There Are No Girls on the Internet - What is a journalism？ TikTok and the future of news (w⧸ Vitus Spehar of Under the Desk News!)

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00:01:05.000 It's not just one white man writing a story from a white man's perspective, 0.66

00:01:09.000 handing it to another white news anchor to deliver on an entirely white-brown major network. 0.81

00:01:18.720 There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative. 0.86

00:01:27.080 I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet.

00:01:33.100 I grew up in a newspaper family.

00:01:36.100 And in fact, our family always got two copies of our local newspaper.

00:01:40.820 One for the family, and another one just for my dad that none of us were supposed to rifle through.

00:01:46.720 I guess because the man really enjoyed having a crisp, fresh newspaper all to himself.

00:01:53.360 But that was a long time ago.

00:01:55.300 Today, less and less people are getting their news from traditional sources like a newspaper or a mainstream media outlet.

00:02:02.120 Instead, they're getting their news from podcasts.

00:02:05.100 Hey, like the one you're listening to right now.

00:02:07.580 And from content creators on social media.

00:02:10.660 And if you've gotten your news on TikTok, odds are you've seen Vitus Spear from Under the Desk News.

00:02:16.320 That title, Under the Desk, is literal, by the way.

00:02:20.340 V actually gets down under their desk to tell their 3 million followers on TikTok what they need to know.

00:02:26.580 And it started during the height of the pandemic.

00:02:29.760 We were seeing a lot of journalists working from home.

00:02:33.180 And so I didn't want to blur this line of like being some super serious journalist who was just working from home because of, you know, the pandemic.

00:02:41.120 And so I got under my desk to create this kind of safe place where we could have like a secret and talk about the news in a way that wasn't going to be scary to people, that wasn't sensationalized.

00:02:52.580 And that just kind of was what I would do, you know, if I was still in the office, like if I had a water cooler in my home, I probably would have been water cooler talk, but I didn't.

00:03:02.840 So I just had the under the desk space.

00:03:04.720 So that's that was like the ethos and the idea of like why under a desk.

00:03:09.400 Going back to that time where we all were sort of emotionally, that's when doom scrolling became a thing.

00:03:16.240 And the news, it was like you couldn't, if you opened up a news app, you were like opening up this whole rush of emotions.

00:03:25.400 Many of them were like bad, scary, big.

00:03:28.400 And so your voice was really one that was calming.

00:03:31.020 It was soothing.

00:03:31.940 It was like, here's the stuff you need to know, but you don't need to freak out.

00:03:35.180 Here's some information.

00:03:36.420 Is that the vibe you were intentionally trying to cultivate?

00:03:38.720 Yeah.

00:03:39.400 Yeah, that was the originality of it. Because I mean, if you think about we went into our homes

00:03:44.780 in March, I started the TikTok in like March or April. And I actually used to do cooking content

00:03:49.480 when I first started. Because I was working for the James Beard Foundation, which is like a big

00:03:53.820 chef organization. And I was trying to tell the chefs about how to apply for PBB loans and like

00:03:58.740 EIDL and shuttered venue. And at that time, like on TikTok, you had to have like a kitschy thing.

00:04:03.680 So I would like throw butter from across my room into the pan. And I would like make the hamburgers,

00:04:08.820 slap in the air and like, I was so ridiculous. And I would be teaching people about these 0.92

00:04:13.720 government programs. And that kind of led into explaining the CARES Act. And then that led into

00:04:17.500 the election. And then that led into January 6th, Joe Biden's first hundred days, the pull out of

00:04:23.780 Afghanistan. I mean, it was just like always something else that was really scary that

00:04:28.800 watching the news was stressing me out because I'd have to watch for like hours before I just

00:04:33.460 found out what happened. You know, just give it to me, tell me quickly what happened. And so I

00:04:38.880 felt like I could create this space to kind of catch people up quickly and help bring them back

00:04:43.100 to the news in a way that wasn't requiring such a commitment from them, both emotionally and time

00:04:48.100 wise. You've kind of become a go-to news source for TikTok. Like when I think about people who

00:04:54.180 make news on TikTok, I think of you specifically. Why do you think that TikTok is a platform that

00:05:01.260 is conducive to people getting their news in like a specific kind of way. It's not a news reader,

00:05:06.440 you know, so detached from the feeling or the emotion. There's a real relationship that's

00:05:10.700 being built. Why do you think that folks on TikTok are looking for that or that's taken

00:05:14.040 off on the platform? So a lot of the way that I do the news is based on the way that I grew up.

00:05:19.980 And my mom is who I call the original citizen journalist because she used to be home. And I

00:05:25.700 remember the year that she bought a police scanner and she would just sit with her girlfriends and

00:05:29.340 drink coffee and smoke Virginia Slims and listen to the police scanner. And then my dad would come

00:05:34.320 home and she'd be like, oh my God, Paul, you're not going to believe it. You're not going to

00:05:38.080 believe it. And she would go around and look for the police. In our little town, it was a goofy

00:05:46.100 kind of thing to do and how much crime was really happening. There wasn't really that much.

00:05:50.980 But she would report back to him all the things that happened. And I think that people love that.

00:05:56.020 They've loved that forever. People love getting their news from their peers, catching up with the girls, like just talking about what's going on in the world. And so I think on TikTok, we get that kind of feeling. And especially at a time most of us started during the pandemic, we kind of trauma bonded, right? This is where we were connecting with people, where we were building friendships and learning things.

00:06:14.760 And so I think it's that thing that's always been a thing where you'd rather hear it from a friend than you'd rather hear it from, like, some stodgy person on the evening news telling you, like, you know, it's 10 p.m. Do you know where your children are? And, like, scaring you all the time, you know?

00:06:29.440 Yeah. Moms, nosy moms who want to know what's going on in their neighborhood. 0.93

00:06:33.960 Absolutely.

00:06:34.220 For the original newsbreakers, the original social media networks, ask a mom.

00:06:39.700 Yep. Yep. Yep.

00:06:40.820 America, America has a problem.

00:06:46.360 Trust.

00:06:47.640 It turns out that Americans' confidence in newspapers and television news has plummeted to an all-time low.

00:06:53.860 This is according to a Gallup survey on trust in the United States' institutions conducted last year.

00:06:59.680 Now, distrusted media might conjure up ideas of right-wingers who hate CNN and all journalists.

00:07:05.200 But it's more than that.

00:07:07.000 Because many of us have watched mainstream media outlets fail to thoughtfully cover our issues.

00:07:12.560 And for marginalized communities, like women, trans folks, black folks, queer folks, disabled folks, this really matters.

00:07:19.620 It can be life or death.

00:07:21.240 But maybe social media can present a solution.

00:07:24.040 Because listen to this.

00:07:24.940 Pew found that U.S. adults under 30 now trust information from social media almost as much from national news outlets.

00:07:33.180 So if you're somebody like V, this is a real opportunity to tell authentic stories.

00:07:38.340 I don't think I have to tell you that distrust in traditional news networks is like really high, particularly with marginalized folks, young people, Gen Z.

00:07:47.780 Why do you think that is?

