Welcome to The Deep Dive, your shortcut to getting
up to speed. Today, well, we're tackling a career
that really acts like a mirror, doesn't it? Reflecting
the last, what, 30 years of American media shifts.
Exactly. We're digging into the, let's say, unfiltered
evolution of Nicholas Rocco DiPaolo. Yeah, Nick
DiPaolo. And when you trace his path, you're
not just looking at a comedian born in... You
know, Beverly, Massachusetts, back in 62. Right.
You're actually tracking this this really controversial,
often confrontational voices. It moves from like
the traditional local standup clubs to writing
for Emmy nominated TV shows, then becoming a
fixture in that whole shock radio era. Huge part
of it. Oh, absolutely. And finally landing where
he is now. Yes. Hosting his own very independent,
very political digital show. It's quite the journey.
That's exactly our mission today, then, to trace
that whole arc, which is, frankly, pretty complex.
It's a real study in, well, adapting on one hand,
but also refusing to compromise on the other.
We're looking at the whole timeline. From those
first open mics in Boston, what, the late 80s,
all the way to his current setup. I mean, the
guy's been everything. Stand -up, writer, actor,
radio guy, podcast host. A true multi -hyphenate,
as they say. And his specific style. Which, yeah,
we'll break down later that mix of observational
stuff, black comedy, insult humor. It was so
consistent. Right. And that consistency actually
let him succeed in all these different, sometimes
conflicting media worlds. It also set him up
for some major clashes, you know, with the powers
that be, the gatekeepers. Yeah, you can see that
coming. I mean, he was key to tough crowd with
Colin Quinn, always popping up on the Comedy
Central roast, a regular voice on massive shows
like Opie and Anthony, Howard Stern. His career
pattern seems to be. Get in, do incredibly well,
push the boundaries and then often get pushed
out only to like immediately rebuild somewhere
else. OK, let's unpack all of that. We really
need to start at the beginning, right? The foundations.
There's this surprising academic background.
Yeah, that's interesting. And apparently it was
sheer desperation, not ambition that got him
on stage in the first place. Yeah, it's funny.
His early life. Gives you almost no clue about
the kind of political and controversial figure
he'd become. It's pretty standard New England
stuff. Right. Born in Beverly. Grew up in Danvers,
Mass. Followed a pretty traditional path, actually.
Academics, sports. He went to the University
of Maine. Graduated in 84. Major. Marketing.
Marketing. That's almost the opposite of his
later persona, isn't it? Marketing is usually
about, well, politeness, persuasion. Exactly.
Not roasting celebrities till they cry. It's
a fascinating contrast. And yeah, he was apparently
quite the athlete, too. A running back for the
university football team. Oh, wow. And he was
in a fraternity, Sigma Nu. So you see maybe a
bit of that competitive team player background,
maybe even, you know, disciplined in a certain
way. That competitive drive. Yeah, that makes
sense when you look at the sheer volume of work
he put in later in comedy. Totally. And competition
was kind of in the family, it seems. His brother
was also at Maine doing play by play for the
Black Bears hockey team, worked alongside Gary
Thorne, the big time announcer. No kidding. Gary
Thorne. Yeah. So. You know, the world around
him valued performance, quick commentary. Yeah.
Even if it was focused on sports initially. But
OK, so he graduates with this marketing degree
that doesn't jump into comedy. No, not right
away. The sources say he tried the, you know,
the expected path first office job in marketing.
OK. But the job that really seems to define that
period or rather the failure that defined his
later success was selling meat and seafood. Door
to door. Door to door meat sales. That sounds
character building, let's say. Character building
or soul crushing. Maybe both. But that seems
to be the key, the motivator. He said he was
always a fan of comedy, watched Carson, Letterman,
Leno, Robert Klein, all the greats. But he just
didn't have, in his own words, the guts to try
it himself. It took hating that sales job so
much, that grind that finally pushed him. He
literally said, desperation led me to the stage,
not ambition. Wow. I think a lot of people, especially
creatives, can probably relate to that. You know,
the pain of the safe job finally getting worse
than the fear of trying the thing you actually
love. It's that existential push, right? Makes
you take the risk. So what was that first actual
step onto the stage like? Oh, the origin story
is perfect. Summer of 86, open mic night, Stitches
Club in Boston. Okay. But he didn't just like...
