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Music.

0:09

Hello and welcome to the edition.

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It's a rather packed week and I wanted to get to deal with this rather timely

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story that's developing both in the UK and over in the US.

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I can't think of a better person to join me than Matthew Ingram,

0:25

the Chief Digital Writer at the Columbia Journalism Review.

0:29

Dare we ask, Matthew, how long you've been covering digital media and the move

0:33

from print to digital? Wow.

0:36

I guess 20 odd years.

1:04

Matthew, to a bigger theme, right? Which is that we Brits are rather taking

1:08

over your massive media institutions. I mean, in a way, it's been happening for some time. You know,

1:14

it's, it seems to come in waves. That's my impression, anyway.

1:19

So certainly not the first time that Brits have sort of taken senior positions

1:24

at American papers or publications.

1:29

Yeah, it seems to go in cycles. goals yeah

1:32

it's certainly true i mean that we've had people it

1:35

was david yellen that edited the new york post for a while

1:38

as well as he did the sun here we've had obviously

1:42

uh you know condé nass anna winter running the roost there for a while there's

1:48

been all sorts of things but you're right it does seem to come in waves um but

1:53

there's a host of big media institutions emma tucker at of one of the major publications.

2:02

So it's fascinating to watch really how that is.

2:05

And I guess that does lead us to The Washington Post where Rob Winnett,

2:11

who was formerly the deputy editor of The Telegraph, has been appointed the

2:16

editor of The Washington Post. And Will Lewis, who was at The Sunday Times, is set to be the publisher there.

2:26

So two of the most senior roles at one of the biggest newspapers papers in the

2:30

U.S. taken over by Brits. But it's not gone smoothly, has it, Matthew? Explain what has developed over the last few days.

2:39

Well, it seems to be one thing after another. I mean, at first it was a report

2:43

from NPR that Will Lewis had effectively tried to cut a deal to give them an

2:49

interview, provided they squashed a story.

2:53

Obviously, his version of those events is different.

2:57

But I think that sort of started it. This is the story about involvement in

3:02

phone hacking, the phone hacking scandal that sort of rocked media institutions

3:05

here for a long time, and the pullout is still going on. Yeah.

3:09

And David Fulkenflik at NPR reported that this had happened.

3:13

And I think that struck a lot of people in quite a negative way.

3:20

Obviously, you don't want the publisher of a major investigative newspaper to

3:25

be doing these sorts of things. And so then but then it's been one kind of revelation after another, just involving his,

3:35

you know, involvement in in the hacking or sort of trying to cover up the hacking scandal.

3:44

Deleting emails is one suggestion, although obviously that hasn't been proven.

3:50

But kind of, and then, you know, the incoming editors involvement in a variety of stories,

4:00

suggestions that unethical practices were involved in either stealing or acquiring documents.

4:11

Documents and so yeah it seems to be every

4:13

day there's a new kind of suggestion that

4:16

these two chaps maybe you know look

4:20

at things somewhat differently than uh than american journalists might well

4:26

okay well we'll discuss that bit in a bit but what has fascinated me over the

4:31

last few days is how um american journalism has suddenly been gripped by the phone hacking scandal

4:38

which obviously was a huge deal here but

4:41

rather a number of years ago and so I'm kind of struck that you've all kind

4:48

of picked up on this after all this time you know obviously the Guardian played

4:52

a huge part in the original story I mean was this a thing you know that you,

4:59

picked up that was being discussed during the height of it however many years ago it was now.

5:05

I mean, it was, you know, I certainly remember reading about it, but it was a little like,

5:12

not should I describe it, it was a little like reading about a conflict in a

5:17

far off country where you, you know, you're sorry that people are involved in

5:23

a war, but it doesn't really impact you.

5:26

So, and I'm sure there was an attitude of sort of, well, there go the Brits,

5:31

you know, this kind of thing is totally normal.

5:34

And, and we don't understand them or how they run their newspapers.

5:40

And so I don't remember. I remember there being kind of shocked pieces,

5:46

but they disappeared fairly quickly.

5:49

And then I guess it just receded into the background and everyone forgot about it.

5:54

Yeah, it was a huge thing here.

