0:00

This is the BBC. This

0:30

is the BBC. This

1:00

is the media show from BBC Radio 4. In

1:24

a moment, the executive chairman of Sky News

1:26

Group David Rhodes on his plans for Sky

1:29

News and on his years as

1:31

a senior TV news exec in New York.

1:33

If you look at the front page

1:35

of the Financial Times, the headline reads

1:38

Open AI and Meta Poised for Artificial

1:40

Intelligence Leap with Bots That Reason.

1:43

Bots that Reason is definitely a phrase that

1:45

requires some explanation. We'll talk to Madamita Murdjie

1:47

who wrote the story and who's looking closely

1:49

at how AI is changing

1:51

how media is made. Madamita,

1:54

it's your job to report on AI

1:56

for the FT. I wonder

1:58

what you see as the prime Murray challenges of

2:00

getting across the concept that of within

2:02

it to your readers and. And

2:05

and will abuse. I think

2:07

the big challenges, the complexity of the

2:09

technology and how much people kind of

2:11

believe they already know about this second

2:13

as making sure that were breaking down

2:15

these misconceptions about the fact that it's

2:17

gonna be in at the next Terminator,

2:19

that's gonna destroy us all and all

2:21

that it's gonna save everything and solve

2:23

every problem you know it isn't v

2:25

to very kind of clear binaries that

2:27

all of the nuance in betweens and

2:29

it's bringing that across. I think that

2:31

it's the hardest challenge and you'll see

2:33

that from all the comments on the

2:35

that story like. Four. Hundred of them. So.

2:37

We're going to get into how best to explain

2:39

artificial intelligence with your help with the help of

2:41

David Rohde some sky news. And a

2:43

little later would also be focusing on

2:45

Donald Trump social media platform Treat Social

2:47

and Bt these. I is the former

2:49

Chief product officer of Trees Social and

2:52

he is with us. Billie welcome to

2:54

the media So I wanted to ask

2:56

as we won't be speaking to for

2:58

bit but I really want to ask

3:00

at the top when you met Donald

3:02

Trump a moral law guy, What did

3:04

he ask you to build? I

3:07

he wanted to build something, they

3:09

continued to help his voice good

3:11

distributed and and and if it

3:13

was paramount them that we build

3:15

something that allowed everyone to have

3:17

free speech. Ah so in his

3:19

his focus was always free speech.

3:22

And as it will be having a lot more about that later.

3:24

It was be to Billie in a little while but that's

3:26

all for David Roads is here in the media says to

3:29

the hi David Thanks coming in now Thanks think you guys

3:31

for having me and so like I'm used to have been

3:33

on your side of the table or least working with the

3:35

people in your side of the tables as can be. New.

3:38

For made actually answering questions and is of

3:40

the you're looking forward to when. They met

3:42

not as if I suspect has. Asked me as

3:44

a soda. Still has a right where your

3:46

job title now as Executive Chairman for the

3:48

Sky News Group, but you'd been President a

3:51

Cbs News in the Us you the youngest

3:53

person to ever take such a senior job

3:55

and Us Tv News before that you ahead

3:57

of Us television A Bloomberg Evil Sabina Vice

3:59

President. Use for Fox News, see

4:01

how some big gigs in the

4:04

Us to and I and I

4:06

wonder how you compare being an

4:08

exact within the Uk media with

4:10

big news exec a New York.

4:13

It's coming up on for years living

4:15

here in the Uk. It's

4:17

a journalism pulsars. It's second

4:19

to none and. When

4:21

you are an institution like institution

4:24

like Sky News, you get to

4:26

do things cover things that. I.

4:29

In a lot of other organizations

4:31

I've been involved with, you'd have

4:33

to find a small place to

4:35

sit that story. But here, the

4:37

audience proposition the audience expectations of

4:39

much more of that sort of

4:41

coverage. So. Something. Like the

4:44

Oleksyn of all need, Death comes along,

4:46

and a lot of places in America

4:48

you'd be. Trying to find seventy

4:51

five seconds. And a program

4:53

where you can address that here that's

4:55

special coverage as an audience expectation we're

4:57

going to spend a lot of on

4:59

Had we had as sky a lot

5:01

of resource out in the field on

5:03

it and we saw real audience impact

5:05

from responding to it. And Will

5:07

actually is your job. It's Executive chamomile.

