WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.480 Welcome back to the deep dive. I want you to 00:00:02.480 --> 00:00:05.480 picture a scenario that I guarantee happens to 00:00:05.480 --> 00:00:07.799 you. I mean, probably at least once a week. OK, 00:00:07.879 --> 00:00:10.359 I'm listening. You are standing in line at the 00:00:10.359 --> 00:00:12.980 grocery store. You've got your cart, maybe some 00:00:12.980 --> 00:00:15.419 almond milk, bag of apples. You know, you're 00:00:15.419 --> 00:00:17.199 trying to be healthy. The usual Sunday afternoon. 00:00:17.440 --> 00:00:20.739 Exactly. But you're stuck. You're behind someone 00:00:20.739 --> 00:00:23.300 with a massive order and you have nowhere to 00:00:23.300 --> 00:00:26.640 look. And they're right at eye level, practically 00:00:26.640 --> 00:00:29.570 screaming at you in this like. neon yellow font 00:00:29.570 --> 00:00:32.250 is a headline oh i know exactly where this is 00:00:32.250 --> 00:00:34.789 going it's about a celebrity marriage exploding 00:00:34.789 --> 00:00:40.030 or an alien baby or uh some politician caught 00:00:40.030 --> 00:00:42.810 in a love nest the dreaded checkout gauntlet 00:00:42.810 --> 00:00:45.429 it's it's effectively a trap and it's designed 00:00:45.429 --> 00:00:47.530 to capture your attention in those three minutes 00:00:47.530 --> 00:00:49.890 of sheer boredom it is a trap and we all do the 00:00:49.890 --> 00:00:52.250 same thing we look we scoff maybe we chuckle 00:00:52.250 --> 00:00:54.490 and we tell ourselves oh i am way too smart for 00:00:54.490 --> 00:00:57.299 this trash you know we just dismiss it It's the 00:00:57.299 --> 00:00:59.420 jump food of the news world. Right. It's easy 00:00:59.420 --> 00:01:02.979 to feel superior to it. But today, we are going 00:01:02.979 --> 00:01:05.680 to challenge that dismissal. Because when you 00:01:05.680 --> 00:01:08.379 actually dig into the stack of research we have, 00:01:08.519 --> 00:01:11.599 and we have a mountain of it today, you realize 00:01:11.599 --> 00:01:15.319 that those trashy papers, they have a history 00:01:15.319 --> 00:01:19.900 that is wilder, darker, and frankly more influential 00:01:19.900 --> 00:01:22.700 than most serious newspapers. It's a history 00:01:22.700 --> 00:01:26.040 that's... surprisingly central to how our society 00:01:26.040 --> 00:01:28.299 functions. We're not just talking about gossip 00:01:28.299 --> 00:01:30.439 here. Yeah. We're talking about a lineage that 00:01:30.439 --> 00:01:35.140 goes from blackmailing the aristocracy in 1700s 00:01:35.140 --> 00:01:37.459 London. Which is just an amazing concept on its 00:01:37.459 --> 00:01:41.019 own. To a fundamentalist crusader in a, you know, 00:01:41.060 --> 00:01:44.200 a grit filled mining town in Minnesota who essentially 00:01:44.200 --> 00:01:46.859 saved the First Amendment. All the way to modern 00:01:46.859 --> 00:01:49.540 political catch and kill schemes that are literally 00:01:49.540 --> 00:01:51.500 shaping presidential elections. Yeah, that's 00:01:51.500 --> 00:01:52.980 the part that's so stunning. That's the part 00:01:52.980 --> 00:01:54.829 that blew. my mind. You just don't associate 00:01:54.829 --> 00:01:56.870 the National Enquirer with the Supreme Court 00:01:56.870 --> 00:01:59.390 or with the fundamental pillars of democracy. 00:01:59.790 --> 00:02:02.370 But the connection is there. It absolutely is. 00:02:02.430 --> 00:02:04.510 The margins of journalism, what we call the scandal 00:02:04.510 --> 00:02:06.489 sheets, that's often where the boundaries of 00:02:06.489 --> 00:02:08.650 free speech are actually tested. If you want 00:02:08.650 --> 00:02:11.569 to understand the limits of what you can say 00:02:11.569 --> 00:02:13.610 in public, you don't look at the New York Times. 00:02:13.729 --> 00:02:15.770 You look at the tabloids. They're the ones pushing 00:02:15.770 --> 00:02:18.139 the envelope. So that's our mission today. We're 00:02:18.139 --> 00:02:20.960 going to trace this entire evolution from the 00:02:20.960 --> 00:02:23.300 coffee houses of London to the supermarket checkout 00:02:23.300 --> 00:02:25.740 line. And finally, to the phone that's probably 00:02:25.740 --> 00:02:27.860 in your pocket right now. It's a heck of a journey. 00:02:27.960 --> 00:02:32.199 It is. But before we get into the blackmail and 00:02:32.199 --> 00:02:34.080 the lawsuits, we have to do a little housekeeping. 00:02:34.319 --> 00:02:36.340 We need to define our terms because the word 00:02:36.340 --> 00:02:39.360 tabloid is actually a bit of a trap. It is. It's 00:02:39.360 --> 00:02:42.669 a very misunderstood term. When you say tabloid 00:02:42.669 --> 00:02:44.370 to most people, they immediately think of the 00:02:44.370 --> 00:02:47.289 content. Yeah, the sleaze, the sensationalism. 00:02:47.310 --> 00:02:50.169 Right, paparazzi photos, alien babies, all of 00:02:50.169 --> 00:02:53.469 it. But strictly speaking, in the printing industry, 00:02:54.110 --> 00:02:57.009 tabloid refers to nothing more than a paper size. 00:02:57.270 --> 00:02:58.810 It's just a measurement. That's it. That's it. 00:02:58.909 --> 00:03:01.469 A traditional newspaper, think of the old school 00:03:01.469 --> 00:03:03.870 Wall Street Journal or the New York Times, is 00:03:03.870 --> 00:03:06.810 a broadsheet. It's huge. You have to fold it 00:03:06.810 --> 00:03:08.509 in half and then half again just to read it on 00:03:08.509 --> 00:03:10.719 the train without hitting your neighbor. I remember 00:03:10.719 --> 00:03:13.060 those days. It's like wrestling an octopus. Exactly. 00:03:13.259 --> 00:03:16.419 A tabloid is roughly half that size. It usually 00:03:16.419 --> 00:03:19.259 opens like a book. It's more compact. So wait, 00:03:19.379 --> 00:03:21.680 if the New York Times decided tomorrow that they 00:03:21.680 --> 00:03:23.979 wanted to save money on paper and just print 00:03:23.979 --> 00:03:26.770 it on smaller sheets. Technically, the New York 00:03:26.770 --> 00:03:29.250 Times would become a tabloid. Technically, yes. 00:03:29.449 --> 00:03:31.990 And in fact, this has already happened. Really? 