calmly prepare he apparently came straight from
a family barbecue oh having had and i quote about
22 beers in me 20 okay that's not just loosening
up that's anesthesia yeah it tells you something
about the anxiety level maybe but he did his
five minutes that it went pretty well and crucially
he knew right then instantly this is what he
had to do he found the thing he found the thing
but uh life intervened slightly that sales job
moved him temporarily to rhode island ah okay
so a slight detour It's just a brief one. It
wasn't until spring of 87 that he got back to
Boston properly and started hitting those open
mic nights regularly. So 87, that's really the
starting pistol for the career we're talking
about today. Trading scallops for hecklers. Pretty
much. Yeah. A definite upgrade, I imagine. So
1987, he commits. And from what the sources say,
he just went all in. Right. Hit the ground running.
Absolutely relentless. He worked that whole New
England circuit. The comedy vault, the comedy
correction places like that, pretty much nonstop
until about 92. This was his boot camp. Forging
the act in the fires of Tuesday night crowds
in Providence. Exactly. Pressure testing the
material constantly. So what was his style like
back then? Was he already doing the political
stuff, the really aggressive bits? Not quite
yet, it seems. The descriptions from that time
focus more on the technical side. A rapid -fire
approach. He aimed for four or five punches attached
to every joke. Dense. Like a machine gun setup
punchline delivery. Yeah. Aggressive in pace.
Trying to just overwhelm you with jokes. It sounds
like he was really focused on the craft, the
mechanics of stand -up. His early manager, Barry
Katz, mentioned he did over 300 nights in his
first year. 300 nights. That's insane. That kind
of dedication, you just don't see that as often
anymore. It's serious work ethic. And that kind
of grind, well, it naturally leads you to the
next level, which for comedians then was New
York City. Right. The big move. And this is where
a pretty major connection happens, isn't it?
His roommate in New York. Yeah. None other than
Louis C .K. Wow. OK. So they were sharing an
apartment back then. But the move wasn't just
about networking, right? It actually shifted
his comedy itself. It seems so. NYC was the catalyst.
For him getting more political. And how he did
it is really interesting, especially thinking
about his later stuff. He said he started reading
all the local papers, the Post, the Times, Daily
News. The whole spectrum. Right. The liberal
ones, the conservative ones. And he'd compare
how they covered the same story. He was mining
the differences, the contradictions. Ah, okay.
So he's actively looking for the tension in how
things are reported. That makes perfect sense.
It explains why his later commentary often feels
like it's hitting from multiple angles. It's
comedy born from comparing the narratives. Exactly.
That method, that discipline of looking at conflicting
media views. You could see the seeds of his news
satire approach right there. decades before his
own show. But, you know, comedy dreams often
lead West to L .A. Yep. In 92, he relocates again.
Los Angeles this time. Yeah. The goal was TV
and film roles. And did that L .A. move pay off?
Pretty quickly, yeah. He got some really crucial
early national exposure out there. A spot on
the Arsenio Hall show, which was massive at the
time. And he did one of ASPO's Young Comedians
specials. That was a really important launch
pad for comics back then. Put you on the industry
radar. So L .A. gives him visibility, but then
he gets pulled back east. He does. The call came
from Chris Rock. The Cricks Rock. The Chris Rock,
offering him a writing job on The Chris Rock
Show, which filmed in New York. So DiPaolo takes
it, moves back, settles in Queens around 2001.
Now, this writing gig, this is important, isn't
it? Because it kind of pushes back against the
idea that he was only ever about shock value
or just insult comedy. Absolutely. Critical context.
This was high -level, prestigious writing. The
show was huge, critically acclaimed. He wrote
for two seasons. And in 2001... He and the whole
writing team got nominated for an Emmy. Wow.
Outstanding writing for a variety music or comedy
program. And get this, it was actually his second
Emmy nomination overall. Second. Okay, see, that's
the kind of detail people might miss. He wasn't
just a club comic who stumbled into radio. He
had serious writing credentials recognized at
the highest level. Totally. It proves the skill
set went way beyond the stage persona. Being
able to craft sophisticated comedy for TV, getting
multiple Emmy nods, that underpins everything
else. It's that combination, the sharp writing
mind and the increasingly confrontational delivery
that really fueled the next big phase. Which
was? Radio on the roasts. This where that unfiltered
style found its kind of perfect home for a while.
