an advertiser, I want the convenience and the scale of going to one place where I know I can find high quality people like Kara Swisher, like Scott Galloway,
37:36 Speaker 01 like Brene Brown, like our newest sign, Ina Garten. I don't know if she's here, but Robyn Arzon, Maria Sharapova. I won't name all 50 of them, but I could. And what you'll find if I do is that they all share quality, consistency, integrity, thoughtfulness. They might be an athlete, they might be a chef, they might be a leading tech journalist. But we're building that and people know they can come to us for that.
38:01 Kara Swisher? No more ads for Vox, please. The, that's okay. But when you think about the compensation things and once people do get a taste of this, it is shifting rather significantly, as Scott talks about a lot, Scott Galloway, towards the talent. Are you thinking about it as a problem, either of you? You first, Meredith.
38:20 Speaker 02 Look, I always say I want my tombstone to say, raised a happy, well adjusted child and like helped more journalists earn a living wage and, you know, be able to do good work in a, in a fair and well compensated way. And I, I do think being a journalist is one of those really important jobs in society that we need smart, ambitious, awesome people to do. So I am for, you know, as much compensation as is reasonable to be given to journalists. I think I've already expressed, we, we've got a sort of broad proposition of things we're doing.
39:02 Kara Swisher? But do you see yourself striking more of these kind of deals or not at all?
39:06 Speaker 02 I, I, I think I've already said, you know, what we, what we think. Yeah.
39:12 Speaker 01 And ours is a mix. We have shows that we own and operate like Today Explained. And then we have ones that where our incentives are very much aligned. You make money, Kara, we make money and you hold us accountable for making money and we love that. And it's not going to work for us if it's not going to work for you. I would argue it's not going to work for you if it doesn't work for us or whoever's next. And we proved that to you. I think you came back for renewal because it's working and it's growing and we hope to continue that.
39:41 Kara Swisher? We'll be back in a minute.
39:49 Speaker 02 So let's talk about a couple more things. One is, let me go to this question. We get an expert question. This is from Theo Baker.
39:57 Speaker 03 Hi there. My name is Theo Baker and I'm an investigative journalist and the author of the recent book, How to Rule the World. I'm also a certified young person, having graduated from college exactly a week ago today. My time at school became very clear that young people are not engaging with independent, nonpartisan media in the way that other generations seem to be. There's no news ritual. There's no reading the Sunday paper from cover to cover. There's no Cronkite. Even millennials have newsletters and blogs, but there isn't that sort of centralized 15-minute-a-day idea for Gen C. To the extent that they get stories, they tend to be filtered through another source, someone on TikTok reading a story on a green screen, not the actual articles themselves.
40:41 Speaker 03 I'm wondering if this is a distribution problem that you're concerned about? And if so, how do you think it might be possible to reach young people with more high-quality, independent news content?
40:53 Speaker 02 Theo, it's a great question and one that I think about all the time. And I have this anecdote from early on when I got to The Times. Somebody said to me, "You guys should buy Mike.com."
41:06 Kara Swisher? Oh, I remember.
41:07 Speaker 02 Remember that?
41:07 Kara Swisher? I think I told you not to.
41:09 Speaker 02 And, and I mean, we were like, "Why?"
41:13 Kara Swisher? Why?
41:13 Speaker 02 Right, yeah. And the answer was, "Because you needed to reach young people." And it's like, there's no reason what we do at The New York Times cannot reach young people. The single largest area of new, fresh investment at The New York Times is going into video, putting as much of our work on video, including reporters, I will say, of all ages. There's a great video today. We actually have a tab in the app now. It's like a whole video feed of short stories. There's a tab in the app, a video from Apurva Mandeville, who's one of our health and science reporters about Ebola and how
41:56 Speaker 02 The symptoms are harder to spot, the symptoms are less bad now, so there's fear the disease will spread even more rampantly because of that. And you watch like 120 second video, you never read anything, and you see there's a human with expertise showing you how the disease is spreading. You've just gotten what might have taken you 20 minutes to read a story, you know, two years ago on the New York Times.
42:22 Kara Swisher? Some video.