5:09

Does that mean. Vs Guy in charge

5:11

of all hair and makeup. Gonna

5:14

call. It a bit early that and help me with my daughter that's

5:16

a me. I let the that I

5:18

had thought know what they're not

5:21

a had not as I said

5:23

that. Now what it means is

5:25

we have a group that spans

5:27

about seven hundred percent newsroom in

5:29

the English language with bureau's around

5:31

the world. We have an Italian

5:33

language service, etc. were was have

5:35

this morning with about two hundred

5:38

based in Milan but also obviously

5:40

in Rome. we have joint ventures

5:42

ah and we plug into a

5:44

larger family of news operations of

5:46

that Comcast. Company which their parents

5:48

which includes and B C

5:50

C N B C, Msnbc,

5:52

Telemundo, and local television stations.

5:55

But. Are you getting involved in what the lead story

5:57

is or how much time the lead story? word?

6:00

The on a forward or your you're not dealing

6:02

with that kind of thing at all. You.

6:04

Can't do these jobs without spending

6:06

some time in the editorial and

6:09

my whole career as prize we've

6:11

talked about is coming up through

6:13

an editorial operation, working on an

6:16

assignment just sending Cruise out editing.

6:19

Ah, I mean, that being said,

6:21

we've gotta really capable team. We

6:23

have an excellent executive editor here

6:25

in the Uk, Jonathan Levy. He

6:27

and I were together at of

6:29

Lords committee last week about some

6:31

of the kinds of issues were

6:33

talking about today, so I try

6:35

to let people do their job.

6:37

Produced programs on all platforms. Go.

6:40

Out every day and cover stories and

6:42

call it like they see it and

6:44

then just support that offering so it

6:46

actually reaches an audience and as a

6:48

commercial future. And. What kind is your first

6:51

phone calls.intend to what's uncle or you wanna

6:53

Xena Seven Saying this is distributed Talks Doyle

6:55

Neither the great stories like I. Think

6:57

I have to. people's probably great

6:59

disruption I I make the first

7:02

phone call generally. And one time

7:04

as I you one of those three i am

7:06

Papal states bosses I've had that as the of

7:08

the have dozens and not good snow down once

7:10

among at three am or even four or five

7:13

the that to be fat wasn't in the media

7:15

that was before. You know what's worse

7:17

is a donkey. Had I had way

7:19

work that's ah. You troll them anyway

7:21

by telling them that slug of work

7:23

for a lot of really impactful, an

7:25

incredible bosses. You

7:27

know what you want. If anything this is actually

7:30

true that whole profession I'm in. The worst thing

7:32

is if they haven't seen the show like Woody

7:34

mean haven't seen the show like I have no

7:36

of listen to course in course you want to

7:38

both. If. You want me

7:40

to call you add Soya Do I hope? And

7:44

before we get into the strategic challenges the

7:46

Sky News which I know you are grappling

7:48

with in your in your card role as

7:50

Op or lead as a big news organizations

7:53

we also want to understand your experiences and

7:55

in America as a as a as a

7:57

leader within a number of news. And because

7:59

I'm. They inform what you're doing in

8:01

in Sky, so let's go back quite

8:04

a few years to when you were

8:06

Vice President of News for Salts. How

8:08

did you get that gig? I

8:11

got the gig and. I

8:14

got the gig the same work my way

8:16

up from running the autocue. Honestly, I

8:19

started working there Ninety Ninety Six at

8:21

the beginning of this career and. Basically.