00:03:32.169 --> 00:03:35.449 Yeah. Since around the year 2000, many very respectable 00:03:35.449 --> 00:03:38.289 highbrow newspapers, especially in the UK and 00:03:38.289 --> 00:03:41.590 Europe, switched to the tabloid size. They usually 00:03:41.590 --> 00:03:43.909 call it the compact format to avoid the stigma. 00:03:44.030 --> 00:03:46.990 Of course they do. Compact. But they did it for 00:03:46.990 --> 00:03:49.090 practicality. It's just easier for commuters 00:03:49.090 --> 00:03:52.229 to handle. So the point is, you can't judge a 00:03:52.229 --> 00:03:54.710 paper's quality solely by its dimensions anymore. 00:03:55.080 --> 00:03:57.460 Fair enough. But for the sake of our deep dive 00:03:57.460 --> 00:03:59.580 today, when we use the word tabloid, we aren't 00:03:59.580 --> 00:04:01.780 talking about paper stock. We are talking about 00:04:01.780 --> 00:04:04.900 the style. Yes. We're talking about tabloid journalism 00:04:04.900 --> 00:04:07.780 as a genre. The red tops, the rags, the scandal 00:04:07.780 --> 00:04:10.979 sheets. This is a specific editorial philosophy 00:04:10.979 --> 00:04:14.780 that prioritizes sensation over nuance, emotion 00:04:14.780 --> 00:04:18.360 over dry facts, and usually the private lives 00:04:18.360 --> 00:04:21.689 of the famous suliner over public policy. It's 00:04:21.689 --> 00:04:24.209 the stuff that makes you gasp. It is the stuff 00:04:24.209 --> 00:04:27.949 that taps into our basest instincts. And while 00:04:27.949 --> 00:04:30.750 we associate this with modern supermarkets, the 00:04:30.750 --> 00:04:33.990 DNA of this industry is actually ancient. To 00:04:33.990 --> 00:04:35.850 really understand it, we have to go back to a 00:04:35.850 --> 00:04:38.569 time before supermarkets, before the United States 00:04:38.569 --> 00:04:40.689 even existed as a country. Where are we going? 00:04:40.870 --> 00:04:43.410 We're going back to London in the 1770s. This 00:04:43.410 --> 00:04:45.069 was my favorite part of the research. I always 00:04:45.069 --> 00:04:47.430 pictured the 1700s as very polite, you know, 00:04:47.449 --> 00:04:49.189 people in powdered wigs bowing to each other. 00:04:49.269 --> 00:04:51.189 But the media landscape was vicious. It was the 00:04:51.189 --> 00:04:54.129 Wild West. Yeah. Absolutely. Literacy was rising, 00:04:54.269 --> 00:04:55.870 coffee houses were booming, and there was this 00:04:55.870 --> 00:04:58.709 insatiable hunger for news. But people didn't 00:04:58.709 --> 00:05:00.850 just want to know about the king or the wars. 00:05:00.949 --> 00:05:03.480 They wanted the dirt. They wanted the dirt. They 00:05:03.480 --> 00:05:05.620 wanted to know who was sleeping with whom, who 00:05:05.620 --> 00:05:07.620 was gambling away their fortune, who had a secret 00:05:07.620 --> 00:05:11.620 child. They wanted society gossip. And stepping 00:05:11.620 --> 00:05:15.139 into this void is a character who I feel needs 00:05:15.139 --> 00:05:18.720 his own Netflix series, Reverend Henry Bate Dudley. 00:05:18.860 --> 00:05:21.360 The fighting parson. What a name. He's an ordained 00:05:21.360 --> 00:05:24.160 priest, but he's also a brawler, a man about 00:05:24.160 --> 00:05:26.740 town, and the editor of the Morning Post, which 00:05:26.740 --> 00:05:29.199 was one of the earliest what we'd call scandal 00:05:29.199 --> 00:05:32.170 sheets. He was a fascinating contradiction. And 00:05:32.170 --> 00:05:34.449 he understood the economics of reputation better 00:05:34.449 --> 00:05:37.269 than anyone. He realized that a newspaper could 00:05:37.269 --> 00:05:39.709 make money in two ways. OK. The first way is 00:05:39.709 --> 00:05:42.310 obvious. You print a scandalous story about a 00:05:42.310 --> 00:05:44.370 duchess. People buy the paper to read about it. 00:05:44.430 --> 00:05:46.949 You make a penny. Simple supply and demand. Pretty 00:05:46.949 --> 00:05:48.790 straightforward. But the second revenue stream 00:05:48.790 --> 00:05:51.629 was far more lucrative and far more sinister. 00:05:51.870 --> 00:05:54.990 It was the suppression fee. This is such a polite 00:05:54.990 --> 00:05:58.410 term for what is essentially extortion. It is 00:05:58.410 --> 00:06:01.610 absolutely extortion. Dudley and his contemporaries 00:06:01.610 --> 00:06:04.750 would draft a story, let's say a rumor, that 00:06:04.750 --> 00:06:06.430 a prominent lord was having an affair with an 00:06:06.430 --> 00:06:08.889 actress. They would set the type. It's ready 00:06:08.889 --> 00:06:11.250 to go. But before they printed the paper, they 00:06:11.250 --> 00:06:13.430 would send a message to the lord. A little note 00:06:13.430 --> 00:06:16.529 arrives. We have this story. It would be a real 00:06:16.529 --> 00:06:18.629 shame if everyone in London read it tomorrow 00:06:18.629 --> 00:06:22.389 over their morning tea. But for a fee, a suppression 00:06:22.389 --> 00:06:24.829 fee, we can make sure this little story just... 00:06:25.879 --> 00:06:27.959 And you have to understand the context of the 00:06:27.959 --> 00:06:32.019 1770s. There was no PR crisis management. There 00:06:32.019 --> 00:06:35.339 was no Instagram to post an apology video. If 00:06:35.339 --> 00:06:37.560 your reputation was ruined in the morning post, 00:06:37.720 --> 00:06:40.180 you were done, socially finished. You could be 00:06:40.180 --> 00:06:42.740 ostracized from society completely. So people 00:06:42.740 --> 00:06:45.379 paid. They had to. They paid fortunes. It became 00:06:45.379 --> 00:06:47.759 a standard line item in the budget of the aristocracy. 00:06:48.019 --> 00:06:49.759 You paid your servants, you paid for your horses, 00:06:49.860 --> 00:06:51.839 and you paid your suppression fees to the scandal 00:06:51.839 --> 00:06:53.860 sheets. Dudley essentially turned silence into 00:06:53.860 --> 00:06:56.269 a commodity. It's the monetization of secrets. 