Episode 191

The Bulwark's anti-neutrality approach

Sarah Longwell, publisher of The Bulwark and founder of Republican Voters Against Trump, discusses why neutrality no longer works in political journalism. Longwell argues that legacy media’s “studied impartiality” has become a liability in a polarized, low-trust world—and that audiences now crave conviction over detachment. She explains how The Bulwark grew out of the ashes of The Weekly Standard to become a mission-driven newsroom defending liberal democracy, why she sees “no conflict, no interest” as the new media ethos, and how transparency about values builds more trust than feigned objectivity. The conversation covers the transformation from Never Trump to pro-democracy brand, Tim Miller’s breakout as the face of its YouTube expansion, and why The Bulwark doesn't consider itself "a Substack."

Transcript
Brian:

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today, I have a conversation with Sarah Longwell.

Brian:

Sarah is the publisher of the Bulwark, and we talk, about a bunch of things, but in

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particular I wanted to zero in on, on how, The Bulwark has no interest in being neutral.

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You know, it has, it's been a, a success story in political media.

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It is a center right outlet, that's resisted, if not opposed, the, the poll of MAGA politics.

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it sort of began with a bunch of never Trump, Republicans and, you know,

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it's having something of a moment now.

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Sarah argues that what has set the bulwark apart isn't ideology so much as kind of

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honesty and, and traditional journalism often clings to what she calls studious neutrality.

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And that's a reflex to balance every statement, with a counterpoint.

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and the bulwark takes a, a very different approach.

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it believes that you should be transparent about your perspective, but to make your case

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and let the readers judge, the arguments.

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you know, I think this is a really interesting moment for, political media in particular because

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the old playbook of objectivity and detachment just simply no longer works in this environment.

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and I think we're seeing that across the board.

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And so the conceit of neutrality to me has eroded, you know, audiences.

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Don't believe it and, and most journalists don't really either.

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I think the best thing is just to be upfront and to try to be as fair as possible.

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I think we're, we're seeing the rise of a bunch of different outlets that

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are very explicit about their values.

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but they still aim to be journalistically rigorous and so they're kind of something.

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Different altogether.

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and the bulwark is really carving out this, space, for those who are disaffected conservatives or,

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even moderates, who don't really like, Trumpism.

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I guess that's the best way of putting it.

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And I think Sarah herself is an interesting character because

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she is, you know, she's not just.

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A publisher, she's also a political strategist.

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She's a pollster.

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I mean, she is an active participant in this.

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And this is something that we're seeing, you know, that kind of thing used to

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be considered a conflict of interest and now it's almost part of the appeal.

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I mean, people wanna hear from those who, literally have an interest in the topic.

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and, you know, I think about something like all in, I mean.

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Yeah, the hosts have, an array of financial interests in the topics that they talk about,

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but that's really part of the appeal to it.

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You know?

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'cause that's the stakes that they have, you know, give that show energy and consequence, honestly.

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And so I think we're gonna see more of that in this information space.

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And I think the question for institutional medias is how.

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They respond to that, whether they use neutrality as a moat of, sort, as a

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differentiator, or if they try to compete, with these other entities on their terms.

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So I think it's a, it's an interesting one.

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we talk about a bunch of different issues, including how, The Bulwark built

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its trust by being upfront about its, its purpose, but why traditional outlets

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struggle to adapt to this new media climate.

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Sarah has some very pointed, criticisms on that.

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also how journalism, can still serve democracy without, doing that thing where

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they pretend that all perspectives are equal.

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and we'll talk about what comes.

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What comes after neutrality, and how that will change the media ecosystem.

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Hope you enjoyed this conversation.

Brian:

always like to hear your feedback.

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You can also, if you like this podcast, please leave it a, a rating and review.

Brian:

Now here's my conversation with Sarah.

Brian:

cool.

Brian:

Sarah, thanks for doing the podcast.

Brian:

Really happy to talk with you.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Sarah:

Thanks for having me, Brian.

Brian:

so let's, let's get into, I want to get into the Bulwark is, I think it's just like a

Brian:

fascinating, media property at, at this time.

Brian:

Like it started in 2018.

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And, it was in the ear of the resistance and, I always thought of it as like

Brian:

a never trump sort of, endeavor.

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Right.

Brian:

So how do you describe the Bulwark now?

Brian:

Seven year.

Brian:

Seven years from never Trump?

Sarah:

Well, the world has changed a lot, since we launched in 2017.

Sarah:

and I don't, I look never.

Sarah:

Trump was a very.

Sarah:

Useful term back then.

Sarah:

'cause it described something very specific, which was the group of Republicans

Sarah:

who said absolutely not to Trump.

Sarah:

And there's no way I'm getting on board now.

Sarah:

Funnily enough, many people who were never Trump with us in the beginning have subsequently gone on

Sarah:

to become pro-Trump, after he, you know, tried to overthrow the government, and the, the election.

Sarah:

But for us it was never.

Sarah:

That being said, like what does it mean now when Trump's been elected a second time, obviously with

Sarah:

the four year Biden interregnum, just not sure.

Sarah:

Never Trump.

Sarah:

Symbolizes something useful.

Sarah:

be I, because it's not just about Trump anymore, right?

Sarah:

Trump has metastasized in a way that now dominates the entire Republican

Sarah:

party, and there's very little left of the thing we were trying to salvage.

Sarah:

If you go back to 2015 or 2014, like and I, this, I try to emphasize this to people

Sarah:

because there's a lot of people who are like, you know, I'm rooting for you guys.

Sarah:

You can go back to being Republicans and we can all have a debate about.

Sarah:

Tax policy and I'm like, oh, my friends, there is no going back.

Sarah:

Mitt Romney like isn't just not gonna be elected president, like he's out of the party.

Sarah:

He's been excommunicated.

Sarah:

There is no wing for that anymore.

Sarah:

Mike Pence could not go to a Trump rally without armed security.

Sarah:

Like we are not trying to save the Republican party.

Sarah:

and so we have sort of moved on to a place where it is much more.

Sarah:

How do you defend American liberal democracy, from autocracy, an authoritarian movement, something,

Sarah:

you know, how do you, how do you try to save or even conserve, what is really good about America?

Sarah:

A lot of the things that Trump is trying to.

Sarah:

Burned down.

Sarah:

But I don't think that any of us now feel any connection to the Republican party or

Sarah:

the conservative movement as it stands today.

Sarah:

And we are not trying to bring it back or revive it.

Sarah:

we are trying to save America.

Sarah:

And also we've expanded so much.

Sarah:

We've brought so many new people in, so many reporters.

Sarah:

While a lot of the OG people, bill and Mona and me and JVL and Tim Andrew Egger, you

Sarah:

know, we kind of came from that never Trump space, but Sam Stein and Katherine Ramel, who

Sarah:

we just hired, and you know, Jonathan Cohn.

Sarah:

These are not never Trumpers, these are reporters.

Sarah:

And so together we sort of, I think, have kind of transcended just being

Sarah:

a never Trump resistance outlet.

Brian:

And do you consider it like a news organization?

Brian:

Because I mean, your, your background and you're still in like politics, right?

Sarah:

Yeah, I mean this is the thing about the Bulwark, 'cause for me it

Sarah:

was a little bit of an accident, right?

Sarah:

It was because I was working with Bill Crystal, on various political projects when we were all

Sarah:

kind of coming together as never Trumpers and.

Sarah:

The weekly standard was, you know, unceremoniously killed at Christmas

Sarah:

time for being insufficiently pro-Trump.

Sarah:

And so Bill said to me, Hey, can you give these people jobs who are

Sarah:

suddenly fine themselves without jobs?

Sarah:

And I said, well, maybe we could start something new kind of from the ashes.

Sarah:

And that was the bulwark.

Sarah:

Like, you know, we poured it over an intact editorial team almost.