00:07:50.280 So what I find interesting about that is a lot of the news that I'm bringing people is coming from these legacy media organizations.

00:07:56.420 I mean, I was the face of the LA Times TikTok for six months, and it greatly improved their

00:08:01.360 sort of relationship with the audience.

00:08:03.500 Sometimes I'm pulling things from the Washington Post or the New York Times, like these big

00:08:07.660 legacy organizations.

00:08:09.200 I think the difference here is I do believe that people trust reporters.

00:08:14.140 I think if they could meet Erin Logan from the LA Times, they would feel differently

00:08:19.380 about her reporting than when they just read it in the newspaper and they sort of ascribe

00:08:22.520 whatever bias they have to that newspaper onto her reporting, as an example. I think we have

00:08:30.420 seen this rise in advertising. We know that there are certain channels that are bought. We know that

00:08:35.820 the goal isn't necessarily to inform the way that the news used to be. But since we've been on this

00:08:40.240 24-hour cycle, the goal is to occupy your time and keep eyeballs on you so that they can advertise.

00:08:46.660 And that's a problem across all platforms, right? Like this idea that your ability to communicate

00:08:51.460 is directly related to your ability to fundraise or to get advertisers or to raise money and stuff.

00:08:59.080 And so I think that's where the distrust comes from is people feeling like these big legacy

00:09:03.420 organizations are out of touch. They're using words that are too academic for the average person.

00:09:08.700 They're talking about things that are too high level for what we need to know and deal with

00:09:14.380 today. They feel like they're protecting the other side. I was having a conversation recently

00:09:20.140 with Sam Woolley, who's a professor at the University of Austin. He talks about propaganda,

00:09:24.080 and he was talking about how a lot of distrust in the media has come from the idea that journalism

00:09:28.700 is supposed to be both sides totally objective, and you can't be when social issues lead the

00:09:34.860 current news cycle. When we're talking about scientific research, sure, we could say,

00:09:38.960 should we be gene editing humans? I don't know, but we are. That's a good both sides, right?

00:09:44.140 But when we're talking about the realistic existence of trans people, well, we can't 0.94

00:09:49.120 both sides that. I think when people try to both sides it, they think that these newspapers don't

00:09:53.340 have a strong point of view. They're not standing on the right side of history, whatever the case

00:09:56.760 may be, or they're leaning too far to the left and they've gone woke. And so I think a lot of it is

00:10:02.760 because social issues are leading the news right now, that there's a lot of distrust. But I do

00:10:07.940 believe that individual reporters still hold a ton of credibility with the public. I was at a

00:10:12.840 panel recently, like a journalism panel, and someone mentioned this reporter, Phil Lewis,

00:10:18.140 who was, like, big on Twitter, always, like, the big news.

00:10:21.860 He's always tweeting about it.

00:10:23.200 And they were like, okay, so this is someone that you are familiar with.

00:10:25.940 You follow this person.

00:10:26.720 You trust this person.

00:10:27.660 Do you know what news outlet they write for?

00:10:29.620 And I was like, no.

00:10:30.900 And he was like, the AP.

00:10:31.960 Would never have in a million years have guessed that.

00:10:33.900 And it's like, clearly, it's not that Phil works for the AP or is representing the AP.

00:10:39.500 I have, in my mind, turned Phil into, like, Black Twitter's town crier or whatever.

00:10:45.700 It has nothing to do with the outlet that Phil is at. It has everything to do with the relationship that I feel like I have when I see Phil in my feed. So I think that you're exactly right.

00:10:55.960 I also think there's really something to this idea about how we've gotten to this place where journalists, or maybe it's not even journalists, maybe it's media outlets, feel like it's their job to give both sides of issues that really don't have two sides to it.

00:11:14.200 right? Like that's been a real frustration of mine where I'll be like, oh, this trans person 0.54

00:11:20.860 wants to have rights. People on the other side say they should all be killed. The truth is 0.99

00:11:26.480 probably somewhere in the middle. And it's like, no, it's really not. And you're doing folks a

00:11:31.540 disservice when you train them, but like, this is what good journalism is. Good journalism does not

00:11:37.300 try to find the middle ground of like a position that doesn't necessarily even have two sides.

00:11:42.600 It's like, how do we get out of that trap that trains people that this is what good journalism is?

00:11:49.920 So I think that we're going to have a longer road because we're also in a day and age where I can make anything true.

00:11:56.740 I can make anything true.

00:11:58.820 You can find something that looks very official journalism, very official newspaper, news outlet, something that's called like the Daily Caller or like the Telegram.

00:12:10.400 You know, I mean, that sounds like a legit newspaper.

00:12:12.600 it's all lined up it's got the columns right the pictures are right looks looks good you can make

00:12:18.600 anything true and so as long as we live in a world where we can make anything true and the truth

00:12:23.380 uh is so flexible in fact that it is more based on the opinion and what will be received as

00:12:29.580 opposed to like what is objectively true um we're going to continue to have a lot of problems with

00:12:35.600 with people feeling like they can't trust journalism or like there's both sides of it

00:12:40.480 or everything is true because there's no solid consensus on anything at all. And that's sort of

00:12:46.740 the nonsense that I try to deal with under the desk is people will be like, why don't you talk

00:12:50.020 about this? And I'm like, there's no way I can talk about that without just descending into

00:12:56.340 absolute madness because it's too much of a third real topic and people have built their religion

00:13:01.480 into the way they receive news now or their perceived religion into the way they receive

00:13:06.280 news now. And so it's just people forcing something to be true, whether it is or not.

00:13:13.480 And I think we have to fight that before we can expect journalists to keep up with that.

00:13:18.080 Do you think in some ways we're like beyond truth? Sometimes I worry that we're just in this

00:13:23.840 new era where ultimately it doesn't really matter if something is actually true or not,

00:13:31.000 even things that can and cannot be objectively true, because that's not what we're really

00:13:35.620 arguing about. We're arguing about people's identities and their ideologies and their

00:13:40.220 values and what they feel and all of these perceptions. And it kind of doesn't matter

00:13:44.800 ultimately if the thing is true. Do you ever feel that way? I do. So, and I think that we can fix it,

00:13:51.600 but I think we have to be able to name it. So like for me, the Buffalo Bills are the greatest

00:13:55.820 football team that have ever played the game. You can't tell me nothing about the Buffalo Bills,

00:14:01.200 right? They're the best. When they lose, it wasn't their fault. When they win, it's because

00:14:06.960 God himself was on the field that day with Josh Allen, right? Like, I love the Bills unreasonably

00:14:14.340 with no end in sight, okay? And that is normal for a sports fan. That is not normal for us to

00:14:23.140 ascribe to politicians. There is not one politician that should walk the way that should be treated

00:14:29.900 the way that we treat our sports teams. And we've also taken the truth and made it a matter of who

00:14:34.960 is winning the truth, right? So you take a politician or you take a public figure and we

00:14:41.700 have a truth about them. They were found liable of sexual assault, right? So that's a truth.