We're talking major guest spots. Howard Stern,
Opie and Anthony. Okay, let's talk about shock
radio for a second, because that term gets thrown
around. For listeners, you have to understand,
these shows in the late 90s, early 2000s, they
were a different beast. Totally different. They
operated largely outside the FCC rules that governed
regular radio and TV. They were built on being
edgy, pushing boundaries, being confrontational.
So for a comedian like DePaulo, whose whole thing
was becoming about saying the unsayable insult,
humor, dark jokes, these shows weren't just tolerating
him. They were inviting it. Yeah. They needed
that kind of content. It was the perfect ecosystem
for his style at that time. And that radio heat,
it bled back into TV, specifically with Tough
Crowd. Yeah. Tough crowd with Colin Quinn. Ran
2002 to 2004 on Comedy Central. Such a foundational
show for that era. It was basically just comedians
arguing about the news. Unscripted, political,
often really heated. The perfect training ground
for his later podcast, you could argue. That
rapid fire debate style. Absolutely. And then,
of course, the ultimate showcase for that aggressive
style. The Comedy Central roasts. Ah, yes. The
roasts. He became a staple there. Oh, yeah. Hugh
Hefner, Pam Anderson, Dennis Leary. Jeff Foxworthy,
Larry the Cable Guy, he was on a bunch of them.
And the roast stage is basically a laboratory
for insult comedy, isn't it? Mixed with maybe
some of that black comedy stuff. Exactly. You
could take that aggression, that precise joke
writing skill he'd honed since Boston, and just
unleash it in this high profile televised format.
This period really cemented his public image
as the guy who'd say anything, the unfiltered
one. Okay, so before we get into how things started
to shift with mainstream media, we should probably
nail down the specific kind of comedy he was
doing and talk about the key people he worked
with. Right. The sources list out his genres
pretty clearly. Observational humor, black comedy,
insult comedy, news satire, and off -color humor.
It's quite a mix. Let's unpack maybe two of those.
Insult comedy is pretty obvious from the roasts,
right? Yeah, that's straightforward. But black
comedy is really important for understanding
him. In his case, it means finding humor in really
dark, controversial, or taboo subjects. Things
like race relations, death, social issues people
usually whisper about. And he uses observational
humor to pick those apart. Seems like it. pointing
out hypocrisy or absurdity within those dark
areas, which is probably why PC culture became
such a frequent target for him. He's looking
for the uncomfortable truths, often through a
deliberately offensive lens. And this style wasn't
developed in a vacuum. He had some really long
-standing collaborations. The Lee C .K. one is
maybe the biggest, started as roommates. It just
kept going. It wasn't just a brief thing. This
was a creative partnership that lasted, what,
two decades? Across different projects. Like
what? Well, DiPaolo played the super on CK's
HBO show Lucky Louie. He was in like a dozen
episodes of Louie on FX, often playing a version
of himself or characters close to his persona.
Right, I remember him on Louie. And even as recently
as 2022, he was in CK's film Fourth of July,
playing that really obnoxious Uncle Kevin character.
Stole scenes in that. So that long collaboration,
it's just a real... Mutual respect or understanding
of each other's comedic voice. Even if CK's path
took its own controversial turns later, they
both seemed drawn to uncomfortable realism. Definitely
seems that way. Another big partnership, maybe
a bit more wild, was with Artie Lange. Ah, Artie
Lange. Met him at a pilot audition, apparently.
They became good friends and toured together
a lot. They even went overseas for the troops,
right? They did. The Operation Mirth USO tour
in 2008. Went to Afghanistan, Lange headlined,
DiPaolo was with him. And, you know, performing
that kind of edgy material in a war zone, it
said something about their shared no boundaries
approach. That partnership even became a formal
show for a while. Yeah, the Nick and Artie show.
Launched in 2011. It was a syndicated sports
talk radio show, but with their comedic spin.
How long did that last with Nick? He left in
January 2013, so about a year and a half. But
it was a significant move into being a dedicated
host, not just a guest. Showed he could carry
a show, bring that opinionated, funny take to
sports talk. And we can't really talk about his
development without mentioning Colin Quinn again.
Absolutely not. Quinn was huge. Tough Crowd was
obviously the big platform Quinn gave him, which
honed that political debate skill. But Quinn
also apparently titled DePaulo's first two stand
-up albums. Oh, really? Which ones? Born This
Way from 99 and Road Rage from 2004. Huh. Interesting.
So there is this whole interconnected group feeding
off each other, shaping each other's brands.