Sarah:

and because they had Mag Magazine experience and because I had business.

Sarah:

Experience.

Sarah:

Right.

Sarah:

I understood how to backend something like that, how to sort of put the infrastructure around it.

Sarah:

But yeah, I mean I was doing it, it like was a little project on the side of the

Sarah:

bigger political projects that I was doing to try to educate the public, whether it

Sarah:

was, you know, republicans for the rule of law or Republican voters against Trump.

Sarah:

Eventually, those were the kinds of advocacy things that I had a background in.

Sarah:

But over time I had to start taking.

Sarah:

The bulwark more seriously as a journalism prospect, and as a business.

Sarah:

And, you know, more recently, really when we brought Sam Stein on, you know, his background,

Sarah:

what he knew how to do was to build a news team.

Sarah:

And I think for us, we, we believe that.

Sarah:

You still need, we don't need to be bloated with it, right?

Sarah:

We're not trying to recreate the failing model, but we did want kind of a seal team

Sarah:

of reporters who would make our commentary smarter and more well-informed, where we

Sarah:

had our own reporting to rely on and didn't have to rely on other people's reporting.

Sarah:

And so we have sort of grown into more of a news outlet, as, as things have evolved.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

And so I mean, you guys describe yourself as a based organization

Brian:

first and a business second, right?

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And a lot of.

Brian:

Traditional capital J journalism, you know, o often clings to the mission, right?

Brian:

But you, you don't think of it as a partisan outlet.

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'cause I think, you know, I think about the free press another, Substack success

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story, right along with the bulwark, right?

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And from a lot of people within the Capital J journalism world, they're like.

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This is something different.

Brian:

It's not the same.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And it is a, if it's not a partisan project, it's an ideological project to some degree.

Brian:

And there's, there's so many like blurry lines with this and I feel

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there's, they're even blurrier in what I call like the information space.

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'cause everyone's competing with everyone.

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That's why there's no space, I don't think for Mitt Romney or.

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I still follow Barack Obama and he begins tweets with like folks, and I'm like,

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no, like you're not gonna, you're not gonna make it on X with the folks tweet.

Brian:

Like, that's just not, that's not, that's, we've moved on from that for better or worse.

Brian:

but how do you end up like thinking about that part of it?

Sarah:

Well, I mean, I guess the question is.

Sarah:

You know, are, if you're asking, do you feel like an activist or you, do you feel like a journalist?

Sarah:

I

Brian:

Well, like

Sarah:

what I feel

Brian:

because I mean, it's, it's, you're advocating.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

It used to be never Trump.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And that was like a small sliver, like particularly from the right, like

Brian:

that's now that's a shrinking tam.

Brian:

So like it's, it's gotten bit,

Sarah:

let me, let me try something on for you and see what you think about it.

Sarah:

But he, here would be our contention that for journalism to work properly.

Sarah:

It needs American liberal democracy.

Sarah:

Like you have to sort of have this idea that there is, there is free speech, there are rules,

Sarah:

you know, even like there's a linear ideological spectrum from center right center left.

Sarah:

Like you need liberal democracy to protect what journalism is.

Sarah:

And I think part of the problem is, is that the media, the traditional media

Sarah:

doesn't know what to do as we slip.

Sarah:

Further and further away from a pure liberal democracy.

Sarah:

they don't know what to do with an administration that is telling them like, you can't be

Sarah:

in the Pentagon and do reporting on it.

Sarah:

You gotta sign a pledge.

Sarah:

They don't know what to now they know not to sign the pledge, but I'm

Sarah:

not sure they know how to evaluate.

Sarah:

What Trump's political project is, in a clear-eyed way because they have this studied neutrality

Sarah:

they feel they they have to clinging to.

Sarah:

And I think that that prevents them from meeting the moment.

Sarah:

And so I think where we end up slipping in there is.

Sarah:

Media that people feel like is being clear-eyed and is meeting the moment.

Sarah:

And so I just, I think that like, I don't know how you be the Washington Post

Sarah:

right now where you are owned by a guy.

Sarah:

You wanna talk about, you wanna talk about the conflict of, of, let's say,

Sarah:

our advocacy versus our journalism.

Sarah:

What about the conflict of the Paramounts?

Sarah:

Right.

Sarah:

That have to, that have to secure mergers from Donald Trump and

Sarah:

therefore they censor their reporters.

Sarah:

Or they give payouts to Donald Trump.

Sarah:

If you're, if you're Bezos and you have other things you want to do, you've

Sarah:

gotta sidle up to Donald Trump, which is why there's this exodus from the Post.

Sarah:

And I think that finds us sort of standing in the breach saying, I'm not gonna,

Sarah:

your little faux lines like, we're gonna tell you exactly where we come from.

Sarah:

Exactly what we stand for, exactly what we're advocating for.

Sarah:

And you're gonna know that everything we say is true and is what we believe and isn't some sort

Sarah:

of positioning for either market share or because we've got some big corporate overlord telling us.

Sarah:

And I think that is where you might have said before.

Sarah:

Sarah, if you have this advocacy work that, how's that gonna allow, allow

Sarah:

people to trust your journalism work.

Sarah:

But the inverse has happened now where people say, I understand who

Sarah:

you are and what you advocate for.

Sarah:

And so I know what you're saying is true about it.

Brian:

Yeah, that makes sense.

Brian:

I mean, 'cause like neutrality, I don't know if neutrality is.

Brian:

Possible, particularly in some issues.

Brian:

And I think the, like you're saying, the traditional media has struggled with that, right?

Brian:

Like, I mean, they sort of went into the democracy dies in darkness, like period.

Brian:

And then it was like, wait a second, let's back up the bus.

Brian:

We're not, we're not endorsing anyone.

Brian:

We've got, we've got contracts, we've got a cloud contract coming up with the Pentagon, and I think.

Brian:

Putting a name on it is probably, I mean, what people, you see the trust numbers

Brian:

and so like that's just the market.

Brian:

The market has, has already said that they don't trust this neutrality approach.

Brian:

So perhaps there is a different approach that, that makes sense in the marketplace.

Brian:

Makes sense

Sarah:

And I think where it's going.

Sarah:

You know, people talk about personality driven media, and I think that misses just

Sarah:

an ever so slight nuance of where it is going is people want to feel connected

Sarah:

to people so that they trust them.

Sarah:

Right?

Sarah:

That we are live in a low trust environment right now where people say all the

Sarah:

time, you know, one of the things I do is I do focus groups all the time.

Sarah:

I have a podcast called the Focus Group, and people say one of the number one things they

Sarah:

say is like, I don't know what to believe.

Sarah:

And that is not gonna get better with AI and all of the other things that

Sarah:

are cutting more and more influencers.

Sarah:

And so what's gonna happen, I think, is that people are gonna look for people that they

Sarah:

think are shooting them straight, even if they disagree with many of their positions.

Sarah:

They just wanna know who the person is, where they're coming from.

Sarah:

And what they're telling them is what they truly believe to be true.

Sarah:

And.

Sarah:

That's not just personality driven media, that is for people trying to put their trust somewhere.

Sarah:

And I think that is the community that we've built is a, is a community of people who, they sell us

Sarah:

all the time that they don't agree with everything we say, but they do trust that we are straight,

Sarah:

shooting them straight in what we believe.

Brian:

Well, I should add, I, I didn't that my father-in-law, who, who lives in Belgrade,

Brian:

Serbia, is a massive fan of the bulwark.

Brian:

So you have at least one.

Brian:

He is very obsessed with American politics, and Milan is constantly asking

Brian:

me if I read something that JVL wrote.

Brian:

so

Sarah:

Oh, so he's, he's into the darkness, into the es.

Sarah:

The darkness of JBL.

Brian:

know, that's, you know, he's not, you know, and so look, there's, there's a global market.

Brian:

That's all I'm saying.

Sarah:

Well, hey, we just went to Canada.