5:57

Obviously, one of the stories that really gripped things and changed things

6:01

was, you know, stories about missing children, their phones being hacked,

6:07

you know, all this kind of thing. Again, those stories wouldn't have resonated with you in the US because,

6:14

you know, the original story wasn't there in the US.

6:16

But it's, I mean, in some ways, was this a bit of a failure of American media

6:22

and American journalism not to be picking up on this, given that,

6:25

for example, lots of the allegations were made against Murdoch Publications,

6:30

who obviously has transatlantic interests, interests in Australia as well.

6:37

Do you think maybe people should have done more in the US earlier with this?

6:41

And now only because some of these people involved in the allegations are heading

6:46

your side of the Atlantic, people are paying attention to it?

6:50

Yeah, I think you could always say more could have been done.

6:55

I do think that with Murdoch there's there's a sort of unspoken attitude that

7:03

well that's just Rupert like he does you know he's he's always sort of been this,

7:10

character and he seems to get away with things that other people wouldn't and

7:14

so I wonder if maybe some of it was just oh well it's just Murdoch being Murdoch

7:19

I I do think there is a tendency to sort of,

7:23

I don't want to call it parochial, but just paying attention more to the kind

7:30

of minutiae of American politics and media, of which there is plenty,

7:36

and maybe assuming that people just wouldn't be that interested in a lot of

7:43

coverage of, you know, UK media. It's hard to say, to be honest, but...

7:49

Yeah, exactly. It is kind of fascinating.

7:53

And there's always a thing that we tend to, we here in the UK tend to spend

7:56

more time and attention on what you guys are doing than vice versa.

8:00

I think that's just always a natural cultural thing. But just back to our earlier

8:05

discussion, what do you think it is that has drawn American media proprietors

8:09

to want to bring Brits over to run your major media institutions?

8:14

Well, if I could put it in a single word, I would say desperation. Okay.

8:19

No offense to these fine gentlemen or to your media institutions,

8:25

but I, in particular, the Washington Post, in this case, is in dire straits. rights.

8:32

So, you know, traditional American journalists have done their best and it isn't good enough.

8:40

And the paper is losing tens of millions of dollars and its audience has declined

8:45

by 50% in just a couple of years.

8:47

That's, you know, any way you look at it, that's a significant problem.

8:52

And so I think someone, I don't know if it was Jeff Bezos, but someone thought,

8:59

you know, We need to bring people in to stir things up or to try new things

9:03

or to come at this problem differently.

9:06

And so if you want people who are going to stir things up and try things differently,

9:11

maybe they bring some editors in from the UK and see what happens.

9:17

Well, they've certainly stirred things up, haven't they, these guys?

9:21

Yes. And they do do things differently.

9:25

It would appear, well, allegedly. Allegedly. How do you think this plays out?

9:30

How does this end? Are these two going to take up their roles?

9:33

Are they going to have to resign? Jeff Bezos is going to have to find some new

9:38

people. How does this play out, do you think? I mean, it's difficult to say. It feels to me as though this is building towards

9:47

a situation where they them taking these jobs becomes untenable, depending on how you.

9:56

I mean, the question mark is Jeff Bezos. How is Jeff Bezos thinking about this?

10:01

Does he care about the sort of reputation of The Washington Post?

10:04

I don't know it's hard

10:07

to say because you know he he has

10:11

so many other things the Washington Post I'm sure is

10:14

a tiny it's it's a rounding error are you

10:17

suggesting that Amazon is bigger than the Washington Post a little

10:21

bit I find that hard to believe um but I

10:25

think it's it's sort of how how desperate

10:30

is he to do something different and does

10:34

he care that this might impair the

10:37

reputation of the post I honestly don't know I think

10:40

it does and I think if if these two fellows take over it's going to send a very

10:46

strong message and maybe not an attractive one about the direction the post

10:51

is going But what we don't know is whether Jeff Bezos cares about any of that. Yeah.

11:00

Well, we should be clear. Obviously, they're trying to defend themselves.