Yeah, it was definitely a scene. They kind of
created an environment where that aggressive
truth telling style was the currency. And speaking
of odd pairings and creative ideas, we have to
touch on that animated show. Shorties watching
Shorties. Oh, my God. Shorties. That show was
peak early 2000s Comedy Central weirdness. Totally.
It was animated. DiPaolo and Patrice O 'Neill,
another legend gone too soon, voiced these two
babies. Yeah, unsupervised babies just sitting
in diapers, watching clips of other comedians
and, like, commenting on them in these really
foul -mouthed, cynical ways. It sounds bizarre,
but what's fascinating is why they did it. The
network apparently wanted to capture the chemistry
between DiPaolo and O 'Neill, which was known
to be volatile but hilarious from radio. Right.
They couldn't just put them on another panel
show, maybe. Maybe not. Tough Crowd was already
doing that. Yeah. Apparently, DiPaolo himself
came up with the idea for the babies, which is
kind of brilliant, right? Using these innocent
-looking characters to say the absolute most
offensive, cutting stuff. He made a commentary
almost. Totally. It really shows his knack for
blending that intense commentary with these weirdly
creative formats. Okay, so summing up this phase.
He is a proven Emmy -nominated writer, a successful
niche actor, a master of insult and black comedy,
honed in the wild west of shock radio and shows
like Tough Crowd. But the media landscape was
starting to change. Yeah, and that's where the
friction really starts to build. His style versus
the changing times. So the early 2000s, he's
pretty established within the system, right?
He's got the writing cred, the radio presence.
He can draw crowds. Definitely an insider. He
even got his own solo radio hosting gig for a
bit. Late 2006 on WFNY in New York City. An afternoon
show. How long did that last? Only till about
December 2007. The station flipped formats. Which
happens. After that, though, he became a go -to
fill -in host for some big names. Jerry Doyle,
Dennis Miller, Dan Patrick. So he was trusted
talent, someone the networks could rely on to
deliver that edgy but still manageable content
within their framework. Exactly. He was working
within the system. But you could feel the cultural
ground shifting underneath, couldn't you? That
kind of confrontational humor was starting to
run up against Will. Evolving corporate ideas
about sensitivity. Yeah. The landscape was changing.
Yeah. And that tension eventually boiled over
around 2017, 2018. It did. He got another big
shot. His own dedicated evening show on Sirius
XM on the Faction Talk channel. Started May 2017.
Okay, Sirius XM, satellite radio, that was supposed
to be the safe zone, right? The place edgy comedy
could still thrive away from FCC regs? The successor
to old -school shock radio, in a way? That was
the perception, yeah. But even satellite radio,
by the late 2010s, had its limits. Or maybe the
public nature of social media changed the game
for everyone, regardless of platform. Ah. So
what was the specific incident? What finally
broke the connection with the big institutions?
It was a tweet. A direct collision between his
unfiltered style, the immediacy of Twitter, and
corporate HR policies, basically. What's a tweet
say? According to the sources, he posted something
like, school shooters, please confine yourself
to call campuses, specifically faculty lounges
at Berkeley, Fresno State, et cetera. Oof. Okay,
yeah, that's textbook DePaulo black comedy, right?
Hyper -political, off -collar, hitting a raw
nerve, extremely dark satire. Exactly. The kind
of thing he might have said on Opie and Anthony
10 years earlier, maybe it was some controversy,
but likely survivable within that bubble. Yeah.
But posted on his own Twitter account, while
employed by a major corporation like SiriusXM
in 2018, the context was entirely different.
The reaction was swift. Immediate. SiriusXM fired
him. Termination. And his response, did he apologize?
Walk it back. Not really apologize for the joke
itself. His public stance was that SiriusXM completely
overreacted. He called the tweet poorly worded,
but argued it was only worth a suspension at
best. So he wasn't backing down on the intent
of the humor, the satire. He was arguing about
the punishment. Precisely. He was basically defending
his right to make that kind of joke, framing
the firing as corporate overreach and attack
on comedic freedom. It perfectly encapsulates
his whole philosophy about speech and offense.
It makes you wonder, though, with his track record,
the Emmy nods, the connections, why not just
soften the edges a bit? Play the game to stay
within those big platforms instead of essentially
burning that bridge with Sirius XM. I think for
him, compromising the material, softening the
edges would have been like abandoning the entire
point. His whole brand, his whole philosophy
was built on not doing that, on pushing back
against exactly those kinds of pressures. So
the firing, in a weird way, might have been inevitable.