Sarah:

We went to Toronto to do a show and we ended up having to add a second show the next day.

Sarah:

'cause it sold out so fast.

Sarah:

We had no idea that we had such a fan, fandom in Canada.

Sarah:

And how, I mean, they were asking questions about the Pennsylvania Supreme Court

Sarah:

race that we were like, I don't know.

Sarah:

We're gonna have to look that up.

Sarah:

Like they knew more than we did about American politics.

Brian:

yeah, someone, someone said that there, there should be like a mute button, like

Brian:

for like Australians to like, never know.

Brian:

Like who some of these people are.

Brian:

Like, they shouldn't, they shouldn't know anything about American politics, but we

Brian:

foisted it apparently on the rest of the world.

Brian:

We, all of our psychodramas.

Brian:

so yes, apologies to everyone who's not, American listening to this.

Brian:

wanna talk about like political media and, and where you chart, bulwark on.

Brian:

'cause before we went on, I was talking about, you know, the weekly standard.

Brian:

And I had, I had worked in Washington very briefly in my first job.

Brian:

And I retreated very quickly.

Brian:

I was like, this is not, this world is not for me.

Brian:

It was for a speech writing, firm, which can really only exist I think, in Washington.

Brian:

but the, the weekly, this was sort of, I guess a little bit of the heyday of the weekly standard.

Brian:

It was like the late nineties.

Brian:

Really.

Brian:

and you know, two of the weekly standards, you know, veterans, you

Brian:

know, bill Crystal was one of them.

Brian:

went on to be one of the founders of the Bulwark.

Brian:

And I think what's really interesting at the time was that if you look at like the weekly

Brian:

standard, there was a lot of talent there.

Brian:

Like went in very different directions.

Brian:

So David Brooks went into like institutional media, the most institutional of

Brian:

institutional media and got a sinecure on the New York Times editorial page.

Brian:

and then you have Tucker Carlson who went in a completely different direction, needless to say.

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

And then you have, Steve Hayes and Jonah Goldberg who went on to the dispatch, which is kind of

Brian:

to me, like when I'm like, I want you to chart it out, but I sort of, I chart it out as like,

Brian:

kind of similar, but like different lanes.

Brian:

Exactly.

Brian:

I mean, they always, you know, Steve was always saying, well, we don't

Brian:

define ourselves as anti-Trump.

Brian:

We're, you know, and, and that's what they were saying.

Brian:

But I'd like to get your take and then you guys, I don't know if I'm missing anyone else.

Brian:

chart this out for me about where, and then within the broader context

Brian:

of where political media have gone.

Brian:

Because when I, when I was in Washington, it was the New Republic.

Brian:

It was whatever, the in-flight magazine of Air Force one, what is

Brian:

what they were talk, talking about.

Brian:

Then there was the weekly standard, which was, and then there was some like wonky stuff, like,

Brian:

you know, the national interest and whatnot.

Brian:

and then the hill and roll call, which were like, where people like found like

Brian:

basement apartments near Capitol Hill.

Brian:

now it's like this, chart it out for me and where you guys fit on it.

Sarah:

Yeah, this is, that is an interesting way to think about it.

Sarah:

The Diaspora of the Weekly Standard.

Sarah:

I would add sort of the National Review in there because Jonah Goldberg, who was

Sarah:

with Steve was at National Review, so there were sort of two main conservative.

Sarah:

Publications that were kind of the high-minded conservative, high-minded,

Sarah:

but, but mainstream, right.

Sarah:

you know, my parents were Republicans, we had weekly standards.

Sarah:

Were just strewn all over the house.

Sarah:

and I I, when I was coming up, if you had, I worked for a place that did internships for

Sarah:

young conservatives, and the weekly standard in national review are the big coveted ones.

Sarah:

and here's the thing, so.

Sarah:

A lot of the people, there's a number of people on the old mastheads, if you look at, of them that

Sarah:

have gone full maga, just hardcore Tucker Carlson.

Sarah:

I love Russia now.

Brian:

I think he's past nga.

Brian:

I, I I

Sarah:

yeah, no, he is, no, he, he, I think, listen, I think the, the, the Tucker Carlson,

Sarah:

Candace Owens, Marjorie Taylor Green, sort of wing of whatever MAGA unleashed is a meaningful.

Sarah:

part of the party how Tucker got there.

Sarah:

I'll tell you from, from people who knew him when, and, and he reserves his greatest antipathy.

Sarah:

' cause I never worked at the Weekly standard, but he reserves his greatest antipathy

Sarah:

for many of his old colleagues there.

Sarah:

so let's say there's a group of people that just decided that there was room to run to whatever.

Sarah:

Again, I don't believe that politics is any longer on a political linear spectrum, but to basically

Sarah:

out flank Trump to his crazy right, to his, you can call it to his right, but to his crazy.

Sarah:

and then you've got.

Sarah:

the people like at the dispatch who they kind of started just after us.

Sarah:

but I think that they believed, and it wasn't a crazy bet that there was gonna be

Sarah:

a post-Trump conservative opportunity to build that, that there was going, people

Sarah:

were gonna need something after Trump to say, okay, well what is a post-Trump conservative

Brian:

the Fever Dream would pass and then, and then we would go back

Brian:

to arguing over marginal tax rates.

Sarah:

That.

Sarah:

And, and you know what?

Sarah:

I, I don't, I don't fault them for that analysis.

Sarah:

I just think it turned out to be incorrect.

Sarah:

And so now I do think we have, I would say one of the animating features or the

Sarah:

animating differences between the two of us.

Sarah:

And I read a lot of their stuff.

Sarah:

I think they've got some really great writers.

Sarah:

but the.

Sarah:

The big differences is that when it comes to Trump versus Kamala Harris or Trump or,

Sarah:

you know, Marjorie Taylor Greene versus, normy Democrat, we, we at the Bulwark are

Sarah:

gonna tell you, vote for Kamala Harris.

Sarah:

Like, what are you doing?

Sarah:

like, we are not gonna pretend like these are equivalent things, and I think that there's.

Sarah:

If there are people who are positioning who, who spend time thinking about positioning,

Sarah:

which sort of walls off what you can say, right?

Sarah:

And.

Sarah:

We just don't do that.

Sarah:

Right?

Sarah:

We are saying exactly what we believe to be true, which is that this version of the

Sarah:

Republican Party led by Donald Trump and the people who have come in his wake is far, far

Sarah:

more dangerous to America than what a Normy Democrat like Kamala Harris was gonna do.

Sarah:

Is she gonna have a bunch of policy positions that I disagree with?

Sarah:

Sure.

Sarah:

So do the Republicans now, I mean that Republican party is, is, It, it, it's unrecognizable to

Sarah:

people who came up in the conservative movement.

Sarah:

And so sometimes I think there's like this desire to hold on to something

Sarah:

that was, and that makes sense.

Sarah:

As conservatives, we like to conserve things.

Sarah:

We don't like change.

Sarah:

But I also think it makes you really bad at the threat assessment to pretend

Sarah:

like both sides are equally bad.

Sarah:

and to, to not be able to say like, why do people read political journalism?

Sarah:

It's.

Sarah:

Or listen to these podcasts, right?

Sarah:

They're trying to make sense of the world.

Sarah:

And I think you do a disservice to, listeners and readers who are trying to make sense

Sarah:

of this moment by being like, yeah, they're both roughly the same, both bad ideas.

Sarah:

Pick your poison.

Sarah:

I just think that's a really bad and wrong, take on the way that, that the world is.

Brian:

So who, who's, who's the bulwarks, reader?

Brian:

Right.

Brian:

Like, I mean, I think the sort of.

Brian:

You've probably been tagged as like, you know, TDS and, and you know,

Brian:

that's the Trump derangement syndrome.

Brian:

And again, that was like sort of the oppositional, like anything that Trump does is bad.