11:04

Well, Lewis, you know, they're trying to, you know, they're insistent that they

11:08

should be able to take these jobs, right? You know, they're not admitting that they've done, you know,

11:13

terrible things or whatever. But it is a dilemma. emma and for now

11:19

look i've even you know you said it's become untenable

11:22

could be become untenable for them to take these jobs you've

11:25

even got the bizarre situation which always happens in

11:28

media reporting i'm sure you've had to experience it yourself whereby um

11:32

people's editors are

11:35

being investigated by their own publication because now to be honest i i think

11:41

the post has done an excellent job i mean i'm i'm impressed by their coverage

11:46

of their own incoming publisher and editor it's that's an incredibly difficult

11:51

position for a media writer to be in a reporter.

11:56

And um you know i've i've been impressed by by the lengths to which they've gone they could have,

12:02

done a kind of you know short cover

12:06

the controversy thing but they've really been on top

12:08

of it so in a way that that that makes

12:12

it better in terms of the Washington Post's brand I suppose you could say but

12:17

it doesn't solve the ultimate problem um but do you do you think some of it

12:23

is that they're going so hard on it because the reporters don't really want

12:27

these guys to take over is there a bit of that going on do you think.

12:31

I'd be surprised if it wasn't. I mean, to me,

12:35

the sort of the central conflict is between the way Americans look at their

12:41

journalism and the purpose of it and how you do it and the way a lot of British media do.

12:48

And I think there's, it's just a fundamentally much more competitive market in Britain, I think.

12:53

And so that the way, the way people think about what they're doing is,

12:59

you know, we got to fight for readers and fight for audience and we have to,

13:03

we have to break stories. And if we push the limits a bit, then that's, you know, that's the way it goes.

13:09

Whereas I think in American journalism has

13:12

this kind of view of itself as you know this

13:15

this ethical public policy oriented

13:18

servant of the people thing so the

13:21

yeah the two those two things are clashing to some

13:24

extent here i mean you're definitely rather more high-minded or you know the

13:29

i think americans definitely romanticize media more and you're definitely i

13:33

think somewhat more high-minded whereas british journalists most of i think

13:37

like to think of it as a bit more of a scrappy trade right Right, right.

13:42

It's a game. And you have to win.

13:45

And maybe you cut corners, or you do things that, we're talking about sort of,

13:53

in many of these cases, we're talking about kind of ethical gray areas.

13:57

Um and i'm sure american journalists

14:00

would not like to hear them described that way but certainly

14:03

in the way in the sort of difference between

14:06

the way americans are looking at these things and i think the way lots of british

14:10

editors would look at it you see a lot of um it says a lot about i think about

14:16

the way those two countries look at their media and what it's for and how they

14:19

do it i do although of course i mean i always think it's a bit of a cliche as

14:24

well to discuss it in these terms? Because, you know, there are, let me tell you, there are plenty of British journalists

14:28

with grandiose ideas about themselves as well.

14:31

Oh, sure. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. No, and I'm not, I'm not saying all of British media is like that.

14:36

But I think there's more, there's more kind of,

14:40

senior editors who see it as a scrap or a war or a fight or a battle as opposed

14:47

to a sort of something where, you know, ethics is your primary concern.

14:52

Yeah, and we obviously have a more tabloid culture as well, which I think does make a difference.

15:00

Our tabloid culture is very different. Yeah. Yeah.

15:03

Yeah. And that's primarily what I'm talking about. I'm not I'm not talking about

15:07

every newspaper or media publication or media entity.

15:13

It's it is that tabloid kind of.

15:16

You know, anything for readers, anything for subscription numbers or and the

15:22

U.S. has had that as well. It's not to say, you know, the New York Post is very similar.

15:28

Obviously, it has Murdoch involved, but lots of U.S. papers in history have gone that route.

15:36

It just, I don't think it's as traditional or large a part of American media

15:41

as certainly now as it is in the U.S.

15:43

And I guess some of this is that American proprietors are looking at the punchiness

15:48

of British media and how some of that still keeps, has some relative success

15:52

and is trying to bring a bit of that stateside, right? That's what a lot of this is about. Wow.

15:58

That's what it feels like to me. I mean, it feels like just if you're the post,

16:03

you're losing readers, losing revenue.

16:09

Something has to change. And, you know, you need new blood and new people thinking in different ways.

16:18

And maybe some of those ways are going to be unattractive to American journalists.

16:23

The only question is how committed Jeff Bezos is to that goal.

16:30

Yeah, this is the first real crisis I can see of Jeff Bezos's ownership of the Washington Post.