00:14:47.760 That's a fact. That happened. But that's your team. That's your guy. So you're going to make

00:14:53.160 every excuse about like why that might be a little less true or why that doesn't matter in the long

00:14:59.040 run. And that's a problem too. And this has all been done on purpose, right? Since the 1970s.

00:15:04.660 And for centuries upon centuries, this has been done, right? This is just human nature.

00:15:09.660 But what they've done so well right now is this division of media outlets where you have like

00:15:14.160 your left-wing outlets and your right-wing outlets, and they're fighting like sports teams.

00:15:18.200 And so because you have triggered this like protective fan instinct in people,

00:15:23.420 They're going to defend their team, their guy, their gods the way that they do with religion and sports as opposed to keeping an objective lens on accountability when it comes to public figures and politicians.

00:15:37.160 And so I think if we know that that's what's happening to people when they're receiving stories, we can adjust the way we're telling the story to make it make sense to that person and kind of break that haze that a lot of folks have on public figures.

00:15:53.420 Let's take a quick break.

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00:16:47.240 If your bookshelf and your For You page are equally important to your personality, welcome home.

00:16:53.420 This is Prose Society, the weekly podcast that's part book club, part group chat for thought

00:16:59.180 daughters, pop culture obsessives, and anyone who thinks Pride and Prejudice and Love Island

00:17:03.540 deserve the same level of discourse. I'm Eli Rallo, and every week we're connecting the dots

00:17:08.420 between books, the internet, and the conversations everyone can't stop having. I'm going to have to

00:17:13.580 look up this story. I'm obsessed. So obsessed. From bestselling authors and your favorite book

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00:17:30.540 you're looking for literary deep dives smart pop culture conversations or a community of readers

00:17:35.680 who love to think a little too much you're in the right place listen to pro society on the

00:17:41.160 iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts see you between the pages

00:17:48.580 and we're back i never thought i'd see the day where people were like i hate cnn or like this

00:18:01.300 news outlet like it's just yeah they're not sports teams and it's so curious that we're in this day

00:18:06.140 and age where where you get your news is like something to be defended about you it's like

00:18:12.160 not even about the news that they create like i just it's such a weird position that we find

00:18:16.520 ourselves in this day and age. It's obsessive. It's intentionally addictive. They've used all

00:18:22.320 of the things that used to make us addicted to making sure we watch TGIF every single Friday

00:18:26.480 night, or we never missed an episode of The Bachelor. And they've built that into the ways

00:18:30.780 that they news program now. So you're just as addicted to those programs and to that information

00:18:35.180 as you would be your favorite television show or scary movies. And you want to see that next one

00:18:40.460 that's coming out right away, right away. And so I think those are the things that we have to kind

00:18:44.420 to overcome when it comes to media. And then we also have to overcome this feeling of better than

00:18:53.060 that a lot of journalists have. I've been asking myself a lot, what is a journalism? What is a

00:18:58.760 journalism? Because there are some people who look at what I do and they're like, now you're a hack

00:19:03.380 who reads headlines. And I'm like, okay. And then there are other people who are like, this is

00:19:06.700 incredible new media. And then there are other people who are like, well, the original reporting

00:19:10.420 you do on the podcast kind of cancels out the fact that your TikTok is corny. And there are

00:19:14.460 other people who are like, well, your TikTok reaches more people and has a higher finish rate

00:19:18.480 than any other news outlet on TikTok. And I'm like, okay, so what is it? But everyone's still

00:19:23.580 trying to decide, have I earned the right to be a part of journalism? Because that industry has

00:19:32.140 been so gatekept and so academicized, which is not a word, but it is now, where it's like people,

00:19:38.820 you know, I don't claim to rival Taylor Lorenz when it comes to investigative reporting on the

00:19:44.340 internet, but both of us are really important to it getting to the public. Taylor can write

00:19:50.720 something that's out. We're friends, which I'm bringing her up as an example. Taylor can write

00:19:54.960 something that took her months that the Washington Post has paid her to write, to investigate, to

00:19:59.200 take that time, to use those resources, to get this incredible story together. If she can't

00:20:04.180 connect with the audience because she was building that huge story and she was busy,

00:20:09.560 then who's going to deliver it to them to sort of direct people in the direction of that piece?

00:20:14.440 So it takes a lot of different folks to make journalism work nowadays. And I think that's

00:20:20.080 a good thing if we could all embrace it and understand our place within it, because it's

00:20:23.880 not just one white man writing a story from a white man's perspective, handing it to another

00:20:28.100 white news anchor to deliver on an entirely white brand major network. And that's good.

00:20:34.180 Like, these are good problems to have, but I think we need to start thinking about what is a journalism, who is a journalist, and why we are so gatekeepy about that industry.

00:20:44.120 Like, if I didn't go to Columbia School of Journalism, or the best question I get all the time, did you go to J school?

00:20:49.500 First of all, girl, I was like, yeah, I don't know.

00:20:53.900 Like, so?

00:20:55.820 I'm like, what is J school?

00:20:59.100 I'm like, I went to theater school, and then I went to business school.

00:21:02.280 I was like, J school?

00:21:03.500 I'm like, Jesuit school? I couldn't picture what it was.

00:21:07.460 That's amazing.

00:21:09.000 Did you want to be in journalism when you were younger? Did you see yourself being in the role

00:21:14.100 that you are today? I have always been really good at explaining things and I've always been

00:21:19.200 a negotiator. And before I was doing what I do now, I worked in food policy a lot. I've always

00:21:24.820 been fascinated by history and politics and just more the society dynamics of the world, I would

00:21:30.840 say is like more what I'm interested in. And that's kind of what I speak to. So now I'm doing

00:21:34.920 the news, but the news is always coming from like a society lens. How does this affect people? Not

00:21:40.880 necessarily how does this affect processes or how does this affect politics? And so I have always

00:21:48.480 been like this. I did not imagine that I would be like a news anchor, but what's kind of funny is

00:21:55.160 my pledge sister from my sorority is also a news anchor in Seattle. And she's like, yeah, no,

00:22:00.000 this makes sense for us. I don't know why we were just best friends and both ended up like kind of

00:22:05.640 as news anchors. I mean, she's like the nightly news anchor in Seattle, but I think I have a

00:22:11.020 performance background. I have a theater background. I'm very good at understanding

00:22:14.160 big concepts very quickly. I'm used to explaining things that are very complicated. Like I used to

00:22:18.060 explain food policy to chefs. And I love this work and I love connecting with people and I love being

00:22:24.380 a helper. And so in those ways, I think I see myself fitting into this world. And this is the

00:22:29.780 dream that I always had. I just didn't know it was going to come in this can. I think you have

00:22:33.340 a gift for spreading a message and spreading information and really making people connect

00:22:37.760 and care, you know, dissemination. And to your point about how so much of media can turn people

00:22:42.700 off, it really speaks to the importance of dissemination because I could sit down and

00:22:47.340 write the most compelling, nuanced, well-researched, in-depth piece on an issue in the New York Times,

00:22:52.580 but some people are just never going to be the type of people who pick up a New York Times