Brian:

in that case, you can sort of, you know, fall into like amplifying everything.

Brian:

And I think in some ways, you know, Trump sort of benefited from that in that like the world

Brian:

was ending constantly between 2016 and 2020.

Brian:

It never actually ended.

Brian:

and then, you know, it's like, it's like the boy who cried, cried wolf.

Brian:

Exactly.

Brian:

Like, so I'm just wondering like, who, who exactly is it for?

Brian:

As I said before, like there's, there's a very small tam of Republicans who

Brian:

are, who are opposed to Donald Trump, so it has to be far broader than that.

Sarah:

Yeah, and I don't think that is who we

Sarah:

to appeal to.

Sarah:

Now, part of it though is there's been an enormous amount of political

Sarah:

realignment, and so I do think we were.

Sarah:

We, we call them red dog Democrats, which is kind of how we would think about ourselves right now.

Sarah:

Even though I think we're on all very in at the bulwark there we are various

Sarah:

shades of centrist now, and kind of run from center right to center left.

Sarah:

But again, I just wanna tell you that linear spectrum, like so many things are now relative

Sarah:

to Trump and what you're willing to accommodate.

Sarah:

Like if you're a conservative by the old definition.

Sarah:

You think Congress definitely should be playing a role in constraining, it has a

Sarah:

constitutional function and you would be mad that the Congress isn't engaging in

Sarah:

its constitutionally mandated function.

Sarah:

and so like there is, I think for us, we maintains a lot of our sort of conservative

Sarah:

ways of looking at institutions in the world, but our audience are people who are saying.

Sarah:

I'm trying to make sense of this moment and I have found these people, and maybe they came

Sarah:

to us originally because we are ne we were never Trump and that was interesting to them.

Sarah:

But I think now.

Sarah:

We know from just looking at our audience that our already audience is pretty politically

Sarah:

diverse, and it ranges from people who are lapsed Republicans who come from the

Sarah:

old world and say, this is unacceptable, and that's a decent chunk of our audience.

Sarah:

Then there's also a lot of just normy centrist, and then there's sort of progressives or democrats

Sarah:

who say, man, I don't know why I can't find.

Sarah:

Democrats who are as vociferous or who talk as much, or who create as good

Sarah:

a content as these ex Republicans.

Sarah:

and I think that we are, when I think about our, like, not competition, but like where

Sarah:

we exist on the spectrum, I think we're much closer to like a junior Atlantic.

Sarah:

that does, and by junior, I mean.

Sarah:

We, we understand that, there's a big role to play on YouTube.

Sarah:

There's a big role to play in podcasting.

Sarah:

We're not just gonna do, sort of heady.

Sarah:

commentary and journalism, although we are gonna do those things, but we're gonna be

Sarah:

able to do multi-platform work where we have kind of a different vibe on YouTube,

Sarah:

and then we've got our podcast products, and then we've got our written products.

Sarah:

And so that brings in a really big and diverse group of people.

Sarah:

And we have 105 million subscribers on YouTube.

Sarah:

They're YouTube people, they're watchers.

Sarah:

And then we've got an enormous following for our podcast.

Sarah:

We got five podcasts on the top 100 news charts, at any given time.

Sarah:

And, and Tim's and our bulwark takes, like Tim's is a top 10 podcast.

Sarah:

Bulwark Takes is a top 25 podcast.

Sarah:

most of them are in the top 50.

Sarah:

And so, you know, we just, we have an enormous listening audience.

Sarah:

Then we also have an enormous news and, newsletter audience.

Sarah:

And so we add those all together and we are much bigger and more influential than these, than I

Sarah:

think some of the just sort of either substack or narrow properties that put a paywall on

Sarah:

everything, because most of our stuff is free.

Brian:

yeah, I, I wanna get into that, but just, just one quick thing on, on that, like,

Brian:

but I just wonder is like, 'cause your mission focus, like are you trying to change minds?

Sarah:

Yes.

Brian:

Okay,

Sarah:

Well, we're trying to do two things.

Sarah:

Okay?

Sarah:

So trying to do a few things.

Sarah:

One is, when you say you're trying to change your minds, I, this, this, there's, this

Sarah:

criticism sometimes is like, well, you don't, you know, you're not talking to Trumpers and

Sarah:

therefore how can you change their minds?

Sarah:

But, you know, okay, well, people self-select into media.

Sarah:

And so like people who love Donald Trump don't like to listen to us.

Sarah:

They wanna go listen to me, Kelly, and other people who are gonna spoonfeed them.

Sarah:

Donald Trump is the greatest all day long.

Sarah:

but I do think there are a lot of people who listen to us who are

Sarah:

what I would call not Democrats.

Sarah:

Like they don't wanna be Democrats.

Sarah:

They

Brian:

There's an increasing number of those these days, so that's a growing tam.

Sarah:

Yeah, no, I think that that sort of centrism, it's a wide open space.

Sarah:

and, and I think that nobody's occupying it like we are, which is, and part of the reason

Sarah:

that we occupy, I think, such a centris kind of space isn't because we're watered down centrism.

Sarah:

It's because JVL is like a socially conservative Catholic commie.

Sarah:

And Tim is, like a Jeb Bush, you know, squish, and I'm kind of a. I'm like

Sarah:

kind of closer to Tim on politics.

Sarah:

But I also have like an operator's sensibilities.

Sarah:

Bill is an old school NeoCon like, and we argue with each other all the time.

Sarah:

And so people come to the bo not because we have said, oh, we position

Sarah:

ourselves right in this space.

Sarah:

It's because we are in constant conversation with people that they like to be a part of because we

Sarah:

very much have a community, not just an audience.

Sarah:

And that community likes to hear us bounce off of each other and argue.

Brian:

Yeah, and I think that's an interesting way to, that building a brand now in

Brian:

some ways is it's less about having like.

Brian:

Consistency in that kind of point of view, right?

Brian:

Like that used to be a real, I felt strong point in the old media world.

Brian:

You wanted to be like completely consistent, like, and now that comes across as phony.

Brian:

Like what are the I, what are the chances?

Brian:

A bunch of different humans all have the exact same point of view.

Brian:

That's why I always had a problem with political part.

Brian:

I'm like, what are the chances?

Brian:

I would agree on every single thing With a political like that sounds strange, like it does

Brian:

sounds like you're not thinking about anything.

Brian:

I don't understand how people who are immersed in a day to day would all arrive at the exact

Brian:

same conclusion for every single nuanced issue.

Brian:

Doesn't seem practical to be honest with you.

Brian:

but then you have to have an organizing.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

We, we have to have an organizing principle and it has to be broad enough.

Brian:

so talk to me about, like, about the business and, and, and organizing it as a

Brian:

modern media, business because it started on Substack, you're still on Substack.

Brian:

it is, there have been a few publications that have, that have grown into.

Brian:

beyond like individuals and into, you know, regular media companies, right?

Brian:

but you're well beyond that and I, I feel like you've, you guys have

Brian:

a lot of personalities, right?

Brian:

And I think a lot of, and just about every media company has to figure out where they are

Brian:

on that continuum of institution to individual.

Brian:

And the best are gonna, are, are gonna have elements of both.

Brian:

But how do you think about it?

Sarah:

Yeah, I mean, first of all, I just wanna say on the substack of it all, we don't

Sarah:

think of ourselves as a Substack property.

Sarah:

And we didn't start on Substack, so we started off Substack and then moved to Substack.

Sarah:

and Substack has been an enormous engine for our growth.

Sarah:

However, the thing about Substack is that we don't view it as like a place where we live.

Sarah:

We view it as a distribution tool.

Sarah:

For our newsletter business.

Sarah:

But we, I think, and this is where we are slightly unique, 'cause I think the Free

Sarah:

press really did start as a substack business.