It forced the next step. Which was? The independent
leap. He had to build his own platform where
he couldn't be fired for being himself. Then
he moved fast on that, didn't he? Incredibly
fast. Yeah. The SiriusXM firing was April 2018.
By July 9th, 2018, just a few months later, the
Nick DiPaolo show launched. audio and video podcast
wow that's the modern playbook isn't it get deplatformed
by the old guard immediately pivot to your own
audience directly online textbook example don't
wait don't complain too long just build your
own thing let's look at how he built it because
the structure seems pretty smart for this kind
of unfiltered content it's basically talk radio
but redesigned for the internet age an hour long
four days a week he broadcasts live from his
own studio setup and how does he manage reach
versus revenue smartly The live show streams
free on YouTube. They get some maximum eyeballs,
keep some visible. But the real money, the dedicated
fan base, that comes through Patreon. Premium
content, archives, extras. And the Patreon name
itself is a statement. Oh, yeah. Creating an
unsafe space for all. Chuckles. Okay. That's
pretty direct. It's defiant branding, isn't it?
A direct flip of the safe space idea. It clearly
signals exactly what you're getting. The opposite
of PC culture. That's his core audience. And
his topics reflect that. News, politics, modern
society, race, social justice, all through his
specific lens. And this setup allows him to talk
to whoever he wants, right? A guest who might
also be a bit too controversial for mainstream
platforms. Exactly. He's had people like Kurt
Metzger, A .J. Rice, Colin Quinn comes back,
Anthony Cumia. He's created his own ecosystem.
But here's where it gets interesting, right?
He achieves this total independence. But he doesn't
stay completely isolated in his own digital world.
No, he doesn't. And this is a really key development.
Since 2021, our sources say he's been a contributing
writer for Greg Gutfeld's show on Fox News Channel.
Gutfeld, the late night show, writing for them.
Yeah, providing material, helping write, opening
monologues sometimes. It's a subtle but significant
shift. He went from being fired by a generally
neutral corporation like Sirius XM to contributing
content within a specifically political conservative
media structure like Fox News. It's just that
even for an independent, some kind of alignment
might be necessary or desirable for visibility
or stability. He's aligning his writing talent,
which we know is top notch, with a very specific
political brand. And that alignment trend continued.
In March 2023, he officially joined Mug Club.
Stephen Crowder's network. Right. Which puts
him alongside other very polarizing, mostly conservative
figures like Alex Jones, Brian Callen. It's another
move away from pure independence towards joining
a larger politically defined digital platform.
So the journey seems to be. Traditional media
code, it gets pushed out, it creates independent
platform, aligns independent platform with larger
politically specific networks. That seems to
be the trajectory. The traditional gatekeepers
are gone, but maybe new politically aligned gatekeepers
offer a different kind of structure and reach.
It's less about content neutrality and more about
finding your specific audience block. Throughout
all these shifts, radio, firing, independence,
alignment, he kept putting out stand -up specials,
right? Those seem like key markers of his evolution.
Absolutely. They're like snapshots of his material
and worldview at different points. We mentioned
the early ones, Born This Way, 99, Road Rage,
04, What Came After. Funny How, in 2008. Then
Raw Nerve in 2011. That one was interesting because
it was released both as a Comedy Central Presents
half hour and as a full special on Showtime.
Still working within the traditional system then.
But then things started to change, even in how
he released them. Yeah, by 2014, with another
senseless killing, you see him choosing a very
specific vibe. He filmed it at Acme, a small
club in Minneapolis. Really intimate setting.
Going for that raw, immediate feel, like being
back on the circuit. Seems like it. Less polish,
more intensity. Then came Inflammatory in 2017,
just before the SiriusXM stuff hit the fan. But
the really strategic one, the one that reflects
the big pivot, seems to be a breath of fresh
air in 2019, released right after the firing.
And he put it out. How? For free. Directly onto
YouTube. Okay, that's a major statement. Why
free? His stated reason was explicit. He wanted
to release it without any media industry filter.
No network notes from Netflix or Comedy Central.
No executive demanding cuts to avoid controversy.
So it was partly artistic control, but also a
business move, bypassing the gatekeepers entirely.