16:40

He's generally been seen as quite a benign billionaire who's kind of perhaps

16:44

the model for the future of media, where a very rich person puts their money in and steps away.

16:49

This to me feels like the first real crisis of his time there.

16:54

I would agree. It seemed as though, at least for the first little while,

16:58

there was, you know, Jeff Bezos was rich.

17:02

The paper was doing fairly well. He gave people a lot of latitude.

17:07

They did experiment in a lot of ways with digital, focusing on digital and sort of traffic.

17:14

And for a variety of reasons, that stopped working.

17:18

And so I think that's what you see in the revenue numbers and that's what you

17:23

see in the audience numbers. And so I think the definitely the honeymoon ended some time ago.

17:28

And so now this paper is on the ropes and it's it's quite easy to to own and

17:37

run something that's doing well. It's a lot harder to to try and bring it back from this type of situation.

17:46

And so I'm not convinced that he has any expertise in this area.

17:52

Yet and that's so the question in

17:55

my mind is who is sort of calling the shots and

17:58

who is giving him advice about what to do um do

18:02

you have any insight to that who is calling the shots in the news george jeff

18:05

bezos is not marching around the newsroom in the way murdoch used to do and

18:10

i honestly don't know who is sort of who has his ear on this i don't know who

18:16

is kind of you know Whose idea was it to bring in a couple of Brits to run the paper?

18:21

Was that Jeff Bezos' idea? I doubt it.

18:25

So, I mean, is he talking to Murdoch? That's not unreasonable.

18:30

It's fascinating. And correct me if I remember, there was a bit of a controversy

18:34

about the outgoing editor of The Washington Post.

18:38

Was that another glitch in the sort of Bezos strategy, do you think?

18:42

I honestly don't have much insight into that. I do feel as though there's more going on there.

18:49

Just explain to listeners who the outgoing editor of The Washington Post is

18:55

and so on. The outgoing editor was Sally Busby.

18:57

The one thing I don't understand is why things happen so quickly. Right.

19:05

You know, typically when editors change, it takes a little while and you have

19:10

kind of statements on either side and the person has a thing that they're going

19:15

to, sort of, you know, a soft landing.

19:17

And even if it's an unfriendly departure, there's always sort of,

19:22

you know, an ushering out process and a kind of, do you know what I mean?

19:27

And there was none of that.

19:29

So I don't know if something happened, something specific, whether there were,

19:37

maybe it was goals that weren't reached, but it was very stark and it happened

19:42

very suddenly, and that's unusual.

19:45

Yes, it did seem. and my reading of it as I've read into this topic is that

19:50

people in the Washington Post newsroom were or a number of them were loyal to her did like her.

19:57

It definitely feels that way to me and so that's why i

20:00

wonder she clearly crossed some

20:03

sort of line or maybe there were things built

20:07

into her contract that she failed to achieve but even

20:10

so you you as i

20:13

say you typically have some kind of you know

20:16

um a slow process of

20:19

someone moving on you don't just put out

20:22

a press release and that person ceases to exist

20:25

um so and to be honest i

20:28

don't know what happened it's also odd because often um both proprietors and

20:34

editors like to groom successors right and that doesn't seem to have happened

20:37

either that goes to your point about it happening very quickly yeah and i think

20:42

that's that's it speaks to the desperation here the sort of you You know, the sudden,

20:47

we have to make a dramatic change,

20:50

and it's critical.

20:52

Like, we have to do it right now. Because there's none of the kind of things that you would normally see in this type of change.

21:02

It's just one day, you know, one person is there, and the next day, someone else is.

21:09

So where does this end? Obviously, these two gentlemen are in the kind of firing line.

21:14

We don't know what will happen. We don't know if there'll be more investigations

21:17

into the alleged issues around with them.

21:21

We don't know if they'll just take right out the storm and take over The Washington Post.

21:27

Where where do you see this ending?

21:30

I mean, could we even have a situation where Sally Busby comes back?

21:34

That seems unlikely to me, given how she departed. parted.

21:39

But I think it's entirely possible that, you know, these two gentlemen could

21:46

just, you know, deny everything and, or put it in a different context.

21:50

And Jeff Bezos might decide, oh, this will all blow over.