8:24

They hired seven hundred people about

8:26

the size of the newsroom we

8:29

now have working English and Sky

8:31

and. We're doing that over

8:33

the space of about three months to not

8:35

to diminish my credentials for that opportunity. but

8:37

I mean basically easy to get in the

8:39

door. They were hiring a lot of people

8:42

in really short span of time and you

8:44

sit of work your way up. That was

8:46

my entry level opportunity. And

8:48

when you were at Fox, you presumably

8:50

were aware that it was becoming quite

8:53

a divisive presence within the the American

8:55

media. Why left in two thousand and

8:57

eight? I worked for News Corp a

9:00

second time when I first moved to

9:02

this country. At that time

9:04

to spec out what later became

9:06

talk Tv. And then I left

9:08

the company a second time. Ah, about three years

9:10

ago when I went to work at Sky and

9:13

the business side. Did. You

9:15

know, with that, not when you're back in

9:17

those folks days with the President at Fox,

9:19

we were you. At what point did you

9:21

encounter him? You know it's. Interesting. We

9:23

talk about somebody who actually in or

9:25

has seen the program, engages with it

9:28

has an opinion. I mean, he is

9:30

one of those people and I think

9:32

that he. He's. Interested to

9:35

know what's going on? He's interested in

9:37

what you've heard, what you're reporting, what's

9:39

gonna be in the program, what's can

9:41

be in the paper. You know, In

9:43

those early years that first time working

9:45

at the company, I really had no

9:47

interaction with them because I was in

9:49

a relatively speaking in a line level

9:52

in this second time around him and

9:54

is now he just turned ninety three

9:56

last month. so. He was

9:58

in. There was also covered. And

10:00

I was relocating from the United States but

10:02

he was still very interesting work we're doing

10:04

and I just but mainly sound him to

10:07

be in. oh and engage proprietor of and

10:09

maybe that. Maybe. That fall

10:11

short of the Marcus all the stories

10:13

of people expect but he was just

10:15

interested and engaged and are Fox of

10:18

the time you work that will often

10:20

hear from people who have worked within

10:22

Fox News saying there's a division between

10:24

the opinion programs that are on in

10:26

prime time in the evening and the

10:28

broader, the broader news operation and. Critics.

10:31

Of folks would reject that that distinction

10:33

when you were there. did you feel

10:36

it? Or you know I left in

10:38

two thousand and eight that ten days

10:40

after the chat my after presidential elections.

10:42

So and it's been a lot of

10:44

road since then. I guess stern say.

10:48

They been entirely different prime time lineup am

10:50

it's different kind of median for him and

10:52

I'm her part of. Where. We

10:55

are today and mean consider for

10:57

instance. Sky. At that

10:59

time was a listed company

11:01

in this country which was

11:03

controlled by the Murdoch operation.

11:05

Sky Today's a wholly owned

11:07

subsidiary of Comcast, Nbc Universal

11:09

and as are we as

11:12

the Sky News operation. So

11:14

that's changed and then just

11:16

the media landscape courses changed.

11:18

Cable News in the United

11:20

States was in an extraordinary

11:22

growth say is from about

11:24

two thousand until two thousand

11:26

and seven. But peak

11:28

table as far as household distribution in

11:31

the United States was sort of mid

11:33

two thousand and seven. Now it's can

11:35

have a long. Tail. But

11:37

when you think about that, And

11:39

there haven't been net new

11:42

homes into which those networks

11:44

like Fox News or go

11:46

since that time. And here

11:48

we are and Twenty Twenty

11:50

Four. It's a very different,

11:52

very much more digital, very

11:54

much more technologically informed media

11:56

diet. But when you look at

11:58

fox now d by into the argument. That there

12:00

is a dividing line between news and opinions on

12:02

what was it like that? Then I think

12:04

that. A channel like that.

12:07

And many of these channels,

12:09

they're effectively programmed by the

12:11

audience. I. Mean you can see

12:13

in real time what people respond to.

12:16

And so I think it's only natural.

12:18

and it's interesting because the rest of

12:20

the conversation and will be talking about

12:23

artificial intelligence and how out things are

12:25

algorithmically determined. But this is one way

12:27

in which things sort of haven't changed.

12:29

A mean producers You can't help it.

12:31

you look at what you did the

12:33

day before. You. Have some

12:36

data.how the audience do didn't respond

12:38

to it. While. You're programming it. You have

12:40

a little bit of a sense of whether it's gonna work

12:42

or it's not. A out I

12:44

don't think that's that's one thing that

12:46

when there is reason to was or

12:48

wasn't a divide between news, current affairs,

12:50

opinion, it's after I think. I.

12:52

Think all media products. Whether.