Sarah:

And then all of the other people that, and, and that's like almost the only one that's

Sarah:

comparable to us in that they have multi publishers because most substack are, it's Matt

Sarah:

Taibbi, or it's Nate Silver, or it's Matt ILAs.

Sarah:

Uh, you know, it's

Brian:

The ankle, the ankle is one.

Brian:

Like that's, you know, it's obviously, it's a, it's more niche, but you

Brian:

know, it's a different niche, but.

Sarah:

Did that start on Substack?

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

Well, i's start with Richard.

Brian:

It's more closer to the free press.

Brian:

I mean, that started with common sense.

Brian:

Barry Weiss went over and started her own substack, it metastasized,

Brian:

just ankle, sort of similar.

Brian:

Richard Feld started on Substack and, and and, and grew from there.

Brian:

but you're saying Yeah, I get it.

Brian:

It's it to you.

Brian:

It's an ESP with some community elements.

Sarah:

That's right.

Sarah:

I mean, what, what we love about Substack and what it's really, allowed us to do is

Sarah:

to have people subscribe to something where we give almost everything away for free.

Sarah:

and what they get for their subscription then.

Sarah:

Is mostly the community.

Sarah:

Like there's a few products.

Sarah:

We gate the Secret podcast with JVL and I, JV L'S daily newsletter, which

Sarah:

is excellent and drives a tremendous

Brian:

This is Jonathan last, we, we've been using like shorthand.

Brian:

Tim Miller is the other one.

Brian:

I, I should gone back.

Brian:

I'm not doing a good podcast here.

Sarah:

yes.

Sarah:

My two, the I, well we have a lot of stars, but sort of the two guys that I've been with the

Sarah:

longest, besides, you know, bill and Mona, who were kind of with us from the beginning has been.

Sarah:

Jonathan last, who was the managing editor at the Weekly Standard and came over and helped

Sarah:

build the written part of the publication.

Sarah:

We also, Adam Kier, like we brought a lot of old people from, from the standard, that came our way.

Sarah:

And then Tim, who's been like, well, our kind of big breakout star, in part because he went,

Sarah:

he really helped, you know, when we turned the cameras on, which is how we think about one of the

Sarah:

biggest things that's changed our business was.

Sarah:

We turned the cameras on, we had to comb our hair and not sit in PJ's.

Sarah:

and that is how we built then the YouTube business, which is now, you know, the

Sarah:

advertising side of what we do is.

Sarah:

Roughly equivalent to the subscription side of what we do.

Sarah:

And so, and that comes from the podcasts events, and, and YouTube.

Sarah:

And Tim has just, Tim is a content machine, on YouTube.

Sarah:

But the thing, when you say like, on the continuum of personalities versus institutions,

Sarah:

we have a couple things that make us different.

Sarah:

One is we're not just hiring people like the three of us.

Sarah:

As well as bills.

Sarah:

Like a lot of us were close, we were close to each other.

Sarah:

We did this thing together.

Sarah:

We didn't build it as a business.

Sarah:

We built it.

Sarah:

'cause we all felt the same way.

Sarah:

We're driven by the same thing.

Sarah:

We're waking up every morning panicked about what Donald Trump was doing to the

Sarah:

country and we wanted to be in it together.

Sarah:

And then when we added more recently, sort of Sam Stein and started building

Sarah:

out the news piece of it, we added more stars and we wanna think of ourselves.

Sarah:

As a star incubation place, as a place where people can come.

Sarah:

You know, we just hired Catherine R. Powell from the Washington Post, and you know when

Sarah:

you leave someplace like the Washington Post.

Sarah:

You think, man, am I gonna decrease my visibility?

Sarah:

And, but if you look, I think the Washington Post is on its last legs, and I think we've got a ton

Sarah:

of running room and a really devoted audience.

Sarah:

Like a lot of people, are gonna read her, not just consistently and not just casually, but like.

Sarah:

Deeply understanding who she is, developing a parasocial relationship with her, trusting

Sarah:

her views or or working to understand her.

Sarah:

And that is the stickiness of that audience is gonna bring more advertising,

Sarah:

it's gonna bring a new community.

Sarah:

But I'm sorry.

Sarah:

I do wanna just go back to Substack.

Sarah:

The thing that it allows us to do, 'cause I didn't finish this thought, is comments.

Sarah:

It does provide a platform for comments where our readers, and we have really, really smart

Sarah:

readers, where they are highly educated people.

Sarah:

They're thoughtful, they wanna bat ideas around.

Sarah:

They're not there to yell at you.

Sarah:

They're there to be like, well, what if we thought about it this way?

Sarah:

Or to try on different ideas?

Sarah:

They wrestle with things the same way that we do.

Sarah:

And so giving people the ability to be part of the community is the number one thing that Substack,

Sarah:

offers us is that sort of comment section.

Brian:

and they've gotten it right with having some kind of community-like feel that I, that

Brian:

I think makes that more likely to happen.

Brian:

In some weird way, like I, for some reason, the Substack environment I I is, is more collegial,

Brian:

I believe, than a lot of places on the internet.

Brian:

comments I used to say, you know, and funny, I think publishers gave up

Brian:

on, on comments like way too early.

Brian:

I understand why they didn't, 'cause I used to say.

Brian:

Comments are a lot, like if you go into like a porta-potty, like do not look

Brian:

down, like you're just like, as a writer.

Brian:

Like there's nothing good for you down there.

Brian:

But I think Substack has incubated quite a few really good, you know, comment sections, that, you

Brian:

know, I think that's, I think that's really good.

Brian:

But YouTube is now bigger, basically.

Brian:

I mean, you have more look at reach.

Brian:

This isn't a reach game anymore, right?

Brian:

But you've got like 800,000 some subscribers on, on Substack, and

Brian:

you've got 1.5 million on YouTube.

Sarah:

Yeah, we have almost 900,000 on Substack.

Sarah:

I think we're at like eight 90.

Sarah:

and I think we have close to 110,000 paying, subscribers.

Sarah:

there.

Sarah:

And then, but on, on YouTube we also have paying subscribers.

Sarah:

And this is, so you can subscribe to our channel.

Sarah:

On YouTube, and this is for us as we build the business, we think a lot about meeting people

Sarah:

where they are on the different platforms.

Sarah:

'cause here's the thing, we know that one of the reasons the comments are

Sarah:

so much nicer, in Substack is because like, those are newsletter readers.

Sarah:

These are readers and they're avid.

Sarah:

They wanna like, they like long form and they want to delve into the ideas and they wanna provide

Sarah:

feedback and really wrestle with the nuances.

Sarah:

The YouTube audience is like.

Sarah:

Put it into my veins.

Sarah:

I wanna watch it.

Sarah:

And then I'm gonna tell you if I think you're a jerk for what you just said or like, and I'm

Sarah:

gonna sit here and comment as you guys talk.

Sarah:

Here's what I like and I think Sarah's right on this.

Sarah:

Here's where Sarah sounds like a Republican and I'm mad at her again.

Sarah:

and they do that on YouTube and it's.

Sarah:

It is a very different type of feedback, but we have 1.5 million people, who subscribe to us on,

Sarah:

on YouTube and that has become such a big part.

Sarah:

Then turning on the cameras was, was a real rev was revelatory for us because not only did it

Sarah:

give us an enormous avenue for more content that we're putting out, because we started doing things

Sarah:

that were video only, that then we've repackaged.

Sarah:

So Bulwark Takes is essentially, we started a podcast feed that's now one of the.

Sarah:

Biggest political podcasts out there, and it's just an aggregation of all

Sarah:

the takes that we're we're doing.

Sarah:

And so for us, trying to make sure that we meet people on YouTube and we meet people on

Sarah:

podcasts who are podcast listeners, and we meet people who are newsletter readers with.

Sarah:

It's not so much different information.

Sarah:

but we do package it somewhat differently for, 'cause the people on

Sarah:

YouTube are not the people on Substack.