42:23 Speaker 02 We do forensic video investigations now, so we're the ones who figured out through forensic video that it was the US who bombed the school. I think it was in southern Iran in Minab. It was a US missile that hit it. That's like, this stuff is ageless. This is how people take in information now. And by the way, where is all that video going? Ultimately, we want you to come and watch it on our destination. You're not going to do that unless you know it exists. So we are, you know, at the beginning of having it be all over YouTube and Instagram and TikTok and everywhere people are so that we do not see the ground.
43:05 Kara Swisher? Where do you consider, given Theo's question, the most important place to reach young people?
43:09 Speaker 02 I mean, I think it is inarguable that young people are getting their news on big video platforms, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. And so we are making a giant push to be in those places. We should talk about no links too. It is a different ecosystem, but we are making the bet that we've got to be there. You've got to see our work there, and that is going to help you understand. And I think we've got lots of early evidence that it's really working. And I also want to say, we're making great shows at the New York Times. We brought to Cannes the hosts of a new show called Pop Cast. It's a show
43:51 Speaker 02 on music and culture by music critic John Karmonica and music reporter Joe Cosarelli. Joe is now best known, he's the guy who interviewed Taylor Swift for 30 minutes, like in a black site, you know, and it's sort of only on The New York Times interview. Um, we have our cooking, our biggest cooking franchise right now is called the pizza interview. If you're a celebrity and your movie or your book is just out, you go make a pizza in our test kitchen. Last thing I gotta say, who doesn't know someone under the age of 20 plays all our games?
44:27 Kara Swisher? Well, that's different. That was, that was the perfect purchase.
44:30 Speaker 01 I play, I play them. They're amazing.
44:31 Speaker 02 And over the age of like 50 and 80.
44:34 Speaker 01 I won't repeat everything you said about formats because you're absolutely right. And you know, Vox in particular is all about multi-format journalism. But I'll, I'll talk about two things that I think are overhyped, uh, trends that people talk about. One is young people not consuming news brands. And then the second is around people's attention spans getting shorter. I know why people say both of those things. My, it feels like my attention span is shorter. Yet I will listen to an hour long episode of On. I will list, and by the way, young people, not all young people, when I was young, I, dirty secret, I wasn't flipping through every page.
45:12 Speaker 01 I know Theo is, I was not Theo, unfortunately. I was, I, um, but you know, thankfully I have children who do care about the news and they, and they become stronger news consumers over time. Now, having said that, of course, they're not going to flip through a newspaper, but they are going to seek out quality sources. In addition to the TikTok creator with the green screen, because they're curious people, that's not changing. The human condition is not changing in that way. People understand quality. They want quality. And they have to get savvy about this new way of consuming thing and they are every day. And quality brands that put in the work, quality personalities that do that will keep them.
45:51 Speaker 01 The formats are changing though, and the choice is abundant. Um, when, when we were younger, we had a few TV channels and a few newspapers and some magazines. Now I have a device with a 4K screen where I can read, I can watch, I can listen. I can get it in my inbox. I can get it pushed to me. I can get it in a reel from eight different tech platforms. And that is a wonderful thing. It's just change and, and then I can watch Game of Thrones for hours and hours. But if someone dares to make a TikTok that is 90 seconds, that should have been 30 seconds.
46:28 Speaker 01 Screw them, they've lost me. If, you know, if someone can make a three-hour podcast, and I will listen to the whole thing if it captures my attention. So that's why I don't think it's an attention span thing. We have more choice. That is a wonderful thing. And then it's up to us as institutions, creators, and all the above, to make sure that we take advantage of that. But the quality will be everlasting. The trust is an everlasting value. These values are everlasting, and don't get fooled. There was fluffy stuff when I was a kid. Maybe for those of you who are closer to my age. Yeah, we like to waste our time. Just because people are still wasting their time on stuff doesn't mean, particularly as they get a little bit older and more invested in the world, and they have their own children,
47:13 Speaker 01 and they need to be active members of their communities and their societies. They are going to look for quality information, and they are doing that.
47:19 Kara Swisher? You both are in relatively good shape for the media, right? I would say, in excellent shape. And probably up and to the right for most of your businesses. What is the thing you're most worried about at this moment in time? And in five years from now, if you're going to be the CEOs of your companies? Is it the attacks of the Trump administration on the New York Times? They keep suing you, and the Wall Street Journal. He keeps going back and forth.