12:55

It's Fox or Bloomberg, or of

12:57

Cbs or Sky or and probably

12:59

leaving out a couple of other

13:02

places that are worth. They

13:04

all work off of one thing, which

13:06

is what's the audience expectation. If you

13:08

meet that expectation or exceed it, it

13:11

works. And. If you fail to

13:13

meet it, it doesn't work and you

13:15

can modify that. The audience is expectation

13:18

of you over time. But fundamentally, you

13:20

can't change what people expect from your

13:22

organization. You have to. You have to

13:24

hit that every deck. Is

13:27

addressing You're mentioning the the ratings the come

13:29

in from the from the night before I

13:31

was telling case use we were getting ready

13:33

to come into the studio that I remember

13:35

talking to some one person he worked with

13:37

a new as cable news in the early

13:40

part of the of the noughties saying that

13:42

everyone knew down to the minute when the

13:44

ratings were going to arrive in the afternoon

13:46

and the whole day kind of revolved around

13:48

it and they would break down each item

13:50

and that work that didn't work to a

13:52

degree that sounded like it went beyond. Everyone.

13:55

cares about the ratings in the uk to of course

13:57

but this sounded like it was honored another

14:00

level. But think

14:02

about where we are now, where you

14:04

walk around any newsroom like the newsroom

14:06

here at the BBC, you know, it's

14:08

fair to say our newsroom at Sky,

14:10

you know, we have up the,

14:13

you know, Adobe screens, the real

14:15

time data, the, you know, click

14:17

rate, you know, the

14:19

performance of different items of text.

14:22

I mean, now you're, you're sort

14:24

of buried in this. So yes, you used

14:26

to get time was you got

14:29

sort of an average minute audience against

14:31

linear television, and you kind of checked

14:33

your decisions against that in a commercial

14:35

context. Now, are you getting, you know,

14:38

54 flavors of that? And

14:41

I'm interested in, you know, your assessment

14:43

of the differences between the US experience,

14:46

the US media experience that you had in the UK media

14:48

experience when you went to CBS in I'm

14:52

always because I love the morning show. I know that

14:54

wasn't CBS. But you know, in terms of how, for

14:57

example, you know, certain

14:59

anchors, you know, American anchors have

15:01

a certain reputation. Did

15:04

you, did you observe anything there?

15:07

Well, okay, first, the

15:09

you know, what, what do you mean it on

15:11

the in terms of is the show right? Well,

15:13

kind of, you know,

15:15

look, and the power that anchors have, I mean,

15:18

do anchors here in

15:21

Britain have less power than American

15:23

anchors? How does it work? Look, one thing

15:25

we've tried to do now

15:29

is actually emphasize a little

15:31

bit more the talent contribution.

15:33

And we've done that not

15:35

because we're trying to in

15:37

some way Americanize the

15:39

offering at Sky News. What does it mean

15:42

emphasize more the talent contribution? Well, what it

15:44

means is people watch people. And part

15:46

of the value proposition of

15:48

Okay, what you know, something has happened,

15:50

I want to go see

15:52

what credible voices are going

15:56

to have when they're covering it.

15:58

So like, if I think about You know, the political

16:01

news report here, Beth Rigby

16:03

is our political editor. She's RTS

16:06

political journalist of the year this year. We're very

16:08

proud of that. We built a

16:10

political program around Sophie Ridge,

16:13

who now is on in prime time at

16:16

7pm each evening, doing a report

16:19

in an election year. We think that's important. We've

16:22

got, Beth's got a new podcast

16:24

with Jess Phillips and Ruth Davidson. I

16:27

enjoy it very much. Electoral dysfunction. Shameless

16:30

blog. Yeah, big talk. Try that.

16:33

Sam Coates, deputy political editor. He has a

16:35

new podcast. This is the other thing. Nobody

16:37

has just one show anymore. Everybody has a

16:40

variety of different products, but

16:42

you have to have, I guess what

16:44

I mean in terms of emphasizing that

16:46

you have to have people who

16:48

are credible to the audience who can bring

16:50

them, in this case, the political news report.

16:53

Otherwise it doesn't work. I guess

16:55

I wanted to get into what it was

16:57

like in America back then. CBS, Hay Day.

17:00

And also the fact that quite

17:02

rightly presenters, anchors in

17:04

the UK aren't the boss, they're never

17:06

the boss, the editors of the boss,

17:08

but I've spoken to plenty of news

17:10

anchors over the years in the US

17:12

who have various roles as executive producer

17:14

or other job titles, which gives them

17:16

a type of power that news presenters

17:18

in the UK don't have. Roz, it

17:20

sounds like you're not a complaint by

17:22

the way. Think

17:25

about relocating. Absolutely not. You want to

17:27

be from the embassy? You

17:30

could always make up. Right.