00:06:56.569 --> 00:06:59.110 And what strikes me is how formalized it was. 00:06:59.269 --> 00:07:01.110 I mean, this wasn't just some back alley deal. 00:07:01.389 --> 00:07:03.949 It was part of the actual business model. It 00:07:03.949 --> 00:07:06.209 was an open secret. Sometimes they would even 00:07:06.209 --> 00:07:08.449 print what was called a blind item. Oh, I've 00:07:08.449 --> 00:07:10.389 heard of those. They still do that today. They 00:07:10.389 --> 00:07:12.810 do. They print all the juicy details of the scandal, 00:07:12.990 --> 00:07:16.250 but leave the name blank or use a very, very 00:07:16.250 --> 00:07:19.350 obvious pseudonym. This was a signal to the target. 00:07:19.490 --> 00:07:23.339 A warning shot. Exactly. It says, we know. Everyone 00:07:23.339 --> 00:07:26.819 who matters knows who this is about. Pay up or 00:07:26.819 --> 00:07:29.660 next week we print the real name. That is psychologically 00:07:29.660 --> 00:07:32.860 diabolical. It is. And this model, this idea 00:07:32.860 --> 00:07:34.620 that you can profit from the threat of publishing 00:07:34.620 --> 00:07:37.379 just as much as from the publishing itself is 00:07:37.379 --> 00:07:40.569 the foundational DNA of tabloid journalism. It's 00:07:40.569 --> 00:07:43.149 the core concept. And it travels across the Atlantic 00:07:43.149 --> 00:07:45.170 and lands in the United States, where it finds 00:07:45.170 --> 00:07:47.350 a very fertile ground in the Gilded Age. Right. 00:07:47.410 --> 00:07:49.670 So this brings us to the mid to late 1800s in 00:07:49.670 --> 00:07:52.069 America. And in our research, we have the National 00:07:52.069 --> 00:07:54.509 Police Gazette, which the notes mentioned was 00:07:54.509 --> 00:07:57.269 huge in barbershops. The Gazette was interesting 00:07:57.269 --> 00:08:01.089 because it mixed crime and sex. It had stories 00:08:01.089 --> 00:08:04.829 about, you know, famous murders, but also drawings 00:08:04.829 --> 00:08:07.589 of burlesque dancers. It was kind of the men's 00:08:07.589 --> 00:08:10.199 magazine of its day. A little something for everyone. 00:08:10.439 --> 00:08:12.939 But for the direct lineage of that blackmail 00:08:12.939 --> 00:08:14.899 model we were just talking about, we have to 00:08:14.899 --> 00:08:17.339 look at a publication called Town Topics. Run 00:08:17.339 --> 00:08:20.519 by a man named William Dalton Mann. And if Dudley 00:08:20.519 --> 00:08:23.579 was a brawling priest, Mann was the ultimate 00:08:23.579 --> 00:08:26.680 hypocrite. Colonel Mann. He insisted on the title. 00:08:27.079 --> 00:08:29.360 He was a Civil War veteran, a wealthy entrepreneur, 00:08:29.519 --> 00:08:32.220 and a man who claimed to be on a moral crusade. 00:08:32.259 --> 00:08:34.419 A crusade against who? He looked at the 400, 00:08:34.620 --> 00:08:37.720 the absolute elite of New York society, the Astors, 00:08:37.759 --> 00:08:41.159 the Vanderbilts, and he publicly declared that 00:08:41.159 --> 00:08:43.500 they were rotting from the inside. He said they 00:08:43.500 --> 00:08:45.200 were decadent and corrupt. He said he wanted 00:08:45.200 --> 00:08:47.080 to reform them, right? That was his stated mission. 00:08:47.179 --> 00:08:49.399 That was his public mission. He wrote that his 00:08:49.399 --> 00:08:51.980 goal was to make them too deeply disgusted with 00:08:51.980 --> 00:08:54.679 themselves to continue their silly, empty way 00:08:54.679 --> 00:08:58.220 of life. He positioned town topics as a mirror 00:08:58.220 --> 00:09:00.779 to show the rich how ugly their behavior was. 00:09:00.980 --> 00:09:04.500 So the defense was, I'm only printing this gossip 00:09:04.500 --> 00:09:07.039 about your mistress to save your soul. Exactly. 00:09:07.100 --> 00:09:10.320 This hurts me more than it hurts you. But behind 00:09:10.320 --> 00:09:12.840 the scenes, Mann had perfected Dudley's system. 00:09:13.000 --> 00:09:15.720 He had a vast network of spies. Who were the 00:09:15.720 --> 00:09:18.919 spies? Butlers, maids, carriage drivers, the 00:09:18.919 --> 00:09:21.179 invisible staff who saw and heard everything. 00:09:21.360 --> 00:09:23.860 They fed him the dirt, and he fed the wealthy 00:09:23.860 --> 00:09:27.460 a choice. Pay for a subscription, maybe pay for 00:09:27.460 --> 00:09:30.360 some advertising in his paper, or simply make 00:09:30.360 --> 00:09:32.840 a loan to Colonel Mann. Or you read about your 00:09:32.840 --> 00:09:34.799 sins on Friday when the paper comes out. And 00:09:34.799 --> 00:09:37.139 these loans were never repaid, I assume. Almost 00:09:37.139 --> 00:09:39.320 never. It was a protection racket, plain and 00:09:39.320 --> 00:09:43.009 simple, just wrapped in this moral lecture. And 00:09:43.009 --> 00:09:44.990 it worked for decades because the wealthy had 00:09:44.990 --> 00:09:47.009 everything to lose. But as we move into the 20th 00:09:47.009 --> 00:09:48.870 century, the dynamic starts to shift a little 00:09:48.870 --> 00:09:50.970 bit. We leave the ballrooms of New York and head 00:09:50.970 --> 00:09:53.549 to the Midwest. And this is where the story stops 00:09:53.549 --> 00:09:55.610 being about money and starts being about the 00:09:55.610 --> 00:09:58.570 law. A huge shift. We are going to Duluth, Minnesota, 00:09:58.870 --> 00:10:02.269 the 1920s. A very different setting. Duluth in 00:10:02.269 --> 00:10:06.289 the 20s was a rough, booming port city. Iron 00:10:06.289 --> 00:10:09.950 ore, shipping, timber. It was gritty. It was 00:10:09.950 --> 00:10:12.769 tough. It was also, according to some observers, 00:10:12.970 --> 00:10:16.149 a den of vice. So prohibition was in effect, 00:10:16.250 --> 00:10:18.509 but that didn't matter. Not at all. Speakeasies 00:10:18.509 --> 00:10:22.169 were everywhere. Gambling, prostitution. It was 00:10:22.169 --> 00:10:24.529 a wide open town. And looking down on all this 00:10:24.529 --> 00:10:27.570 supposed sin is a man named John L. Morrison. 00:10:27.809 --> 00:10:30.549 The editor of a paper called The Ripsaw. I love 00:10:30.549 --> 00:10:33.129 that name, The Ripsaw. It sounds like a horror 00:10:33.129 --> 00:10:35.470 movie or maybe a wrestling move. It's aggressive. 00:10:35.570 --> 00:10:37.750 It implies violence. It implies cutting through 00:10:37.750 --> 00:10:40.529 the veneer of respectability to expose the rot 00:10:40.529 --> 00:10:42.690 underneath. And Morrison was different from Mann. 00:10:42.889 --> 00:10:44.870 Very different. Morrison was a fundamentalist. 