Sarah:

Like there is not crossover between those groups.

Sarah:

There's more between the podcast listeners and the newsletter readers.

Sarah:

Uh,

Sarah:

they're different.

Brian:

talk to me about that, because I mean, a lot of podcasts have become YouTube

Brian:

and YouTube, like those worlds I feel like have, obviously they've, they've blurred too.

Brian:

I've always, it's funny, someone, Megan, from your team had asked if this was audio only.

Brian:

And I do audio only because I, I feel video.

Brian:

First of all, I'm a 52-year-old guy.

Brian:

There is, I, I just, I haven't tested it out, but I just don't think there, there's as much of a,

Sarah:

You're handsome.

Brian:

Thank you.

Brian:

I think video changes things when you turn the camera on.

Brian:

I think that it, it does inject a. Performance element to it.

Brian:

And it depends on what kind of product, you're doing.

Brian:

Like performance is absolutely, I'm, I'm writing about this tomorrow, like it

Brian:

has overtaken, this information space.

Brian:

Like it used to be substance plus, performance is performance.

Brian:

And, you know, substance, no substance, it doesn't really matter.

Brian:

I mean, that's why we're listening to comedians talk about, Gaza.

Brian:

because they're performers, they're really good at it.

Brian:

And I think we see this a lot in the more fever swamp areas when it comes to politics.

Brian:

Nick Fuentes is an amazing performer.

Brian:

He's really talented performer.

Brian:

and

Brian:

that is winning.

Brian:

Yeah, she's a great performer too.

Brian:

And that stuff is winning right now.

Brian:

And, but talk to me about, you know, video and how you think about it being.

Brian:

Different than, than, than audio podcasts or, or if it's just, you know,

Brian:

a, a matter of turning the cameras on.

Sarah:

For us, I think it really was turning the cameras on.

Sarah:

I would say the difference, the biggest difference and, and maybe it's because we all

Sarah:

started as podcasters and then just turned the camera on, so it's not like we learned.

Sarah:

To do it on YouTube, we are.

Sarah:

I think, I'm pretty sure, I, I feel like I am being the exact same with you

Sarah:

right now on what is an audio podcast.

Sarah:

And the only reason she asked is 'cause I might put on makeup if it's, if it's, if I

Sarah:

know I'm gonna be on video, uh, or I might have brushed my hair a little bit more.

Sarah:

but I don't think I change how much I wave my arms around or how, you know,

Sarah:

agitated I get or whatever it is.

Sarah:

and.

Sarah:

The reason that you though, even though people are just listening to us but you like

Sarah:

having, is you wanna see my face, you wanna see how I'm reacting the number of people

Sarah:

who listen to us audio wise, which is good.

Sarah:

Like there's a life of the mind there.

Sarah:

But oftentimes something will happen that is making us laugh or where we're goofy, where

Sarah:

people are like, oh, I had to go and put the video on just to see what you guys were doing.

Sarah:

'cause we basically just let both exist the same.

Sarah:

So anyway, so I don't think that turning the cameras on changed it.

Sarah:

Here's what I think did change.

Sarah:

We have to do thumbnails for YouTube.

Brian:

Uh, surprise guy.

Brian:

I call it surprise guy face.

Sarah:

thumbnails are a stupid game, where, you know, you basically they,

Sarah:

and, and we, we hate it.

Sarah:

Our, our team takes the most unflattering faces that we're making and turns them

Sarah:

into thumbnails with titles that are true to the substance, but are more.

Sarah:

Click Beatty than, than the substance

Sarah:

is much

Brian:

I call it surprise guy face.

Brian:

It's the,

Sarah:

It's the Mr. Be sting of everything, and it's the exclamation points.

Sarah:

And I gotta tell you, it makes people with a more nuanced editorial sensibility

Sarah:

want to just lose their minds.

Sarah:

It drives me bananas, but it's also like when you say meet people.

Sarah:

Where they are on the platform, you're basically like, you've gotta let them turn

Sarah:

you into these caricatures on the thumbnails.

Sarah:

so people listen to the more nuanced message that you're, that you're

Brian:

you gotta, you gotta package, you gotta market.

Brian:

We're all, we're all in this.

Brian:

And look, there's a lot of people who are very good at packaging and marketing and performance.

Brian:

Who I think traditional media has really suffered because they have not been good at

Brian:

that packaging, part and at the performance part, because there are a lot of choices

Brian:

out there in the information marketplace.

Brian:

There are a lot of choices and the performers are winning, more often than not.

Sarah:

And I do think, look, I think when people come to us and we, we do a lot of live

Sarah:

shows, we just, we just got back from selling out a live show in New York, and so people

Sarah:

come, it's a Saturday night, it's a night out.

Sarah:

Like there's no doubt, Tim, J, BL and I, who, like we are performing those shows.

Sarah:

It's just the podcast.

Sarah:

But we are making fun of each other.

Sarah:

We are telling jokes.

Sarah:

I mean, I just, I do, and I think this is one of the difficulties that Democrats.

Sarah:

Maybe have a little bit, which is how to have that light touch, right?

Sarah:

How to, how to make it like we spent two hours in a, in a big room and

Sarah:

everybody's laughing the whole time.

Sarah:

Even though much of what we're talking about is how terrible things are, how bleak things are.

Sarah:

but if you, nobody can like sustain your nervous systems, cannot sustain doing that stuff without.

Sarah:

Laughing sometimes and like being in fellowship and feeling the,

Sarah:

the, the community, and the, those

Brian:

Well, it's the absurdity of it all too.

Brian:

I mean, it's like, if you look at like, and some of this like cuts both ways.

Brian:

Like I think about like the Portland protests and, you know, they seem like

Brian:

they've broken out a little bit by having these inflatable, animal outfits.

Brian:

There was a, there was a frog, I guess, who became, at least briefly, famous because

Brian:

everything drops off like immediately.

Brian:

and.

Brian:

Look, any sort of authoritarian hates being made fun of.

Brian:

Right?

Brian:

And just the ludicrousness of the situation, I think it ends up like, Hey, that actually works

Brian:

better than the, like, you know, black balaclavas.

Brian:

'cause you know, you got, you gotta stand out.

Brian:

So you're doing, so you're doing, you've got break down the business, you've got subscriptions, which

Brian:

is rooted mostly in substack, but not entirely.

Brian:

Right.

Sarah:

Yeah, so you can

Brian:

have an,

Sarah:

so you subscribe on Substack, but you can also, let's say you're just a podcast person,

Sarah:

you can subscribe to just the podcast feeds.

Sarah:

On iTunes, like there's a subscription service there.

Sarah:

And on YouTube you can, you can subscribe and then you also get the stuff that's, that's

Sarah:

paywall, which again is not a ton of things, but Oh the, and man, people, when they hit the

Sarah:

paywall, we give away so much stuff for free.

Sarah:

When they hit a paywall on our feed, they are so mad.

Sarah:

And, uh, we're like, well,

Brian:

gotta wear 'em down.

Sarah:

so, so, but then the, but the only thing you get for that subscription, besides the

Sarah:

paywall stuff, is like little emojis of our faces, which I can't imagine why anybody would

Sarah:

want, but that is one of the perks that you get.

Sarah:

and, and so.

Sarah:

So there are subscriptions across everything, and we are really pushing harder for more people to do

Sarah:

the subscriptions, across like wherever they live.

Sarah:

Like trying to get a a, a YouTube person to come over and be the subscriber on substack.

Sarah:

We've been trying that, but it's actually much.

Sarah:

We just think it's better and easier for them to be like, no, subscribe on this place.

Sarah:

You live on YouTube.

Sarah:

You're a YouTube person.

Sarah:

There's an opportunity to subscribe here.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

Okay.

Brian:

And then you have a live events business.

Brian:

You have

Brian:

advertising and then live events business.

Sarah:

That's right.