00:22:57.160 newspaper. So that message isn't getting to everybody who needs to hear it. Something that

00:23:01.760 we've just started doing recently on this podcast, which is in addition to the sort of in-depth

00:23:06.580 interviews, like the one that you're on right now, we also do these weekly news roundups where

00:23:12.160 big issues around technology and the internet and how it's legislated, we are summarizing and

00:23:18.360 making accessible. Now, we're obviously just summarizing headlines and stories written by

00:23:22.560 other people, but we try to put it in everyday language, make it accessible, and give people

00:23:27.120 the context. And I really feel like when it comes to tech especially, there is something about the

00:23:32.080 way that these stories are framed that just, I don't know, it just always turned me off. And if

00:23:37.060 it's turning me off, it's probably turning a lot of other folks off too. So they just end up tuning

00:23:41.340 it out when they actually really need to hear it. And yeah, most of these stories and the way they

00:23:46.460 were framed and written just did not speak to me as a Black woman. Take AI, for instance. Someone

00:23:53.360 will be reporting on AI and they'll be talking about it like a business story rather than how

00:23:58.780 will this technology impact me as somebody who is marginalized and disproportionately harmed by

00:24:03.220 technology. And sometimes it seems like these stories were written in a way that ends up just

00:24:07.660 shutting people out who actually need to hear it. And we've gotten a tremendous response from doing

00:24:13.500 in the news roundups in this way, because I think people really want accessible kind of like,

00:24:18.380 here's what you need to know. Here's how it will impact you coverage of important stories.

00:24:22.540 You know, that's what folks are really looking for. They don't want to be scared into paying

00:24:26.300 attention or guilted into paying attention. They just want to know, okay, what's going on? What

00:24:30.940 do I need to know? How will it impact me? How should I be thinking about it? How can I contextualize

00:24:34.920 it? How should I internalize it? And this is what I think so many media outlets are just failing to

00:24:39.900 do for people who actually really do want it. And that speaks to lived experience, right?

00:24:45.960 I always had to work, so I didn't have time. Even in college, I had to work. I couldn't possibly,

00:24:51.960 so I never developed the skill to sit down on Sunday or at the end of my day or at the beginning

00:24:55.580 of my day and really get into reading something and really giving myself time to reflect on that

00:25:00.800 something. I don't have a lot of time, but a lot of the people who get to speak and a lot of the

00:25:05.240 people that get platform and get to write did have that experience because they immerse themselves

00:25:09.740 culturally in that kind of time. They had that kind of time. I didn't have that kind of time.

00:25:15.520 And so now they're writing and they're writing expecting that the audience has had a similar

00:25:19.600 walk of life that they did and they didn't. And so that's why for me, the news is so quick at the

00:25:24.800 end of the night. Cause I'm like, I got to tell you what you got to know in a minute and a half,

00:25:27.720 because we got kids to feed, we got homework to do, or I've got another job to get to,

00:25:32.480 or I've got like, my wife has rehearsal tomorrow night. So I'm trying to like,

00:25:35.600 make sure I do the news before I drive her to rehearsal. Like there's all kinds of stuff that

00:25:39.080 we do, especially from marginalized groups that take up more of our time that give us less time 0.99

00:25:44.900 to reflect. So if I could get you something fast, that's going to tell you how it's going to affect

00:25:49.260 you. And then you can just reflect on that one part or something. Now we've sort of like helped

00:25:53.940 people catch up with the folks who have all this leisure time to dive into the theology of what's

00:26:01.660 going on. Yeah. I used to watch shows like Sex and the City or like movies that took place in

00:26:08.220 New York. And it would be like, oh, I'm just sitting around with my stack of magazines and

00:26:12.580 newspapers. And it's like, who's doing that? What adult has time to sit around with their

00:26:17.240 coffee in their five newspapers and just pour through them?

00:26:21.720 I lived in New York for a number of years during and after college. And so many people nowadays,

00:26:28.780 because I'm an elder millennial, will be like, yeah, I remember when we used to watch Friends,

00:26:32.460 remember Sex and the City originally? I'm like, no, girl, I had to work. I never was home at

00:26:36.860 night to watch. I never watched The Office. I never watched any of these shows. The last sitcom

00:26:41.080 I watched was Seinfeld because I was in high school. And like, maybe I had time to watch

00:26:45.380 that with my dad if I was up late, right? Like, I never watched any of these shows about New York

00:26:49.080 because I lived there and I had to have a lot of jobs. People who are like creating the fantasy

00:26:54.820 of like what life looks like there. It's like, no, people who actually are here. Yeah, they live in

00:26:58.640 Ohio. Yeah. Breaking news from there are no girls on the internet news. This is voiceover

00:27:06.200 narration, Bridget. And I'm getting reports that anyone can get a microphone and start saying

00:27:11.380 anything they want about the news and current events on TikTok and try to get people to think

00:27:15.800 they're a reputable source. For instance, after the tragic murder of four students on the campus

00:27:20.840 of University of Idaho, a self-proclaimed internet sleuth and tarot card reader got tons and tons of

00:27:28.040 views after reporting, scare quotes, about the case on TikTok and accusing a professor who had

00:27:35.080 nothing to do with it of being the culprit. So for someone like me, who is invested in our

00:27:40.440 internet ecosystems being places where accurate information thrives, I gotta be honest, it worries

00:27:46.120 me. But V says that's what happens when creators are just focused on things like eyeballs and

00:27:51.840 engagement, rather than focusing on authentically amplifying stories that really matter. Because

00:27:57.360 when the latter happens, you get platforms that are flooded with helpful, thoughtful stories,

00:28:02.520 especially ones that might otherwise be underreported or overlooked.

00:28:06.500 Think about all the different stories in the last few years

00:28:08.840 that got more visibility because of social media platforms like TikTok.

00:28:13.120 Like the Tennessee Three, where three lawmakers, two black and one a woman,

00:28:17.260 were expelled from office over their protests in favor of gun control.

00:28:21.340 Or Baby Chanel, an indigenous child in Alaska,

00:28:25.000 living with non-native foster parents who racially demeaned her online,

00:28:29.240 which shed light on the Indian Child Welfare Act.

00:28:32.120 These stories should be told. They deserve to be told.

00:28:36.000 And with more and more people making good content on platforms like TikTok,

00:28:39.840 V says that it increases the chances that those stories will reach more people.

00:28:43.500 So we'll all be better informed.

00:28:45.340 Back to you, Interview Bridget. 0.99

00:28:47.020 Do you think that having more and more people making their own news content on platforms like TikTok,

00:28:53.120 do you think that that will help curb things like misinformation or be a way to help or make it worse?

00:29:00.040 What are your thoughts?