Exactly. Get it directly to the audience. Maximize
reach. Find everyone who might be looking for
exactly that kind of unsiltered comedy, but maybe
wouldn't pay for a subscription or buy a special
site unseen. It was a direct pipeline using YouTube
as the distribution network. Very smart. Very
much of the moment. And his personal life also
kind of mirrors this political trajectory, doesn't
it? His physical location. Yeah, that's another
layer. He married his wife, Andrea. Back in March
2003, they'd been together since 94, so a long
-term relationship. Right. And they lived around
the New York area for years. Queens, then Tarrytown,
then Newcastle by 2004. Standard suburban New
York life for a successful comic. But then came
the big move. The big move. April 2019. Right
after he'd launched his independent show and
really leaned into the anti -establishment vibe,
he and Andreu moved to Georgia. And he didn't
just move quietly. He made a point of why he
was moving. Oh, yeah. He made a very public,
very provocative statement calling New York a
liberal shirt hole. Wow. OK, so he's literally
using his geographic move as content, as part
of his brand narrative. Totally. It fused everything
together. His personal life choice, his political
stance, his comedy content. It became the symbol
of him escaping the perceived liberal oppression
of New York for the freedom of the South. Powerful
storytelling for his base. And all of this, this
whole journey, it really comes back to a core
belief he seems to have held for a long, long
time about offense, about words. Absolutely.
It's remarkably consistent. There was a New York
Times article way back in 2007. This is pre Twitter
firing, pre Trump even, that talked about him
and the. Shock Radio Brethren after the Don Imus
controversy. And what did it say about DiPaolo
specifically? It highlighted his stance against
PC culture even back then. It quoted a bit he
did mocking some kind of employee sensitivity
training manual. The manual was apparently titled
Words Hurt and Harm. OK. And DiPaolo's punchline,
his core argument was right away we're starting
with a false premise because words don't hurt.
Words don't hurt. That's basically the key to
understanding his entire approach, isn't it?
It really is. It's the engine behind the insult
comedy, the black comedy, the political jabs.
It's his justification for saying anything, for
pushing boundaries in every single environment
he's been in, regardless of the fallout. His
whole move towards independence, you could argue,
was about finding or creating a space where that
single premise, words don't hurt, could exist
without institutional punishment. Okay, so looking
back at this whole trajectory, Nick DiPaolo's
career, it really is like a microcosm, isn't
it? A case study of a performer whose style,
that consistent confrontational style, it brought
him success, but eventually just became incompatible
with where mainstream media was heading on sensitivity.
Yeah, he didn't really change his core product.
The market around him changed. So he didn't bend
his brand to fit the market. He found a new market
or rather built his own venue for it. And he
showed it's possible, right, to go from the traditional
Heights Emmy nominations, big radio shows to
being essentially kicked out and then successfully
launching your own independent thing, your own
profitable media company, basically on YouTube
and Patreon. Definitely. And for you, the listener,
that's maybe the big practical takeaway here.
His path shows that modern reality for creators,
especially those with strong, maybe controversial
viewpoints, if you prioritize unfiltered content
over playing it safe within the old institutions.
The tools are there now. The tools are there.
The tech allows the audience to find you, to
follow the content directly, even if the big
networks or platforms try to sideline you. That's
the optimistic view, the independent success
story. It is, but... And here's where it gets
really, really interesting. And this is the final
thought we want to leave you with today. Okay.
We saw him make that move. Break free from the
networks. Build a successful independent show.
Run it for, what, five plus years now? Total
control? Right. The unsafe space for all. Exactly.
But then, recently, he takes these steps back
towards larger structures. He joins Steven Crowder's
Mug Love Network. He starts writing for Gutfeld.
on Fox News aligning himself with big established
politically specific brands not neutral platforms
but ideologically aligned ones precisely so what
does that tell us ultimately about how viable
truly independent media or comedy is in the long
run is that Total autonomy, that lone wolf status,
actually sustainable for years and years. Or
do you eventually need to hook your wagon to
some kind of larger structure, even if it's a
politically specific one, to maintain reach,
stability, maybe relevance? Does that political
alignment eventually have to replace the old
institutional support in today's media world?
Can you be truly independent and still thrive
long term? Or does the need for audience and
structure inevitably pull you into one camp or
another? Does the desire for reach eventually
compromise the purity of that independence? Hmm.
That is definitely something to chew on. Yeah.
A question about the future of media, really.
Fascinating stuff. OK, that wraps up our deep
dive into the unfiltered evolution of Ingrid
Paolo. Thanks for joining us. See you next time.