Sarah:

Although the advertising is a much, much bigger part of the business.

Sarah:

Then live events is when it comes to actual profit.

Sarah:

but we are a profitable business.

Sarah:

you know, we doubled ourselves year over year last year.

Sarah:

I think we're gonna double ourselves again next year, in terms of just overall, revenue.

Sarah:

Uh,

Brian:

The

Brian:

advertising and, and lemme just jump in.

Brian:

The, the advertising is not like the, corporate social responsibility.

Brian:

Like, it's not the Washington DC advertising, like regulate us, but in a way that like is better

Sarah:

no, no.

Sarah:

no.

Sarah:

no.

Sarah:

not that we,

Brian:

It's a great area, by the way.

Brian:

It's,

Sarah:

Yeah.

Sarah:

So I was gonna say, not that, not that we necessarily wouldn't,

Sarah:

depends on who the advertiser is.

Sarah:

But our advertisers are much more, there's, there's a podcast.

Sarah:

Group, like, like it's the Bolen branch.

Sarah:

it's the one skin, it's gummies, like the, the, the weed gummies, which

Sarah:

we've got like three different ones.

Sarah:

it's the little kits, for cats or for your grooming.

Sarah:

Like it's that kind of stuff.

Sarah:

I will say this, I was talking to.

Sarah:

Dylan Buyers and he was very surprised to hear me say that I thought one of our big

Sarah:

growth areas was gonna be on advertising.

Sarah:

That I think we've been under leveraged on advertising and, even though advertising

Sarah:

is now a big part of our business, but like, you know, how podcast and YouTube

Sarah:

advertising is, it can be a little wild westy.

Sarah:

It can be up and down based on, time of year and different what's going on in the political cycles.

Sarah:

and so, you know, people get nervous about it as a. Mainstay of your, your profit or your

Sarah:

revenue, but as sort of the mainstream media, legacy, media, whatever you wanna call it, cable

Sarah:

news, as those things continue to contract.

Sarah:

People are looking for eyeballs.

Sarah:

They wanna know where people are with income.

Sarah:

they're like, who are, are people who have high income, who have diverse political

Sarah:

interests, who are swinger type people?

Sarah:

and I don't know.

Sarah:

That's our audience.

Sarah:

And so like for the idea that there's a, there's a conventional wisdom that people in

Sarah:

politics can't attract more sort of blue chip.

Sarah:

Type advertisers, because it's political podcasting and so it's always a little dicey.

Sarah:

I, I just think that's gonna start to fall apart.

Sarah:

I think more and more we've got people who are just like, yeah, like especially, and there's

Sarah:

a rise of independent businesses going along with independent media, that are looking for

Sarah:

places where they can find new customers.

Sarah:

And so I just think there's a lot of room for growth on the advertising side for us.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

And is that, is that primarily audio or is that through like YouTube?

Sarah:

So it's, it's all of it.

Sarah:

It's YouTube, it's audio.

Sarah:

it is, I think, you know, right now, here's the thing.

Sarah:

I, from the beginning, we've never allowed ads on like the website or anything.

Sarah:

'cause I don't know, if you go to one of these places, you can't read their articles.

Sarah:

Like you get popups.

Sarah:

And they're a nightmare.

Sarah:

And so we don't want anything that interferes with the user's experience, but

Sarah:

like you do have to do some advertising.

Sarah:

And so I think for us, we've been very gently ramping up our advertising.

Sarah:

We'd like to push people to subscribe, and so like one of the main benefits of

Sarah:

subscribing is you don't have to listen to the commercials either on YouTube or on Substack.

Sarah:

but if you don't wanna subscribe, you're gonna listen to the commercials.

Sarah:

and that is, yeah, that's where we're gonna push, but it's, it's across the board.

Sarah:

There's a lot of, and, and the other thing is, is there's static ads and there's host red ads.

Sarah:

and sort of the more your hosts become the trusted messengers for people, the

Sarah:

more valuable the host red ads become.

Brian:

Yeah, yeah.

Brian:

I'm gonna be doing a host red ad before this.

Brian:

so I agree a hundred percent.

Brian:

yeah, so.

Brian:

Look, talk to me about the events.

Brian:

I mean, are those mostly like brand building or is that like a real revenue driver?

Brian:

There's obviously a, a cap to that thing.

Brian:

I mean, I assume you don't want to be on, on tour nonstop doing every college campus.

Sarah:

Yeah, this is actually a real point of tension as we think about, how many

Sarah:

events to do, because right now they're not an enormous revenue stream, although.

Sarah:

We are working to build up our merchandise.

Sarah:

There's, I think we, that's a place we kind of let lag was the merch.

Sarah:

And of course when you've got a really sticky, passionate audience like we do,

Sarah:

they want merch and they want good merch and we want merch that we can wear all around.

Sarah:

And so we are working to really improve the merchandise side.

Sarah:

'cause that's a big piece of how you make the events profitable, is that you

Sarah:

sell merchandise for people who wanna buy it on site while they're at a show.

Sarah:

Look, but it's a tough, events are a tough business if you're not gonna do it at scale.

Sarah:

Because when we come, when we go out on the road, it means it interrupts our

Sarah:

podcasting, schedule, our content generation schedule, the JBLs writing schedule.

Sarah:

Like we all have lots and lots of work that we have to do to put out content.

Sarah:

And so,

Brian:

if you join

Brian:

the circus, it's like a, it's a full-time thing joining the circus.

Brian:

It's not like, oh, I'm like, sometimes I'm like a clown.

Brian:

So like you're in the circus like.

Sarah:

That's right.

Sarah:

I was, so right now though, we do events primarily, I wouldn't even call

Sarah:

them a loss leader like we do them 'cause we love to meet our audience.

Sarah:

we love to meet our community.

Sarah:

It is so fun for us to get out there and do it.

Sarah:

The first time I walked on stage and a thousand people were like on their feet cheering.

Sarah:

I was like, what has happened for us?

Sarah:

What is this world?

Sarah:

but this is, this is the, the community aspect of it and us getting to feel, you

Sarah:

know, like we can be in person with them.

Sarah:

Like we can be in community with that.

Sarah:

Like we love that part of it.

Sarah:

And so it's, it is less for us about the.

Sarah:

Business of it and more about the opportunity to be with people just 'cause

Sarah:

it feels really nice for everybody.

Sarah:

But we are trying to figure out how, if we're gonna do it, how we make it

Sarah:

worth it from a revenue perspective.

Brian:

Right, and you don't want to do, I don't think the brand, it makes

Brian:

sense to do like typical like events.

Brian:

Like, I mean, you're not, I, I think what I was getting at is like you don't get at the

Brian:

public affairs, part of, of, of DC media, like the Axios and the Politico and the

Brian:

View from the top with the guy from Exxon.

Brian:

that, that part, again, great business.

Sarah:

Those are great businesses.

Sarah:

That is not how, that is not our business.

Sarah:

and it doesn't mean we couldn't be, but like again, for us, we're just,

Sarah:

we don't wanna make trade offs.

Sarah:

And about what we're gonna say ever that comes from if we take investors or if somebody

Sarah:

was trying to buy us or, you know, or with advertisers, like, we wanna be control and like.

Sarah:

The ability to be our authentic selves are the most important things to us.

Sarah:

And so if I was having to field calls from advertisers being like, well, you guys said this.

Sarah:

You know, right after our ad, I'd be like, okay, well this isn't gonna work out 'cause

Sarah:

we're gonna say whatever it is, we wanna say.

Sarah:

And so, you know, I think that there are, like, Exxon's probably not gonna be one

Sarah:

of our sponsors, although gimme a call, we'll talk about it, but probably not.

Sarah:

And I think that we, just wanna find people who.

Sarah:

I think there's plenty of advertising that is, if not mission aligned, is audience aligned with us?