21:55

I'm not convinced that it will, though. I think

21:58

there's a fundamental kind of contrast

22:02

here between the way people thought of

22:05

the the Washington Post and the way they will think of

22:08

it if these two men take over the paper

22:11

so the way people thought about what the post was doing

22:14

what kind of paper it was what kind of reporting it was doing you know it's

22:20

it's ethical standards that's going to change now maybe Jeff Bezos wants it

22:25

to change maybe yeah I was going to say it's part of that not the plan that

22:30

he wanted to shake It has to be. It has to be because so then perhaps he thinks, well, that's fine.

22:38

I want to change the expectations. I'm happy with or not happy, but I'm I'm prepared to accept a little bit of

22:46

controversy, provided that these two guys can shake things up and turn things

22:51

around. Maybe he's prepared to accept that. Yeah, although, of course, as we talked about that kind of high minded bit of

23:00

American media, you know, this is a publication that has democracy dies in darkness branding all around it.

23:06

There does seem to be that conflict, doesn't there?

23:10

Yeah, and I think he's he's definitely trying to turn the page.

23:14

You know, the democracy dies in darkness thing maybe worked for a while,

23:18

but now it's not working anymore. And so it's fine to have principles.

23:23

But if you can't keep the lights on, then something has to change.

23:27

And I'm sure on some level, whether he understands the intricacies of British

23:34

media versus American media, he realizes that something dramatic had to happen.

23:39

And maybe he's prepared to put up with a little collateral damage.

23:43

It's going to be interesting to see because it's going to change the post fairly dramatically, I think.

23:47

Yeah i'm just i'm also thinking of

23:50

the you know newsroom respect right we've talked about how

23:53

much the washington post is going in on the people that are meant

23:56

to soon be leading it it's a huge story right at

23:59

the front of the washington post website as you and i are talking that says

24:02

incoming post editor tried tied to

24:05

self-described thief who claimed role in his reporting you

24:09

know this is a really really messy situation yeah

24:13

and it's i think you have to think about i don't

24:17

know whether Jeff Bezos has thought about this at all but how are

24:20

the people who work there now going to

24:23

work under that editor and that

24:25

publisher yeah because it's one thing to

24:28

say look you know this is your new coach or this is your new captain and you

24:32

just do your job but journalists are like that at least a lot of them aren't

24:37

so we'll have to see we've seen lots of instances recently of newsrooms being

24:43

very robust and pushing back against all sorts of things.

24:47

Yeah, even at the New York Times, where that has historically never happened.

24:53

So that's a big question mark to me. How are the sort of rank and file going to respond?

25:01

And will they just be glad they have jobs and kind of continue working?

25:07

Or will there be an exodus? Probably a bit of both, right? Right.

25:13

It's going to be fascinating to watch. My sort of final question to you is really,

25:17

do you think this British invasion of American media is going to continue?

25:22

Or is this incident, however it ends, going to sort of make people think more

25:29

about hiring big name British editors, maybe even British reporters?

25:34

Like, do you think that's going to stymie some of this trend of America?

25:39

I honestly don't think it's going to change much.

25:43

Those who know, you know, that this sort of thing happens in British media probably don't care.

25:51

And there are a lot of, yeah, allegedly. Allegedly. And there are a lot of.

25:57

Well, I mean, there are some instances. There are a lot of American media outlets

26:02

and publications that are just as desperate, if not more desperate, than The Post.

26:07

So if desperation is one of the key elements in this saga,

26:14

which I think it is, then there will be lots of appetite to bring in new people,

26:20

even if they have sort of ethical question marks in their history.

26:26

Well it's going to be fascinating to watch matthew i'm so grateful that you

26:30

could take the time to come on the show where can people keep up with all your

26:33

great work which i have to say i was thrilled to have you on because i followed

26:36

your work for years in all sorts of places so i was thrilled to have you on

26:39

well thanks i'm happy to do it um so the columbia journalism review cjr.org,

26:46

is my main thing and and i'm on pretty much

26:50

every social platform if you care to reach out

26:53

fantastic um i'm at charlotte a henry across social media obviously i hope you're

26:59

already subscribed to the edition newsletter at newsletter.theedition.net a

27:04

little subscription helps goes a long way so i hope you can support the show

27:07

and the newsletter that way and i'll see you all soon.

27:11

Music.