00:10:44.950 --> 00:10:46.610 He wasn't looking for hush money like Colonel 00:10:46.610 --> 00:10:49.250 Mann. He was looking for purification. He truly 00:10:49.250 --> 00:10:51.409 believed he was doing God's work by exposing 00:10:51.409 --> 00:10:53.809 the corruption of Duluth. So he starts printing 00:10:53.809 --> 00:10:57.210 names, real names of powerful people. He goes 00:10:57.210 --> 00:11:00.129 nuclear. He accuses the police chief of turning 00:11:00.129 --> 00:11:03.330 a blind eye to gambling dens. He claims public 00:11:03.330 --> 00:11:05.889 officials are hanging out in brothels. He writes 00:11:05.889 --> 00:11:08.649 about drunkenness and debauchery among the city 00:11:08.649 --> 00:11:11.690 leaders. And he wasn't using polite euphemisms. 00:11:11.690 --> 00:11:15.710 He was direct. And this wasn't just society gossip. 00:11:15.809 --> 00:11:18.710 This was impacting careers and reputations in 00:11:18.710 --> 00:11:22.450 a very serious way. It was destroying them. Morrison 00:11:22.450 --> 00:11:24.789 was actually convicted of criminal libel at one 00:11:24.789 --> 00:11:27.169 point. But he kept publishing. He didn't care. 00:11:27.610 --> 00:11:29.570 He felt he was on a divine mission. But then 00:11:29.570 --> 00:11:32.250 he made a tactical error. He went after a state 00:11:32.250 --> 00:11:34.889 senator named Mike Boylan. And this is where 00:11:34.889 --> 00:11:36.889 the story takes a turn that affects every single 00:11:36.889 --> 00:11:39.070 person listening to this right now, whether they 00:11:39.070 --> 00:11:40.909 know it or not. It really does. It's incredible. 00:11:41.210 --> 00:11:43.830 So Morrison published a story claiming that Senator 00:11:43.830 --> 00:11:46.429 Boylan had threatened to kill him. It was a sensational 00:11:46.429 --> 00:11:49.529 headline. Boylan was furious. But he knew that 00:11:49.529 --> 00:11:52.889 suing for libel was slow, expensive, and often 00:11:52.889 --> 00:11:55.230 difficult to win. Right, because you had to prove 00:11:55.230 --> 00:11:58.029 the story was false, and a trial would just drag 00:11:58.029 --> 00:12:00.450 all the rumors out into the public eye even more. 00:12:00.769 --> 00:12:03.409 Exactly. It could backfire. So he decided to 00:12:03.409 --> 00:12:05.809 change the rules of the game entirely. He used 00:12:05.809 --> 00:12:08.009 his political power. He went to the Minnesota 00:12:08.009 --> 00:12:11.210 legislature, and he helped pass the Public Nuisance 00:12:11.210 --> 00:12:15.289 Bill of 1925. History remembers it as the Minnesota 00:12:15.289 --> 00:12:18.610 gag law. Okay, gag law sounds bad, but what did 00:12:18.610 --> 00:12:21.070 it actually allow the government to do? It was 00:12:21.070 --> 00:12:24.240 a weapon of mass silence. The law stated that 00:12:24.240 --> 00:12:26.620 any newspaper or magazine that was engaged in 00:12:26.620 --> 00:12:29.320 the business of publishing malicious, scandalous 00:12:29.320 --> 00:12:32.240 and defamatory material could be declared a public 00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:34.960 nuisance. Like a noisy factory or a chemical 00:12:34.960 --> 00:12:37.539 spill? Precisely. And what's the remedy for a 00:12:37.539 --> 00:12:39.580 public nuisance? You shut it down. You shut it 00:12:39.580 --> 00:12:43.320 down. The law allowed a single judge, no jury. 00:12:43.720 --> 00:12:46.379 just a judge, to issue a permanent injunction. 00:12:46.539 --> 00:12:48.559 They could padlock the doors of the printing 00:12:48.559 --> 00:12:50.519 press. They could legally forbid the publisher 00:12:50.519 --> 00:12:52.799 from ever producing a newspaper again. That is 00:12:52.799 --> 00:12:54.980 huge. I mean, that's not just punishing you for 00:12:54.980 --> 00:12:57.460 a specific story. That is taking away your voice 00:12:57.460 --> 00:13:00.419 forever. It's a concept in law called prior restraint, 00:13:00.639 --> 00:13:02.679 and it's the most dangerous form of censorship. 00:13:03.039 --> 00:13:06.600 Why is it so much more dangerous? Because punishing 00:13:06.600 --> 00:13:10.080 someone after they lie is one thing. That's libel 00:13:10.080 --> 00:13:12.929 law. but stopping them from speaking before they 00:13:12.929 --> 00:13:16.009 even opened their mouth. That's tyranny. And 00:13:16.009 --> 00:13:18.850 they used this law. They did. Not only if Saul 00:13:18.850 --> 00:13:20.490 Morrison actually died before they could get 00:13:20.490 --> 00:13:22.730 him, but on another scandal sheet called the 00:13:22.730 --> 00:13:25.029 Saturday Press in Minneapolis. And that case 00:13:25.029 --> 00:13:27.490 went all the way to the top. It did. The publisher 00:13:27.490 --> 00:13:29.789 of the Saturday Press, a man named Jay Neer, 00:13:29.950 --> 00:13:32.919 appealed. Now... We have to be clear. He was 00:13:32.919 --> 00:13:36.200 an unsavory character. His paper was anti -Semitic. 00:13:36.220 --> 00:13:38.899 It was racist. It was deeply sensationalist. 00:13:39.019 --> 00:13:42.100 He was not a hero in the traditional sense. Not 00:13:42.100 --> 00:13:44.929 a champion of the people. Not at all. But his 00:13:44.929 --> 00:13:47.190 lawyer argued that if the government could shut 00:13:47.190 --> 00:13:49.409 down a scandal sheet just because they didn't 00:13:49.409 --> 00:13:51.610 like the tone or because the articles were offensive, 00:13:51.830 --> 00:13:54.090 then no newspaper was safe. The logic being, 00:13:54.149 --> 00:13:56.250 if they can silence the Saturday Press today, 00:13:56.350 --> 00:13:58.009 they can silence the New York Times tomorrow. 00:13:58.330 --> 00:14:00.750 That was the entire argument. The case, near 00:14:00.750 --> 00:14:03.029 v. Minnesota, reached the U .S. Supreme Court 00:14:03.029 --> 00:14:06.769 in 1931. And in a very, very close 5 -4 decision, 00:14:07.090 --> 00:14:09.429 the court ruled in favor of the scandal sheet. 00:14:09.629 --> 00:14:12.610 They struck down the Minnesota gag law as unconstitutional. 