Brian:

Yeah, I joke with Puck that the, their ads are like almost the

Brian:

only place I see Golf of America used.

Brian:

because they, they regularly, you know, Hey, you gotta do what you gotta do.

Brian:

I, I, I, I don't hate the, hate the player.

Brian:

What do you think about the Free press exit?

Sarah:

I think it's an amazing comp for us, as

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

That's going in there.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

Just like Business Insider was in everyone's comp like,

Sarah:

Yeah, I mean, oh, okay.

Sarah:

So if, if, if they are at their, uh, you know, if they're at the revenue that they

Sarah:

say they are, that's a comp, that's a, that's a revenue number that is comparable to us.

Sarah:

And I say.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

10 X revenue.

Brian:

Sure.

Brian:

Yeah.

Brian:

Most

Brian:

deals are, most media deals are definitely, are definitely done off

Brian:

revenue, and they're definitely done on a 10 x. No, what do you think about it?

Brian:

What I mean, like, you know, obviously Barry Weiss did an amazing job of building that brand.

Brian:

you know, look, there's a lot of people in the Capital J journalism world

Brian:

who, who are, who are coming for her.

Brian:

There's gonna be a steady stream, steady stream of stories about how

Brian:

she lacks the expertise, et cetera.

Brian:

You can see it coming.

Brian:

It's gonna, it's gonna happen.

Brian:

but it goes to the point that you're saying, you know, It was purchased by, you know, paramount

Brian:

after David Ellison, happened to, to buy it.

Brian:

And by the way, you know, previous to that, they, they, they paid Trump.

Brian:

And there's a desire to, to shift CBS news, in a different direction now.

Brian:

I think that the, the world of media and information like it's, it's

Brian:

far broader than like network news.

Brian:

So I think that's a challenged model to begin with.

Brian:

So why not try something new?

Sarah:

Yeah, I mean, I have a bunch of different thoughts about this.

Sarah:

So one is, I gotta say, I find the kremlinology around Barry, like Barry day three at CBS.

Sarah:

I'm like, oh guys, give it a rest.

Sarah:

Like

Brian:

Oh, Dylan Dylan's on that.

Brian:

They, they, PAC loves main character and he is like, okay.

Brian:

I, he was going after SLO forever, so like, yes, Barry's gonna be a main character for sure.

Sarah:

Yeah, I think, I think we can probably all settle down with that.

Sarah:

I'm not sure We have to overthink this.

Sarah:

Look.

Sarah:

I, I am, I'm fascinated.

Sarah:

Well, there's a couple things.

Sarah:

So actually I wanna say up front that if I, if I have one, negative thing to say about

Sarah:

it, it is that, you know, if you're gonna.

Sarah:

Like she took a, got a big bag of money.

Sarah:

Great.

Sarah:

for her, I guess, but like, you gotta know why you got that.

Sarah:

Like, she's not, the, the free press isn't worth $150 million.

Sarah:

Like I know.

Sarah:

I'm in this space.

Brian:

God, you're, you're blowing it.

Brian:

That goes the

Sarah:

I know, I know, I know, I know.

Sarah:

But we are worth 150 million.

Sarah:

But the, the, the, the, but, but, but like, we know, we all know what,

Sarah:

what they're, what were they buying?

Sarah:

They were buying, they're buying the free press.

Sarah:

'cause the free press is so great.

Sarah:

They're buying berry.

Sarah:

For cover with Trump, right?

Sarah:

To show that they are putting somebody more friendly to Trump's interest.

Sarah:

And this is, to me a much bigger story.

Sarah:

I think the problem if we're missing the, the forest for the Barry Weiss here, which is that

Sarah:

Trump is given his friends acts, oh, they get to buy TikTok Trump's, you know, ellison's not just

Sarah:

buying CBS and putting Barry Weiss in charge.

Sarah:

That's a, he's trying to buy Warner Brothers.

Sarah:

Two and CNN and Elon Musk owns X and Mark Zuckerberg can't wait to, is love into

Sarah:

sucking up to Trump and paying him off.

Sarah:

And so did YouTube.

Sarah:

Like the extent to which there is a full scale takeover of the media by people who are friendly

Sarah:

to Trump is I think a deeply under-reported story because everybody's focused on like the

Sarah:

Barry of it all, which I think is a mistake.

Sarah:

I, I just, 'cause I

Brian:

It's regime media.

Brian:

I call it regime media, like it's, it's a sector.

Brian:

It's, you know, it's, there's, there's regime media, and it's a lane, and it

Brian:

will operate in this greater information space with resistance media and with

Brian:

independent media and with legacy media.

Sarah:

Yeah.

Sarah:

I just, one of the things though, and then that's just curious to me I guess I don't understand.

Sarah:

I could see how it would be maybe, maybe it's still just cool enough to be able to

Sarah:

go and run CVS and you're like, this is really cool, and, and you get a huge, you

Sarah:

know, you get a huge paycheck, so fine.

Sarah:

But like, I don't wanna go to one of the places that I think is gonna be dead in 10 years.

Sarah:

Like, I don't think, I don't think the idea that that.

Sarah:

Installing people who understand the new independent media environment into

Sarah:

legacy media is the solution for them.

Sarah:

And so, like, if, if you asked me like, and, and I di Dylan Byers was really pushing

Sarah:

me, I'm like, but what about your exit?

Sarah:

You know what?

Sarah:

What do you, and I think this is like people who are really.

Sarah:

Kind of investor brained or you know, always think about the end game

Sarah:

of the sale as their first thing.

Sarah:

Like that isn't what I think about.

Sarah:

I think about how do I have influence and how do I maintain control?

Sarah:

And by control I mean that the bull work is owned by its employees.

Sarah:

and therefore we control our own destiny, our own ability to inno innovate our own ability

Sarah:

to, take in this moment like what did Substack allowed for a big disaggregation of media.

Sarah:

Everything broke apart.

Sarah:

Stars all went all over the place to Substack, but eventually subscription

Sarah:

fatigue and just the sheer volume in the market is gonna lead to just like streaming.

Sarah:

Did you know, there was a big disaggregation and then people started bundling.

Sarah:

So like for me, much less interesting is the idea of being sort of consumed by a member of legacy

Sarah:

media, even if the payday's big and much more interesting is how do you build the new thing?

Sarah:

How do you build what is gonna be the next generation of media?

Sarah:

I, I wanna, I wanna be on the forefront of that.

Sarah:

I wanna be at the tip of the spear of seeing as the cracks get bigger and bigger, in media.

Sarah:

Like how do you build something good, in the space where everything's crumbled?

Sarah:

and I think to me, that's a much more interesting.

Sarah:

Question about what happens next than like bury going to CBS.

Sarah:

I find that to be an odd thing to do.

Sarah:

Save the money, like o other than the incentives that are there, but you could not just for myself,

Sarah:

there's not a, you couldn't get one of the, the MAGA billionaires, like I would not take their

Sarah:

money to provide cover, you know, but whatever.

Brian:

Yeah, I mean, just on that and then I'll, we'll wrap it up.

Brian:

It's like, it, it does a, it reminds me a little bit of Marissa Mayer being brought into Yahoo.

Brian:

that there's, there's no, like, it was Yahoo, like that was, you know, that, that,

Brian:

that it wasn't gonna be turned around.

Brian:

It wasn't gonna compete with Google.

Brian:

and now there's so many different.

Brian:

There's so many different places to get information that I'm not sure the network

Brian:

news model makes sense no matter who runs it.

Brian:

but anyway, thank you so much, Sarah.

Brian:

This was really fun.

Brian:

would love to, love to revisit this as, as you build the next thing.

Sarah:

Yeah, that's great.

Sarah:

I love talking about the Bulwark business.

Sarah:

I have to talk about politics too much, and I don't get to talk about the bulwarks business

Sarah:

enough, and it is my favorite thing to talk about.

Sarah:

So thanks for having me.

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