00:29:02.120 I think the more people that are making content generally, the better. I think it's great for

00:29:06.540 people to be able to express themselves and you can see people grow. Some people who weren't that

00:29:11.500 good in the beginning or were like over-performing have now kind of relaxed and gotten better. Other

00:29:15.180 people have fallen off. What I think is great about everybody making content is once they get

00:29:21.120 over that kind of, I do make it look kind of easy, right? Like there are some people who can make

00:29:25.520 this look like, oh, I could do that. And that's great until you go to do it and you're like,

00:29:29.060 oh, wait a minute. There's like a level of skill here that maybe in a walk of life that I didn't

00:29:33.900 share. But then they start to narrow in on the stuff that they get positive attention for,

00:29:37.520 which is oftentimes the things that they are actually good at or genuinely interested in

00:29:40.600 themselves. So I think in those way, we've gotten a lot of citizen journalists or peer journalists,

00:29:44.660 whatever you want to call them, news readers that have helped spread the message well.

00:29:50.780 Then you have the people who really don't understand the difference between positive

00:29:54.360 and negative attention and are just going to say something to get hate stitches because

00:29:59.860 their metric for success is a number, not an engagement and not a likability and not

00:30:04.660 a like trust thing.

00:30:06.300 And so you see those people sort of like firework up and then go away and firework up and go

00:30:10.260 away.

00:30:10.500 The thing that I would warn against when it comes to making news content overall is to

00:30:14.680 not just put yourself in reaction to your opposition.

00:30:18.220 A lot of what we see on left-wing news talk is people finding the most atrocious take from somebody who is deeply far right with a small following often and amplifying them into the mainstream because they said this horrible thing about bathing suits at Target and they got stitched by all of left-wing news talk, right?

00:30:38.520 That woman probably would not have had the platform she did if we didn't amplify her, right?

00:30:44.080 We being the collective left. 1.00

00:30:46.860 Same thing happens.

00:30:47.960 And what that does when people do that is it not only platforms this horrible person who's never going to be a big star on their own because the right already has their big stars, but they also invite the fox into our hen house.

00:31:01.080 And now we've been – my FYP was like slammed most of pride with very hateful things that were very disheartening to me and not celebration.

00:31:08.800 So what I would love to see is us talk to our own and celebrate our own and amplify our own as opposed to being in reaction to what our opposition says.

00:31:16.700 Now, it's important to hold the other side accountable where we can, but as far as amplifying single creators who say terrible things, their goal is just to get amplified, and you're never going to change their mind.

00:31:26.360 And they're not acting from a place of reason, so there's no reason to give them any room.

00:31:30.500 You saw this when Tucker Carlson came off the air.

00:31:33.200 The week that he was off the air, Rachel Maddow was a little bit lost, and I really respect her as a journalist.

00:31:38.600 I mean, she's incredible, right? Undeniably. But she was a little bit lost for like two or

00:31:42.320 three days because her show had gotten so used to being in reaction to Tucker Carlson and all 1.00

00:31:47.580 the stupid, horrible things he said. The next week of her show, it was like the lights came 1.00

00:31:53.220 on. She was talking about stuff she was interested in. She was bringing up the two new podcasts she

00:31:57.620 had. She had a different kind of energy because she was getting to report on the things she cared

00:32:01.920 about instead of being in reaction to that far right figure that she had to correct or try to

00:32:06.440 balance. We're not going to correct or balance them. So if you're a news creator and you're

00:32:10.320 looking at like, what should I do? You might get a lot of clicks up front by just sort of doing the

00:32:14.140 outrage farm thing, but you will get a lot more attention. Your videos will have a higher finish

00:32:19.500 rate if you are talking about something that you actually care about and sort of blocking out all

00:32:25.180 the noise. TikTok rewards positive content. So they reward positivity where Facebook and Instagram

00:32:32.120 and Twitter kind of reward division?

00:32:34.440 It's so hard, both as a person who creates content

00:32:37.580 and also a person who consumes content.

00:32:40.120 That line and that balance is so hard.

00:32:43.600 I found myself in the beginning stages of me on TikTok

00:32:46.920 really watching a lot of videos about like,

00:32:50.600 exactly like you described, like, I'm angry about this.

00:32:53.940 I'm outraged about this and you should too.

00:32:56.140 And boy, those videos really scratch an itch

00:32:58.400 that I didn't know I had and don't love that I have.

00:33:00.940 But at the end of the day, like, it's kind of just boring to listen to somebody be outraged and be angry about something and be in reaction to something.

00:33:11.140 Tell me what you love.

00:33:12.300 What are you about?

00:33:13.220 What fills your cup?

00:33:14.380 Like, that is what, like, the outrage might get my eyeballs, but the positivity is what keeps my eyeballs and keeps me interested and helps me form a relationship.

00:33:24.380 I think a big part of TikTok's infrastructure

00:33:28.140 are these people who come on strong with the outrage

00:33:31.160 and get a lot of engagement,

00:33:32.780 but that's just not sustainable

00:33:33.840 because that's not what we're looking for as humans.

00:33:36.240 I don't think that's what makes us feel good.

00:33:38.940 It's why they say that social media

00:33:40.760 can be bad for your mental health.

00:33:42.100 And a lot of it is the doom scrolling

00:33:43.440 or this outrage farming stuff

00:33:45.020 or feeling you have to be in reaction

00:33:46.200 or you have to correct the world.

00:33:47.440 You're never going to do that.

00:33:48.620 We're never going to do that.

00:33:49.920 So what I have found is best is to be like,

00:33:51.840 what am I adding to the conversation?

00:33:53.180 What do people need to know? Every Thursday, you know, I do good news only, and that's very on

00:33:56.700 purpose because I was finding by Thursday, my audience was exhausted of hearing what had gone

00:34:01.860 on that week because there's always so much kooky stuff going on. So I try to stack the deck that

00:34:05.980 I'm reading from that day to be like, here's something super important. Here's something

00:34:10.340 political. Here's something funny. Here's something super important. Here's something

00:34:13.560 funny so that we can kind of like make it through in a way that doesn't just suck away all of our

00:34:18.300 hope and also gets us excited to see what comes in the next day. And then on Thursdays, it's just

00:34:23.060 all good news no matter what, because folks are exhausted by that point. And exhaustion is how

00:34:28.840 hateful content wins, right? They have endless energy and resources to just bury you in doubt

00:34:36.220 and in sadness. And so you could just opt out. You just don't participate. I just don't participate.

00:34:44.200 I don't cover Marjorie Taylor Greene. I don't cover Trump because these are things that I can't

00:34:49.560 change anybody's mind on and that are so unusual and that are so over covered by the mainstream

00:34:55.040 media that I'm like, you guys have more resources than me. You do the heavy lifting on that.

00:34:59.840 What I want to tell you about while you're doing three and a half hours of Trump's plane on the

00:35:03.280 tarmac is the Tennessee Three. I want to tell you about this little thing that's happening.

00:35:08.100 That movement was started on TikTok. They wouldn't be here without TikTok and activist TikTok really

00:35:14.480 taking that story as high as it could go while the rest of the media was watching Trump's plane

00:35:19.560 on a tarmac. So I think there's a lot of space for good on TikTok and in news. I think you just

00:35:24.160 got to check yourself a lot and say, why am I saying this? What do I care about this? What

00:35:28.240 can I do about this? And is this my community? Don't pick somebody else's community and then

00:35:35.040 decide that you're going to speak for them. If you're a male creator, don't be like, well,

00:35:38.820 my mission is going to be to uplift the voices of women. Robbie Harvey, that's going to, you know

00:35:44.800 what I mean? That's not going to work. You know, what is your thing that you can hold all the water

00:35:49.940 for, that you're going to be a helper for, that you're the best person to help explain and

00:35:54.320 evangelize and dig deep on, right? Make sure it's your community too. Not that we shouldn't be

00:35:59.280 uplifting other communities, just make sure you're not speaking for that other community

00:36:03.260 when you're building your content.