00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:18.179 Wow. So we owe our modern press freedom. I mean, 00:14:18.200 --> 00:14:20.059 the ability of The Washington Post to investigate 00:14:20.059 --> 00:14:22.120 the president or The Times to publish the Pentagon 00:14:22.120 --> 00:14:27.000 Papers. We owe that to a racist, trashy tabloid 00:14:27.000 --> 00:14:29.940 in Minnesota. In a very real way, we do. The 00:14:29.940 --> 00:14:31.659 Supreme Court established a precedent that the 00:14:31.659 --> 00:14:34.659 government generally cannot engage in prior restraint. 00:14:35.000 --> 00:14:37.940 They can sue you for libel later, but they cannot 00:14:37.940 --> 00:14:41.059 stop the presses beforehand. It's the great paradox 00:14:41.059 --> 00:14:43.399 of the First Amendment. What's the paradox? To 00:14:43.399 --> 00:14:45.320 protect the high -minded, serious journalism, 00:14:45.580 --> 00:14:47.720 you have to tolerate the ripsaws and the Saturday 00:14:47.720 --> 00:14:50.120 presses. You have to protect the speech you hate 00:14:50.120 --> 00:14:52.240 to ensure that the speech you value is safe. 00:14:52.399 --> 00:14:54.620 You protect the margins to ensure the center 00:14:54.620 --> 00:14:57.460 holds. That is a heavy legacy for a format that 00:14:57.460 --> 00:14:59.559 we mostly associate with batboys and celebrity 00:14:59.559 --> 00:15:02.379 diets these days. It is. But speaking of diets 00:15:02.379 --> 00:15:04.279 and celebrities, we have to move to the next 00:15:04.279 --> 00:15:07.080 major evolution. We've covered the legal landscape. 00:15:07.690 --> 00:15:09.649 But the business landscape changed radically 00:15:09.649 --> 00:15:12.289 in the 1960s. This is the birth of the supermarket 00:15:12.289 --> 00:15:14.470 tabloid, as we know it. Right. This is the era 00:15:14.470 --> 00:15:16.250 of the National Enquirer. And this is where the 00:15:16.250 --> 00:15:18.429 physical location of the news really changes. 00:15:18.690 --> 00:15:22.269 It changes everything. Up until the 1950s, if 00:15:22.269 --> 00:15:24.990 you wanted a paper, you went to a newsstand or 00:15:24.990 --> 00:15:27.809 a kiosk. You made a deliberate choice to buy 00:15:27.809 --> 00:15:31.230 news. But post -war America was a different place. 00:15:31.529 --> 00:15:34.309 The suburbs exploded. The car culture. The daily 00:15:34.309 --> 00:15:36.629 commute changed. And the center of community 00:15:36.629 --> 00:15:39.740 life. for many people, became the supermarket. 00:15:40.059 --> 00:15:42.919 And one man saw a massive opportunity there, 00:15:43.059 --> 00:15:46.240 a guy named Generoso Pope Jr. He bought the National 00:15:46.240 --> 00:15:48.559 Enquirer when it was struggling, and he looked 00:15:48.559 --> 00:15:50.659 at the supermarket checkout line, and he saw 00:15:50.659 --> 00:15:53.039 a gold mine. It was a captive audience. People 00:15:53.039 --> 00:15:55.779 standing there for three to five minutes. bored, 00:15:56.019 --> 00:15:58.539 waiting to pay. It was a perfect place to sell 00:15:58.539 --> 00:16:00.960 something. But there was a problem. Supermarkets 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:03.019 aren't, you know, they're family places. They're 00:16:03.019 --> 00:16:04.639 conservative. They didn't want the old school 00:16:04.639 --> 00:16:07.100 scandal sheets, which were pretty gruesome. Oh, 00:16:07.139 --> 00:16:09.480 the early Inquirer was bloody. It was full of 00:16:09.480 --> 00:16:12.440 car wrecks, severed heads, stories about torture. 00:16:12.659 --> 00:16:15.600 It was pure. If it bleeds, it leads. Yeah, that's 00:16:15.600 --> 00:16:17.419 not going to sit well next to the lifesavers. 00:16:17.620 --> 00:16:20.220 Pope knew that. He knew the managers at Safeway 00:16:20.220 --> 00:16:22.100 and A &P would never let that sit next to the 00:16:22.100 --> 00:16:24.840 candy bars. So he pivoted. He cleaned it up. 00:16:25.070 --> 00:16:28.190 He swapped the gore for gossip. He traded the 00:16:28.190 --> 00:16:31.350 car crashes for medical miracles, UFOs, and celebrity 00:16:31.350 --> 00:16:35.429 secrets. He made it safe. Sensationalism. But 00:16:35.429 --> 00:16:37.929 his real genius wasn't the content. It was the 00:16:37.929 --> 00:16:41.070 distribution model. He invented the buyback. 00:16:41.710 --> 00:16:43.950 OK, explain that, because on the surface, it 00:16:43.950 --> 00:16:46.110 sounds like a bad deal for the publisher. It 00:16:46.110 --> 00:16:48.309 sounds incredibly risky, but it was brilliant. 00:16:48.750 --> 00:16:51.669 Supermarkets operate on very thin margins. Every 00:16:51.669 --> 00:16:53.750 single inch of shelf space has to make money. 00:16:53.870 --> 00:16:56.429 They hate dead stock. Right. Unsold product. 00:16:56.730 --> 00:16:59.230 Exactly. If they buy a stack of magazines and 00:16:59.230 --> 00:17:02.009 nobody buys them, the store loses money. So they're 00:17:02.009 --> 00:17:04.630 hesitant to take on new products. Pope went to 00:17:04.630 --> 00:17:06.930 the grocers and said, look, I will pay for the 00:17:06.930 --> 00:17:09.259 rack space. You put my papers by the register, 00:17:09.440 --> 00:17:11.200 and if the papers don't sell by the end of the 00:17:11.200 --> 00:17:13.440 week, I will buy them back from you at full price. 00:17:13.660 --> 00:17:16.559 You, the grocer, have zero risk. That removes 00:17:16.559 --> 00:17:19.019 the barrier to entry completely. It's a no -brainer 00:17:19.019 --> 00:17:22.619 for the store. It made the tabloid a pure profit 00:17:22.619 --> 00:17:25.140 center for the store. Why wouldn't you stock 00:17:25.140 --> 00:17:29.799 it? And that is why, almost overnight, the Inquirer, 00:17:29.859 --> 00:17:32.740 the Globe, the Star, they were everywhere. They 00:17:32.740 --> 00:17:34.460 weren't distributed like newspapers anymore. 