17:32

Well, that is the difference though, right?

17:34

In that some news anchors will have

17:37

significant built in authority

17:39

or power, if you like, in a

17:41

way that doesn't happen here. But in

17:43

a way, you should, because, you know,

17:46

maybe speaking against my own interest here,

17:48

but you're who people are listening to

17:50

on this program. People are listening to

17:52

this program because Katie, Roz,

17:54

you're here, you're presenting this and we're

17:57

going to have an interesting discussion. But

18:00

they're not listening to it because I'm

18:02

the executive in charge of this or

18:04

anything else like that. Part of our

18:06

job here is to resource things and

18:09

send you out so that we can, you

18:11

know, gain an audience, convey

18:13

news, make it interesting.

18:16

Let's talk about your shift from the US to the UK.

18:19

You got a call from either from, was it from

18:21

Rupert Murdoch or someone on behalf of Rupert Murdoch saying,

18:23

hey, how about it? This is the

18:25

one where I initially moved here. Yeah. I

18:28

went to see him. I was in Los Angeles and

18:30

I was doing some work for the LA Times, which

18:32

at the time had a relatively new owner. He's

18:36

now still the owner, but not so

18:38

new. And now

18:40

I went to the studio

18:42

a lot and he told me about

18:45

his ambitions to get back into the

18:47

TV business here after he had sold the

18:50

company I'm now working for to Comcast. He

18:53

being Rupert Murdoch, just be clear. Yeah. And

18:56

it sounded interesting to me and that was it. And

18:58

what was he saying at that point about what he wanted to create? I

19:02

think it was more, you know, look, you'd

19:04

have to ask him about what he wanted

19:06

to accomplish with the product because I left

19:08

and, you know, they went ahead and did

19:10

it. And there's been a lot

19:12

of time since then. It's been a couple of years.

19:16

But look, I mean, I think he

19:18

missed being involved in this segment of

19:20

the business. And look, I understand why.

19:22

It was very I think there's I

19:24

think there's a really robust television

19:27

news sector here. And

19:29

he found himself outside of that looking

19:31

in after the sale. And for people

19:33

who are not understanding, essentially what you're saying

19:35

is this was when Rupert Murdoch was creating

19:37

Talk TV. But I think when you

19:39

were approached, it wasn't in

19:42

that format. Or

19:44

is that right? It was to explore

19:47

what the opportunities were here. And

19:49

look, as has been, I think,

19:51

reported, we

19:53

did a bit of an exploration and we concluded

19:56

that actually conventional traditional

19:58

television was. probably not commercially

20:00

viable. I think that's the language that we

20:03

use. Eventually that was

20:05

briefed out to the press around the

20:07

time that I left for Sky. And

20:10

they proved to be the case, David.

20:13

I mean, look, that was 2021 or

20:15

so that I think we said that. So look,

20:17

but there's... Actually

20:20

you said what they created was just talk

20:22

TV. You were suggesting that wasn't going to

20:24

work and it looks like, well, it hasn't.

20:26

Well, what hasn't worked being

20:28

on television. And that's not to say

20:30

that television isn't going to have a

20:33

very long tail. Like I think when

20:35

Sky News started in 35 years

20:38

ago, it was new

20:41

and novel and had never been tried

20:43

before doing a 24 hour

20:45

rolling news channel in this country. And that

20:48

was a challenger to the BBC. Now

20:51

that's completely established, but

20:53

there's various other things that we

20:55

or anybody else in the segment

20:57

do that are new and challenging.

20:59

And that's in audio,

21:01

we're putting like 40% more resource

21:04

against digital product this year.

21:06

It's SVOD, it's fast channels.

21:08

It's a variety of acronyms

21:11

that hopefully your audience isn't

21:13

intimately familiar with. They will not be.

21:15

I'm not sure I

21:18

am. It's any number of other

21:20

things. It's not just this one channel anymore.