00:36:05.240 Because it's so, I mean, like folks on TikTok,

00:36:07.660 so yes to all of that.

00:36:09.380 Folks on TikTok, if there's one thing they can sniff out

00:36:12.300 is somebody who is not being authentic.

00:36:14.640 They are so good at being like,

00:36:17.180 wait a minute, something smells off here.

00:36:18.960 So if you are not authentically, you know, amplifying,

00:36:23.900 if you're saying like, I'm going to like talk about

00:36:26.100 for this community, I'm going to speak for them.

00:36:28.960 No, people will sniff that out so quickly.

00:36:33.260 don't yeah tell their stories point people in the direct like this is what i do with some of my

00:36:39.960 indigenous friends who are creators oftentimes we know that my face people are going to stop and

00:36:44.820 they're going to read so when there's something important i'll be like hey i'm going to tell you

00:36:48.000 this story about baby chanel but who you actually need to follow for more information on this is xyz

00:36:51.820 people and you make sure that those those community leaders are centered you say this is what they

00:36:57.040 said this is what they said they need this is how you get it and when you need more you go talk to

00:37:02.840 show me your mask. You go talk to Witchy Twitchy. You go talk to Bossy. These are the people who

00:37:07.100 are leading this. They're going to have your everyday events. This is their community. They're

00:37:10.200 the speakers. I'm just here to make sure that y'all go look over there because I know I've got

00:37:15.100 a lot of attention. So let me help direct your attention to somebody who has a smaller platform

00:37:19.540 but has something really important to say. I think that can be a really great way that TikTok allows

00:37:23.620 us to collaborate. The duet and stitch feature on TikTok smokes the threads feature on Twitter

00:37:28.860 because you have to put your face on it.

00:37:31.260 So you have to really believe what you're saying

00:37:32.700 when you correct somebody or when you add to the story.

00:37:35.100 And I think that that's really powerful too.

00:37:37.260 Yeah, it does have some features

00:37:39.580 that I think like really help move the conversation forward

00:37:42.180 in some ways that are better than other platforms.

00:37:44.160 Like on Twitter, somebody can quote tweet you

00:37:46.360 and say any old thing, whether it's true or not.

00:37:49.080 You better really, like,

00:37:50.440 if you're gonna call somebody out on TikTok,

00:37:51.800 you better really, you know, have your ducks in a row.

00:37:56.100 And when you say something wrong,

00:37:57.320 I mean, you're going to get stuff wrong. I really try not to. It's rare that I get something wrong

00:38:02.880 or that the story changes very quickly and now it's different from what we thought.

00:38:06.440 And I'll always do corrections because I don't think there's anything to be embarrassed about

00:38:09.640 when you have to do a correction. You should do it as quickly and as efficiently and as honestly

00:38:13.320 as you can, is to make those corrections because it is your face out there. So TikTok will get you.

00:38:20.680 They'll hold you accountable. If you say something, I'll give you my example,

00:38:24.480 was the Chris Rock slap. I was watching the Academy Awards or whatever it was award show

00:38:30.340 and he slept and I had it like this. I had it so fast and I got a bunch of messages from people

00:38:36.280 being like, do you really stand by the way you reacted to that? Or do you think that perhaps

00:38:44.960 sensationalizing two black men fighting is not the best way to spend your night? And I was like,

00:38:52.040 you know what? You're so fucking right. Like it was to me, I just saw them as like actors who 0.98

00:38:56.500 were acting crazy. And Tabitha Speaks, who was the creator who I first saw the DM from, she was

00:39:01.720 like, girl, stay out of black people's business. And I was like, you know what? You are absolutely

00:39:07.500 right. You're absolutely right. Right. Cause I'm seeing them as actors, but this is speaks to such

00:39:12.060 a bigger problem that went on. As we saw, I took that video right down. It was at 3 million views

00:39:16.660 after like two hours when I took it down and people were like, are you going to talk about

00:39:19.620 Chris Rock? I'm like, no. So when you're – you know what I mean? You got to kind of like – I

00:39:25.060 think this is why I appreciate so much about my theater education. For years, for 40 years,

00:39:31.440 I've stood in front of people who have been like, eh, your freckles are weird. You don't get the

00:39:35.120 part. I don't like the way you're standing. You don't get the part, right? I can take a lot of

00:39:39.200 very constructive and even ridiculous criticism and just go, okay, and move on to the next thing.

00:39:45.200 I think you have to be able to do that if you want to be a TikToker, even if you have the best 0.98

00:39:49.160 intentions and you think you told the best story, or even if you think something's not a big deal 0.96

00:39:53.300 and you're just talking about it because everybody else is talking about it, if somebody from the

00:39:57.100 community you're talking about says to you, yo, I don't think that was – I think you might want

00:40:01.580 to relook at that one or even says, yo, that was a big mess up, anything, then you have to

00:40:06.660 immediately believe them and adjust from there. And that's how you can kind of like, you know,

00:40:11.520 keep people's trust and continue to try to tell better stories every day. But yeah, that was a

00:40:18.100 good one. That's a great example. And there's nothing because I could have been like, what do

00:40:21.780 you mean? Everybody's talking about it. No, you know what? If you took the time to tell me that

00:40:26.900 what I did was going to stand, was going to not line up. I, why I'm so grateful to you. Thank you

00:40:32.840 for catching me so early. And there's nothing worse than somebody who is been kind of gently

00:40:38.460 called in, but then is, is like, no, I'm going to double down. Like it's not me who's wrong. It's

00:40:43.600 y'all like don't ever double down never double down it's so much better it's so bad just it's

00:40:50.240 so much easier to just put the video on friends only while you figure it out or whatever you want

00:40:54.880 to do not no issue no video is worth doubling down it will because you double down three million

00:41:02.800 people will triple down oh yeah like don't do it right yeah more after a quick break

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00:41:59.180 That's iHeartAdvertising.com. When I was 14 years old, I was kidnapped and held captive for nine

00:42:06.460 months i survived and i've spent my life exploring how other people survive what should have destroyed

00:42:12.840 them i'm elizabeth smart and these are the survivor files i just remember this low taunting

00:42:20.400 voice next to my ear saying shut up don't say anything every week i'm with survivors who live

00:42:28.240 through the unthinkable i knew if he woke up without a doubt he was going to hurt me i started

00:42:35.460 feeling that there was someone at the end of my bed and i just started screaming they are abducted

00:42:43.280 stalked controlled and nearly silenced but these aren't stories about what's taken from them

00:42:49.140 they're stories about what it takes to make it out alive listen to the survivor files with

00:42:55.160 elizabeth smart on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts

00:43:05.460 Let's get right back into it.