00:17:34.559 --> 00:17:36.279 They were distributed like chewing gum. They 00:17:36.279 --> 00:17:39.069 became impulse buys. That's the key. And being 00:17:39.069 --> 00:17:42.069 an impulse buy changes how you write the headlines, 00:17:42.250 --> 00:17:44.390 doesn't it? It has to, completely. You're not 00:17:44.390 --> 00:17:46.829 writing for a loyal subscriber who trusts you. 00:17:46.910 --> 00:17:49.529 You're writing to grab someone's eye in the three 00:17:49.529 --> 00:17:51.809 seconds before they put their milk on the conveyor 00:17:51.809 --> 00:17:54.049 belt. So the headlines have to be shorter, punchier, 00:17:54.150 --> 00:17:56.849 more emotional. And the covers became glossy 00:17:56.849 --> 00:17:58.670 and colorful. This is where the modern visual 00:17:58.670 --> 00:18:00.869 identity of the supermarket tabloid was born. 00:18:01.009 --> 00:18:03.430 It was all about that point of sale impact. And 00:18:03.430 --> 00:18:05.529 for a long time, this machine just printed money. 00:18:06.000 --> 00:18:08.980 And the celebrities they covered, they just took 00:18:08.980 --> 00:18:11.099 it. There was this idea that you shouldn't fight 00:18:11.099 --> 00:18:14.200 back, right? The conventional wisdom was don't 00:18:14.200 --> 00:18:17.559 wrestle with a pig. You both get dirty and the 00:18:17.559 --> 00:18:20.440 pig likes it. I've heard that one. Celebrities 00:18:20.440 --> 00:18:22.559 felt that suing just drew more attention to the 00:18:22.559 --> 00:18:25.220 lie. It would be a headline for weeks. So the 00:18:25.220 --> 00:18:28.079 tabloids operated with a sense of impunity. They 00:18:28.079 --> 00:18:30.059 felt they could print almost anything. Until 00:18:30.059 --> 00:18:34.119 Carol Burnett. 1976. This is the turning point. 00:18:34.220 --> 00:18:37.130 The big one. Carol Burnett was America's sweetheart. 00:18:37.390 --> 00:18:40.450 She was funny. She was kind. She was universally 00:18:40.450 --> 00:18:43.849 beloved. An icon. And the National Enquirer ran 00:18:43.849 --> 00:18:46.829 a small item, just a few sentences in a gossip 00:18:46.829 --> 00:18:49.349 column, claiming she'd been drunk and boisterous 00:18:49.349 --> 00:18:51.529 in a restaurant in Washington, D .C., and had 00:18:51.529 --> 00:18:54.269 a loud argument with Henry Kissinger. Which, 00:18:54.309 --> 00:18:56.349 knowing her comedy, sounds like a sketch she 00:18:56.349 --> 00:18:59.349 might do. But as a news report, that's incredibly 00:18:59.349 --> 00:19:01.829 damaging. It was devastating to her. And not 00:19:01.829 --> 00:19:03.990 just professionally. Her parents had both suffered 00:19:03.990 --> 00:19:06.170 from severe alcoholism. It was the great tragedy 00:19:06.170 --> 00:19:07.970 of her childhood. So being accused of public 00:19:07.970 --> 00:19:10.170 drunkenness wasn't just an embarrassing lie for 00:19:10.170 --> 00:19:13.289 a celebrity. It was a deep, deep personal insult. 00:19:13.609 --> 00:19:16.230 It attacked the core of her character. So she 00:19:16.230 --> 00:19:19.049 broke the rule. She decided to wrestle the pig. 00:19:19.250 --> 00:19:22.690 She sued. And the Inquirer was arrogant. They 00:19:22.690 --> 00:19:25.109 were cocky. They relied on a legal standard called 00:19:25.109 --> 00:19:28.069 actual malice. OK, quick refresher on actual 00:19:28.069 --> 00:19:30.769 malice. That's the Supreme Court rule from New 00:19:30.769 --> 00:19:33.069 York Times v. Sullivan that makes it really hard 00:19:33.069 --> 00:19:35.589 for famous people to win libel suits, right? 00:19:35.849 --> 00:19:39.450 Correct. If you were a public figure, you can't 00:19:39.450 --> 00:19:42.210 just prove the story was wrong. That's not enough. 00:19:42.410 --> 00:19:44.710 You have to prove the newspaper knew it was wrong 00:19:44.710 --> 00:19:47.529 and printed it anyway, or that they acted with 00:19:47.529 --> 00:19:50.710 reckless disregard for the truth. It is a very, 00:19:50.769 --> 00:19:53.730 very high bar to clear. And the Inquirer assumes 00:19:53.730 --> 00:19:55.799 she can never prove that. They thought it was 00:19:55.799 --> 00:19:58.960 impossible. But she did. Her lawyers took them 00:19:58.960 --> 00:20:01.279 apart on a witness stand. They showed that the 00:20:01.279 --> 00:20:03.599 writer had based the entire story on hearsay 00:20:03.599 --> 00:20:06.140 from a tipster, had never bothered to verify 00:20:06.140 --> 00:20:08.799 it, and had essentially fabricated the details, 00:20:08.839 --> 00:20:10.599 like the argument with Kissinger, to make it 00:20:10.599 --> 00:20:12.980 juicier. So it was Rex's disregard. The jury 00:20:12.980 --> 00:20:15.440 found that it was. They were furious at the inquirer. 00:20:15.519 --> 00:20:17.460 They awarded Burnett a significant settlement. 00:20:17.619 --> 00:20:19.779 And that must have sent a chill through the entire 00:20:19.779 --> 00:20:22.619 checkout aisle industry. It ended the era of 00:20:22.619 --> 00:20:25.220 total impunity. It didn't stop the tabloids, 00:20:25.220 --> 00:20:28.140 obviously. They're still here. But it professionalized 00:20:28.140 --> 00:20:31.000 them in a weird way. After Burnett, the Inquirer, 00:20:31.099 --> 00:20:32.839 and others beefed up their legal departments, 00:20:33.180 --> 00:20:36.859 they learned how to write in code. Code? What 00:20:36.859 --> 00:20:38.720 do you mean by code? Well, they learned how to 00:20:38.720 --> 00:20:41.599 use qualifying language. Sources say. Insiders 00:20:41.599 --> 00:20:44.230 speculate. Friends are worried that... All these 00:20:44.230 --> 00:20:46.789 phrases give them plausible deniability. They 00:20:46.789 --> 00:20:49.250 learned how to walk right up to the line of defamation 00:20:49.250 --> 00:20:51.670 without actually crossing it. They became much 00:20:51.670 --> 00:20:53.849 more sophisticated about the legal side of lying. 