47:44 Speaker 02 That's just an effort to deter more independent journalism.
47:48 Kara Swisher? 100%, but it still is risk-taking. It's a risk move.
47:53 Speaker 01 I'll do one, since I'm in a room of marketers and in a marketing, a beautiful Las Vegas convention on the coatisure. One thing I think about is the role of marketing. We have subscription services, and we have very loyal advertising. But sometimes, based on what's happening in this administration or other administrations, the commitment of, not, thankfully, we have great loyal advertisers, but commitments wane and ebb and flow.
48:24 Speaker 01 And I think what's most important as you are talking to your customers, if you're an advertiser, is I know people are listening who are not, but if you aren't an advertiser and you want to support a brand, support a brand that is making a commitment to this important work that I think everyone listening and watching cares about.
48:44 Speaker 02 Okay.
48:44 Speaker 01 I think brands are afraid.
48:45 Speaker 02 You're worried they are.
48:46 Speaker 01 The fear is brands run away from it, but I think audiences are savvy enough to know they are supporting this and I will embrace a brand that embraces the quality work. So my fear is like, don't run from it because the administration or someone else is saying something. Embrace it because you know your audience by definition, they are there and they will support you for supporting it.
49:07 Speaker 02 I'm gonna repeat something I alluded to at the beginning, which is I am deeply, deeply worried about an American public and probably a global public that is so used to algorithms feeding them what matches their own worldviews, that we have lost our understanding of what high-quality independent journalism is and does and why it matters. And a society where it plays a diminished role in people's life is a much lesser society. And I actually think that's what Theo Baker's question is really about.
49:49 Speaker 02 And that is what the New York Times and I think Jim and all of us who are sort of fighting for journalism, fighting for our intellectual property rights, fighting for us to be able to report in an undeterred way, which is protected by the law, that is what we are fighting for and it is for the public.
50:09 Speaker 01 Amen.
50:10 Kara Swisher? And I'll end on that because we gotta wrap it up, is something I say to my kids a lot. One of my sons says, I'm not reading the news right now because it's bad. And I'm like, oh no, my friend, you're gonna understand it. But what we have to do is sort of point to the solutions. And I interview lots of media people where things are working, like Oliver Darcy or a bunch, Casey Newton and others. So I like say, like, it's not Not all fucking doom scrolling, here's what works. Same thing that I think is happening in politics. Zohar Mamdammi just swept the Democratic Party aside in New York, and I don't think it's because everyone all of a sudden wants to be a socialist necessarily. I think it's because they're talking about hope and solutions and fixing.
50:51 Kara Swisher? I think the messages of fixing and what we can do, instead of just like agonizing over what stupid thing Donald Trump said today, is, the media should start to do that and stop focusing in on what dumb thing he said. Like, that just makes you feel sick. And so I think it's probably our responsibility not to hold back the truth from you, because if you can't take it, you know, get off, get back on the fucking porch, kids, if you can't take it. But we have to provide you with, here's what you can do about it. And the media should be doing that, and that's not happy journalism. That's what do we, what, what can you do, what actions can you take? And that's on us to do that for, for people. Anyway, thank you so much, thank you to these two. I really appreciate it.
51:36 Speaker 02 Really fun.
51:40 Kara Swisher? Today's show was produced by Michelle Aloy, Catherine Millsop, Madeleine LaPlante-Duby, Megan Burney, and Kalen Lynch. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's executive producer of podcasts. Special thanks to Rosemarie Ho, Tracy Hunt, Julia Sharp Levine, and Lissa Soep. And thanks to United Talent Agency for providing a great space to record a podcast in Cannes. Our engineers are Fernando Aruda and Rick Kwan, and our theme music is by Trackademics. If you're already following the show, you know that Jeff Bezos is a terrible media owner, and so does Meredith. If not, Jim, the jury is not out on Paramount. Go wherever you listen to podcasts, search for On with Kara Swisher, and hit follow. Thanks for listening to On with Kara Swisher from Podium Media, New York Magazine, the
52:24 Kara Swisher? Vox Media Podcast Network, and us. We'll be back on Thursday with more.
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