00:43:09.460 So V is part of a community building a different kind of information ecosystem,

00:43:13.920 and they're doing it on TikTok.

00:43:15.760 But all of this is threatened by a potential ban on TikTok.

00:43:19.660 Back in March, when Sho Zichu, the CEO of TikTok,

00:43:23.380 came before a congressional hearing on the Restrict Act,

00:43:26.460 V was there in their iconic black-brimmed glasses and suit and tie,

00:43:31.560 sitting right behind him.

00:43:32.920 Yeah. Anytime Congress is doing something that gleefully bipartisan, I'm always like a little

00:43:38.320 bit suspicious, you know, because it's not often and it's never really good. It's like they are

00:43:44.440 gleefully bipartisan right now. So I felt really nervous about that. And I think that they thought

00:43:50.740 that they could blame China, they could look tough on China, that people would accept it,

00:43:55.220 understand the community that is on this platform that is so strong. And again,

00:43:59.880 trauma bonded because of the pandemic. This platform has offered, I think it's like 5 million

00:44:05.840 small businesses the opportunity to operate. So many people have achieved their dreams on this

00:44:10.220 platform. It wasn't going to fly. It was not going to go well. And so when I was looking at how they

00:44:15.800 were going to do it, a flat out TikTok ban would be bad for politics. So I was looking at the people

00:44:20.040 who were like, ban TikTok. Well, that's obviously against the First Amendment. I can't do that.

00:44:23.900 And the 14th. So I was like, those won't pass. But this restrict act, I was like, oh, okay,

00:44:31.420 89 pages of legislation. They really thought about this one. So I printed it out and I spent a couple

00:44:36.500 days reading it. And I remember the Patriot Act. People think I'm a lot younger than I am. I'm 40

00:44:43.840 years old. And so I was in college when 9-11 happened. And I remember the Patriot Act and

00:44:50.200 my dad, you know, being very involved in, like, why this was all happening. And that did not go

00:44:58.660 well for us, allowing the government basically unchecked ability to monitor telecom because of

00:45:05.060 terrorists, right, because of threats. And so when I heard this coming, and I knew that because I

00:45:11.460 keep up on politics, obviously, because of the channel, I knew that the Patriot Act had kind of

00:45:16.260 expired. And I knew they were going to be looking for another way to gain access to

00:45:20.280 our information. So I'm looking at it and it wasn't just TikTok and it didn't even line item

00:45:26.660 TikTok. It said foreign owned technology from these different places. It would include game

00:45:33.380 chat. It would include your TikTok communications. It could include encrypted communications from

00:45:38.280 apps like WhatsApp or Telegram or any of these other ones. And I was like, this is the Patriot

00:45:45.120 Act 2.0. And so that was what I went to my senator, Kirsten Gillibrand with. I was like,

00:45:51.300 this reads like the Patriot Act 2.0. And she was like, if you, her office was like, if you knew

00:45:55.620 what I knew about security and you really loved your community, you wouldn't be fighting so hard

00:46:01.540 for TikTok. And I was like, then tell me because I'm the best communicator on TikTok. And if the

00:46:05.960 American public and especially my community is in danger, then you should tell me because I will

00:46:11.000 tell them because I'm an American first and I'm a TikToker, like 19th on my list of things that I

00:46:15.760 am. And so if I'm a part of like a national security threat, I need to know that. I would 0.54

00:46:20.880 love to know that I would never do that. They didn't have anything. And I was like, because

00:46:24.420 you don't have anything. And then I went to AOC's office and she was like, we've never been briefed.

00:46:28.640 We've never had a national briefing on a threat from TikTok. And I was like, why are they doing

00:46:34.340 this. And she was like, Mark Warner, he's a tech guy. Maybe he was. This is something that a lot

00:46:43.040 of people want, but it's not something that I think is well-written. She came out and made a

00:46:47.160 TikTok about how she thought it wasn't well-written. And I just couldn't, in the amount of time that I

00:46:51.120 spent in Congress with people I had made TikToks with, could not get a straight answer as to why

00:46:57.240 this was happening and why the Restrict Act was so necessary. Mark Warner himself couldn't explain

00:47:01.940 his own legislation well. And so the TikTok hearing came. I knew that I wanted to sit behind

00:47:07.020 Shochu because I wanted, there was like nine of those people on that committee that have made

00:47:12.120 TikToks with me. I wanted them to have to look at him and look at me as a comically recognizable

00:47:17.880 part of TikTok. You are not just talking to him. You are talking to a whole community of people.

00:47:23.700 A lot of marginalized people have built their platform on TikTok that couldn't get that

00:47:27.620 traction anywhere else. You need to see the big picture here and either be more honest with the

00:47:33.000 American people about what a threat it is and why and how you're going to fix it, provide actual

00:47:37.240 data privacy legislation that we're all asking for, or knock it off. And as you could see after

00:47:44.520 the hearing and after the entire internet started calling the Restrict Act Patriot Act 2.0, they have

00:47:50.520 since dropped that for now. Yeah, it kind of really came on quick. And then it was like,

00:47:57.640 oh, never mind. Just kidding. Because nobody wanted to touch it after the hearing.

00:48:02.440 That image of you at the hearing, so front and center. I mean, that is like, I think that'll be

00:48:07.480 in history books when people are studying media and tech in 20 years or whatever. That was a real

00:48:13.660 moment. And I think, you know, you talk about marginalized communities, so many communities

00:48:18.780 who have been traditionally left out of conversations

00:48:21.120 have been able to build up platforms and voices

00:48:23.700 on social media platforms like TikTok.

00:48:25.760 And so if we just say,

00:48:27.680 nah, y'all don't get to do that,

00:48:29.140 I really worry for the ways that those communities

00:48:32.160 will be able to have voices.

00:48:34.420 There have been so many stories

00:48:35.440 that I would have never heard about if not for TikTok

00:48:38.200 that were happening in completely different,

00:48:40.160 you know, subsections of the internet

00:48:41.860 or different communities that I'm just not in.

00:48:43.600 And so I really genuinely worried

00:48:46.000 for how we would be able to get news

00:48:50.060 and make news stories happen

00:48:51.360 and make people care about what's going on,

00:48:53.140 if not for platforms like TikTok.

00:48:54.780 I thought it was a real blow to those communities.

00:48:58.840 And when we think about communities,

00:49:00.160 we're thinking about, and we say marginalized, 0.77

00:49:01.480 we think about black and brown people, gay people.

00:49:04.420 No, all kinds of smaller communities.

00:49:06.780 We wouldn't have had the frontline access

00:49:08.480 to the war in Ukraine if we didn't have TikTok.

00:49:10.420 We wouldn't have had frontline access 1.00

00:49:12.060 to the women, a life freedom movement in Iran 0.99

00:49:14.880 if it wasn't for TikTok.

00:49:16.000 and all of the Iranians here that were speaking for the folks back home who have been so censored.

00:49:21.560 We wouldn't have a million different stories.