00:20:54.049 --> 00:20:56.940 So they got smarter. They got more careful. But 00:20:56.940 --> 00:20:59.519 recently, we've seen a shift that is, I think, 00:20:59.519 --> 00:21:01.500 even more disturbing. It's not about printing 00:21:01.500 --> 00:21:03.980 lies anymore. It's about not printing anything 00:21:03.980 --> 00:21:06.660 at all. The era of catch and kill. This sounds 00:21:06.660 --> 00:21:08.500 like something from a spy movie, but it is a 00:21:08.500 --> 00:21:10.660 real business practice. And it brings us right 00:21:10.660 --> 00:21:12.599 back to the very beginning, to the suppression 00:21:12.599 --> 00:21:16.160 fees of the 1700s. But now it's on a massive 00:21:16.160 --> 00:21:18.759 corporate scale. It is the industrialization 00:21:18.759 --> 00:21:22.190 of blackmail. That's what it is. Catch and kill 00:21:22.190 --> 00:21:25.930 is a tactic where a tabloid publisher buys the 00:21:25.930 --> 00:21:28.650 exclusive rights to a damaging story about a 00:21:28.650 --> 00:21:31.369 celebrity or a politician, but with no intention 00:21:31.369 --> 00:21:33.609 of ever publishing it. Let's break down the mechanics 00:21:33.609 --> 00:21:36.569 of that because it's devilishly clever. OK, here's 00:21:36.569 --> 00:21:38.849 the scenario. A person comes to American Media 00:21:38.849 --> 00:21:42.109 Inc. or AMI, which for decades owned the Inquirer, 00:21:42.230 --> 00:21:46.309 and says, I have proof, photos, texts, whatever, 00:21:46.470 --> 00:21:49.190 that a famous politician is having an affair. 00:21:49.410 --> 00:21:51.880 Right. A huge scoop. That's the catch. Yeah. 00:21:52.339 --> 00:21:54.500 AMI says, we want this scoop. It's incredible. 00:21:54.680 --> 00:21:57.720 Here's a contract. We will pay you, say, $150 00:21:57.720 --> 00:22:00.059 ,000 for the exclusive rights to your story. 00:22:00.559 --> 00:22:03.019 And part of this contract says you are now legally 00:22:03.019 --> 00:22:05.279 forbidden from telling anyone else. So the source 00:22:05.279 --> 00:22:06.880 takes the money, thinking their story is about 00:22:06.880 --> 00:22:09.160 to be on the cover. Exactly. But then comes the 00:22:09.160 --> 00:22:11.740 kill. AMI takes the contract and all the evidence. 00:22:11.779 --> 00:22:14.119 They put it in assays. And they never, ever run 00:22:14.119 --> 00:22:16.660 the story. They bury it. Why on earth would you 00:22:16.660 --> 00:22:19.759 spend $150 ,000 for content you don't use? That's 00:22:19.759 --> 00:22:21.779 the part that seems crazy from a business perspective. 00:22:22.079 --> 00:22:24.539 To protect the subject of the story, usually 00:22:24.539 --> 00:22:26.900 the politician or celebrity is a friend of the 00:22:26.900 --> 00:22:29.339 publisher or someone the publisher wants to gain 00:22:29.339 --> 00:22:32.960 favor with. By killing the story, the publisher 00:22:32.960 --> 00:22:35.900 gains massive leverage over that powerful person. 00:22:36.519 --> 00:22:39.420 It stops being journalism completely. It becomes 00:22:39.420 --> 00:22:42.259 a political contribution or a favor. Precisely. 00:22:42.460 --> 00:22:44.440 And the examples in our notes are incredibly 00:22:44.440 --> 00:22:47.660 high profile. It has been reported that AMI used 00:22:47.660 --> 00:22:50.740 this tactic for years to protect Arnold Schwarzenegger 00:22:50.740 --> 00:22:52.880 during his run for governor of California. I 00:22:52.880 --> 00:22:54.720 remember hearing about that. They allegedly protected 00:22:54.720 --> 00:22:57.259 Harvey Weinstein for years, buying and burying 00:22:57.259 --> 00:22:59.380 stories about his behavior. And of course, the 00:22:59.380 --> 00:23:01.920 most famous case involves Donald Trump and the 00:23:01.920 --> 00:23:05.000 2016 election. The Kara McDougal case. Yes. The 00:23:05.000 --> 00:23:08.420 former Playboy model who alleged an affair. AMI 00:23:08.420 --> 00:23:10.859 paid her for her story specifically to silence 00:23:10.859 --> 00:23:12.500 her during the final months of the campaign. 00:23:13.059 --> 00:23:15.640 This moves the tabloid from being a chaotic, 00:23:15.759 --> 00:23:19.279 neutral observer of trash culture to being an 00:23:19.279 --> 00:23:21.619 active participant in political manipulation. 00:23:22.000 --> 00:23:23.839 It's basically Reverend Dudley's suppression 00:23:23.839 --> 00:23:26.500 fee. But instead of protecting a duke's reputation 00:23:26.500 --> 00:23:29.059 for a few pounds, they're protecting a presidential 00:23:29.059 --> 00:23:31.920 candidate for political influence. The stale 00:23:31.920 --> 00:23:34.440 is different, but the mechanism is identical. 00:23:35.039 --> 00:23:37.619 It proves that information is a weapon. You can 00:23:37.619 --> 00:23:39.980 use it to inform the public, or you can use it 00:23:39.980 --> 00:23:42.599 to control the powerful. Tabloids have always 00:23:42.599 --> 00:23:44.900 understood that the second option is often more 00:23:44.900 --> 00:23:47.180 profitable. Now, we've been very U .S.-centric 00:23:47.180 --> 00:23:48.839 for the last few minutes, but we have to mention 00:23:48.839 --> 00:23:51.259 the British tabloids. Because if you think the 00:23:51.259 --> 00:23:53.680 National Enquirer is aggressive, the British 00:23:53.680 --> 00:23:56.240 Red Tops are. They're a different species entirely. 00:23:56.819 --> 00:24:00.309 Oh, the U .K. tabloid culture is ferocious. It's 00:24:00.309 --> 00:24:02.170 on another level. We're talking about papers 00:24:02.170 --> 00:24:04.609 like The Sun, The Daily Mirror, The Daily Star. 00:24:04.930 --> 00:24:08.029 They are called red tops because they're distinctive 00:24:08.029 --> 00:24:10.630 red mastheads. And in the UK, these aren't just 00:24:10.630 --> 00:24:13.069 supermarket curiosities, right? They're major 00:24:13.069 --> 00:24:15.609 players. They are dominant national newspapers. 00:24:15.849 --> 00:24:18.440 They drive the national conversation. And they 00:24:18.440 --> 00:24:21.579 cover actual news. Really? Like hard news? It's 00:24:21.579 --> 00:24:24.059 a chaotic mix. You will see a giant headline 00:24:24.059 --> 00:24:27.700 about a massive economic crisis or war. And then 00:24:27.700 --> 00:24:30.980 right next to it, a story about a footballer's 00:24:30.980 --> 00:24:34.980 affair or some reality TV star's beach body. 00:24:35.299 --> 00:24:38.259 They blend the high and the low in a way that 00:24:38.259 --> 00:24:40.720 U .S. tabloids don't. And they have immense political 00:24:40.720 --> 00:24:43.859 power. Huge. It used to be said that no one could 00:24:43.859 --> 00:24:45.700 become prime minister without the support of 00:24:45.700 --> 00:24:48.279 the Sun newspaper. They could make or break political 00:24:48.279 --> 00:24:51.299 careers. And that immense power led to immense 00:24:51.299 --> 00:24:53.559 corruption. It did. The phone hacking scandal. 