00:49:24.160 The Tennessee Three, the George Floyd stuff, came from a citizen journalist with cell phone video.

00:49:30.620 It wasn't on TikTok, but TikTok was sort of starting shortly after that and has continued this movement towards justice.

00:49:36.980 It's not just marginalized communities the way we traditionally think of them.

00:49:42.680 It's communities that don't get leading press.

00:49:45.120 And I think if we've done one thing on TikTok over the last three years, it's really get people educated on media literacy, on civic literacy, on political activism and how to get involved and hold people accountable and see that TikTok is the place that people can be held accountable.

00:50:00.520 And I think it holds a higher trust factor for a lot of folks because it's not owned by Jeff Bezos or Mark Zuckerberg.

00:50:06.900 So their whole thing that this like very charming, adorable Singaporean man is the CEO who's young, right, and really knew what he was talking about was some sort of villain.

00:50:16.380 They were like, have you – who would you – this was my question to them about restrict act.

00:50:21.800 So you say restrict act or they have to sell it.

00:50:24.940 Sell it to who?

00:50:27.360 Sell it to who?

00:50:28.140 Finish the sentence.

00:50:29.320 Sell it to who? 0.79

00:50:30.040 Which one of the white boy billionaires gets to buy it, right?

00:50:32.920 Is it Elon Musk?

00:50:34.200 Is it Zuckerberg?

00:50:34.960 Who's got the money to even buy it, right?

00:50:36.900 Is it Bill Gates?

00:50:37.920 Like who sell it to who so that the American public can have a big picture and you should

00:50:42.000 also be thinking through what does that mean?

00:50:45.200 The two communities that I had like in my back pocket as if this continues to go forward,

00:50:51.680 we need to like activate other marginalized communities, religion, which we don't think

00:50:58.480 of them as marginalized because they're so very loud, but there are so many religious

00:51:02.640 affiliations that are not Christian that are very thrive on TikTok. Christians thrive on TikTok as

00:51:08.680 well. And the military communities. A lot of the military communities were saying that through

00:51:12.800 TikTok, they can see their member who is deployed or who is otherwise engaged way more than they

00:51:19.180 were allowed to before when they only got a certain number of phone calls. Through social

00:51:22.200 media in general, families are staying connected. And through social media, religions are building

00:51:28.180 online ministries that would not otherwise exist. You're a gay kid in Northwest Arkansas,

00:51:34.140 and you find a universalist church on TikTok, like the one led by Pastor Sarah,

00:51:40.360 you're going to find a place of inclusion and a path to Jesus that you don't have in your little

00:51:44.620 town. And so we can't give that up either. And these are the things that I wish... I don't even

00:51:50.640 think Congress was dumb when they did this. They were like, well, do you think the Biden 0.92

00:51:55.880 administration is stupid when they backed this. I'm like, I don't. I think that they were ill 1.00

00:51:59.980 advised and uneducated on the communities. And that's the importance of diversifying your staff.

00:52:04.900 Because if you had called me even one time, I would have been able to be like, yo, you're going

00:52:09.520 to get hit with all of this stuff from the communities who are going to be like, you can't

00:52:13.540 shut me down. This is providing, you know, life-saving resources to some folks.

00:52:18.820 Yeah. And it's not like, I mean, like you've worked with the White House before. It's not like

00:52:23.340 they don't have your number. They know how to reach you.

00:52:26.600 I was like, y'all called me to make TikToks during the election season.

00:52:32.700 One of my last questions, the question I ask all of my people I interview,

00:52:36.280 like when you think of the future of news media, like what do you think is the future of news

00:52:40.800 media as it pertains to platforms like TikTok? And are you hopeful?

00:52:45.440 I'm very hopeful. And I actually think my grandma used to say skirts can only get so short before

00:52:50.140 the maxi dress is back in fashion. I think that's what we're seeing now. Some people might say the

00:52:56.020 pendulum swings or something. I think what we saw is over the last decade or so, news has become

00:53:01.520 the 24-hour news cycle, the divisiveness, the outrage farming, the personalities on cable news

00:53:08.160 television, the conglomerations of newspapers getting all bought up by these big companies

00:53:14.260 and billionaires. I think what we're seeing is a return to citizen journalism, to neighbors,

00:53:20.140 sharing stories to local journalism. And I think what we have in store for a fight is not necessarily

00:53:27.160 fighting these big narratives so much as finding the resources to bring back local journalism,

00:53:33.400 small newsletters. We're seeing a lot of success with journalists having sub-stacks in different

00:53:37.820 places where you can follow somebody independent of the big newspapers and big media companies

00:53:42.760 because we value that and we trust those people. So I think what we're going to see in the next

00:53:47.120 10 years is a lot more of a breakup of the power that these big organizations have. And unfortunately,

00:53:53.380 we are already seeing it in the layoffs at BuzzFeed or MTV shuttering MTV News or NPR even,

00:54:00.820 or Vice. And I think that's horrible. And I think that those are mortal wounds that really hurt us

00:54:06.700 and hurt storytelling and hurt the dream of journalism. But what we're picking up is this

00:54:12.360 independent journalists having a lot more power. And with that power of independence gives you a

00:54:18.260 lot more ability to tell a better truth. And so I think that that's really interesting. And I think

00:54:23.480 that's where we're going. But I think finding the resources to support that many people is going to

00:54:29.080 be the fight that we're actually in for. Are you ready and geared up for that fight?

00:54:34.020 I am. I am ready and geared up. I also think that it's important for people to

00:54:39.920 change their version of success. I used to talk about this with the chefs. I do not have a dream

00:54:46.940 of being like the nightly news anchor on NBC. I don't have a dream of being Lester Holt.

00:54:52.340 I have a dream of being me. And being me requires a lot less resources than being a big, huge media

00:54:59.180 news star. Think about that for yourself too. What do you need to be successful to have your niche

00:55:04.540 really heard? How would you support that? What does that look like? Because that might look like

00:55:08.600 $200,000 as opposed to millions of dollars. That might look like having 10,000 really dedicated

00:55:14.180 followers who are so down for the stuff you talk about as opposed to 10 million nightly viewers

00:55:19.360 for a big cable channel. And I think we're going to see that rise of the micro-influencer of the

00:55:24.380 local newscaster. And I hope that people can find success and peace and space in just getting that

00:55:32.500 successful and not having to maximalize, right? Not like, oh, I hit a million followers. So the

00:55:37.020 next thing for me is to try and sell my show to CBS. Like, no, no, no. Keep your show and keep

00:55:43.360 yourself, you know, right here where you can be successful and give yourself space to breathe

00:55:47.920 also. Got a story about an interesting thing in tech or just want to say hi? You can reach us at

00:55:57.080 hello at tangodi.com. You can also find transcripts for today's episode at tangodi.com. There Are No

00:56:02.440 Girls on the Internet was created by me, Bridget Todd. It's a production of iHeartRadio and Unbossed

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There Are No Girls on the Internet - July 12, 2023

What is a journalism？ TikTok and the future of news (w⧸ Vitus Spehar of Under the Desk News!)

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