00:24:54.039 --> 00:24:56.480 This was the moment the British public realized 00:24:56.480 --> 00:24:59.480 just how far the Red Tops would go to get a story. 00:24:59.680 --> 00:25:01.910 This is the news of the world, right? Yes. Journalists 00:25:01.910 --> 00:25:04.490 and investigators hired by the paper were systematically 00:25:04.490 --> 00:25:07.430 hacking into the voicemails of royal aides, celebrities, 00:25:07.809 --> 00:25:11.069 politicians, and even the victims of crime and 00:25:11.069 --> 00:25:13.309 terrorism. That's truly dark. That's not just 00:25:13.309 --> 00:25:15.470 chasing celebrities. That's invading the privacy 00:25:15.470 --> 00:25:17.869 of grieving families to get a scoop. It was repugnant. 00:25:17.930 --> 00:25:20.210 They hacked the voicemail of a murdered schoolgirl, 00:25:20.349 --> 00:25:22.589 giving her parents false hope that she was still 00:25:22.589 --> 00:25:24.329 alive because the voicemails were being deleted. 00:25:24.549 --> 00:25:26.569 It was a national disgrace. And what happened? 00:25:26.910 --> 00:25:28.829 It led to the closure of the News of the World, 00:25:28.970 --> 00:25:31.769 a paper that had been in print for 168 years. 00:25:32.109 --> 00:25:34.690 It just shut down overnight. It showed that the 00:25:34.690 --> 00:25:37.910 drive for sensation, if left completely unchecked, 00:25:37.910 --> 00:25:40.109 will eventually eat itself. So bringing it to 00:25:40.109 --> 00:25:42.390 the present day, I feel like the era of the printed 00:25:42.390 --> 00:25:44.349 tabloid is fading. I mean, I see them at the 00:25:44.349 --> 00:25:46.869 checkout, but I rarely see anyone under 50 actually 00:25:46.869 --> 00:25:49.369 buying one. The print market is dying. There's 00:25:49.369 --> 00:25:51.569 no question. The demographics are aging out. 00:25:51.630 --> 00:25:53.890 But the spirit of the tabloid hasn't died. It 00:25:53.890 --> 00:25:56.599 has just migrated. It went online. It's the Daily 00:25:56.599 --> 00:25:59.420 Mail online. It's TMZ. It's all these celebrity 00:25:59.420 --> 00:26:02.180 gossip sites. The Daily Mail is the perfect example. 00:26:02.420 --> 00:26:05.660 It's a British paper, but its website, Mail Online, 00:26:06.000 --> 00:26:08.940 became the most read English language newspaper 00:26:08.940 --> 00:26:11.039 website in the world for a while. How did they 00:26:11.039 --> 00:26:14.059 manage that? They did it by pioneering the sidebar 00:26:14.059 --> 00:26:17.119 of shame. Ah, yes, that endless scroll on the 00:26:17.119 --> 00:26:19.339 right side of the page with just pictures. Infinite 00:26:19.339 --> 00:26:23.769 scroll. Thousands of photos, celebrity oops moments, 00:26:24.150 --> 00:26:27.250 beach bodies, scandals, wardrobe malfunctions. 00:26:27.410 --> 00:26:30.210 They realize that on the Internet, tabloid isn't 00:26:30.210 --> 00:26:32.210 defined by the size of the paper. It is defined 00:26:32.210 --> 00:26:34.329 by the speed and the stickiness of the click. 00:26:34.490 --> 00:26:36.250 And the economics are different, too. We don't 00:26:36.250 --> 00:26:38.269 pay suppression fees or buyback fees. We pay 00:26:38.269 --> 00:26:40.490 with our attention. We pay with our clicks. The 00:26:40.490 --> 00:26:43.170 currency is engagement. And what drives engagement 00:26:43.170 --> 00:26:49.029 online? Outrage. Shock. Scandal. The exact same 00:26:49.029 --> 00:26:51.289 commodities that Reverend Henry Bate Dudley was 00:26:51.289 --> 00:26:54.089 selling in 1770 are the commodities that drive 00:26:54.089 --> 00:26:56.730 the algorithms of today. Which brings me to a 00:26:56.730 --> 00:26:59.009 final thought, a final question, really. We started 00:26:59.009 --> 00:27:00.690 this deep dive talking about how we look down 00:27:00.690 --> 00:27:03.470 on tabloids. We treat them as other. I'm smart. 00:27:03.569 --> 00:27:05.589 I read the Times. They are dumb. They read the 00:27:05.589 --> 00:27:07.490 Inquirer. It's a very comforting delusion, isn't 00:27:07.490 --> 00:27:09.710 it? It is. But look at your phone. Just open 00:27:09.710 --> 00:27:12.710 Instagram or X or TikTok. What do you see? You 00:27:12.710 --> 00:27:15.880 see short, punchy text. Highly visual content. 00:27:16.359 --> 00:27:18.480 Sensational headlines designed to make you react. 00:27:18.660 --> 00:27:21.519 A mix of serious politics and completely frivolous 00:27:21.519 --> 00:27:23.980 gossip all in the same feed. It fits the definition 00:27:23.980 --> 00:27:26.779 of tabloid journalism perfectly. It does, doesn't 00:27:26.779 --> 00:27:29.619 it? Every single point. So my question is this. 00:27:29.859 --> 00:27:32.920 Have we effectively killed the tabloid newspaper 00:27:32.920 --> 00:27:36.680 simply because we turned our entire media consumption 00:27:36.680 --> 00:27:42.819 into one giant global 247 digital tabloid? That 00:27:42.819 --> 00:27:45.519 is the provocative question. If the format is 00:27:45.519 --> 00:27:48.339 defined as quick, emotional, and visual, then 00:27:48.339 --> 00:27:50.859 social media is the ultimate tabloid. We are 00:27:50.859 --> 00:27:52.619 all subscribers now. And we're not just reading 00:27:52.619 --> 00:27:56.019 it. No. In a way, we are all editors, too. We're 00:27:56.019 --> 00:27:58.519 the ones deciding which scandals to share, which 00:27:58.519 --> 00:28:00.819 rumors to amplify, and which stories to suppress 00:28:00.819 --> 00:28:03.099 with our silence. We are all written in Dudley 00:28:03.099 --> 00:28:05.319 now. That is a terrifying thought. Someone to 00:28:05.319 --> 00:28:06.720 think about the next time you're doom -scrolling 00:28:06.720 --> 00:28:08.839 in the checkout line. Thanks for listening to 00:28:08.839 --> 00:28:10.500 this deep dive. Thank you. We'll see you next 00:28:10.500 --> 00:28:10.720 time.