21:24

And after your second stint with

21:26

Rupert Murdoch and as has been documented,

21:29

you left and you had suggested that

21:31

the talk TV plan may not be

21:33

commercially viable. You land a job

21:35

as executive chairman of the Sky News Group and

21:37

you arrive. And presumably

21:39

one of the first things that you have

21:42

to do is analyze the situation that Sky

21:44

News is in within the broader news

21:47

ecosystem. I wonder what

21:49

your conclusions were about what was going for

21:51

Sky, but also equally what needed

21:54

to change. It's a great brand. And

21:57

what I think it has going for it

21:59

is a real ability. ability to be

22:01

agile. It's always been an innovator.

22:04

And it's

22:06

a great privilege just as a manager to

22:08

be involved in something that does that kind

22:11

of quality coverage. So for instance,

22:14

Stuart Ramsey goes to Haiti in

22:16

recent weeks, interviews Barbecue, who's the

22:18

gang leader that's rolled up all

22:21

the other gangs in

22:23

the absence of any real civil authority. And we

22:26

entered into that story on

22:28

journalistic merit. And we did so

22:31

partly too, because Stuart

22:33

had relationships there

22:35

built on that he'd been to Haiti

22:37

a year before and identified this guy.

22:39

And I think it's

22:41

important to note that I thought, all

22:43

right, we're doing this just on journalistic

22:46

merit, and it's an important story, and

22:48

we're proud of it. But it actually

22:50

found an audience principally on YouTube and

22:52

among younger people and x UK where

22:54

it's two, three million hits. Our

22:57

Italian service did a similar

23:00

conversation with him. That's

23:02

had 400,000 on Instagram. So you find your

23:05

audience in places you didn't necessarily expect

23:08

it or certainly didn't expect to find

23:10

it before. I think

23:12

we're the only people in Yemen right now

23:14

with Alex Crawford there. So the

23:18

opportunity to do that kind of quality coverage

23:20

and find that there's a commercial opportunity revolving

23:22

around it, you don't get to do that

23:24

just about any place. And David Rose,

23:26

just a reminder for people listening, you're the executive

23:29

chairman at Sky News Group. I guess

23:32

Sky was always seen as the outsider.

23:34

But you know, 35 years on, you're

23:36

no longer the new arrival. You

23:39

are part of the mainstream media. We're

23:42

part of the mainstream media. Actually, I was at

23:44

this Lords committee that I mentioned with Jonathan, they

23:46

said I was part of the establishment. How did

23:48

that feel? Well, I thought I told I

23:51

told the I found I

23:54

don't know, I'm an American. I'm in

23:56

the House of Lords and I'm the establishment that

23:58

was that was kind of great. to hear.

24:00

It's called ironic in America. Yeah,

24:02

look, I think we

24:05

are established, certainly

24:07

in some aspects, the linear

24:09

channel is that aspect and will be around

24:11

for a long time, but in a lot

24:13

of the places that we're competing now, we're

24:16

a challenger brand all over again. So

24:18

in all those audio products, like there's

24:21

huge opportunity there. But

24:25

there's opportunity of distribution,

24:27

making journalism and getting it to people

24:29

in different ways. But what about the

24:33

opportunity of the bottom line here, because you, as

24:35

I understand it, have some guaranteed

24:37

income from Comcast from when

24:40

Sky was bought by Comcast, but that

24:42

doesn't go on forever. It goes to

24:44

2028. How do you think Sky News

24:47

can fund itself beyond that? How are

24:49

you going to make money from all

24:51

of these hits that you're describing on

24:53

different social platforms? Well, first of all,

24:55

how you just talk

24:58

about those hits. So when

25:01

we were just a linear channel,

25:03

you would approach somebody and say,

25:05

Katie, how about two o'clock? Could

25:07

you do the two o'clock? And then you would do

25:10

a television program and that's our arrangement. And

25:12

then we would look at those ratings that

25:14

Raj mentioned we used to obsess over. Now,

25:18

if we go to someone like when

25:20

we brought Yalda Hakeem in,

25:22

the conversation there is do

25:24

a nightly program about world affairs

25:26

on television. Do a

25:28

podcast once a week,

25:30

which she's going to

25:32

start doing as early

25:34

as next month co-hosted

25:36

with Richard Engel from

25:38

NBC News. Call them specials

25:40

a year. That'll be longer form and

25:43

more documentary and style where we do

25:45

sort of a film. This

25:48

is the way the world works now is you

25:50

don't have one job, like come here and you'll

25:52

have six jobs. And that's

25:54

how it works out commercially because that

25:56

news report is sold

25:58

in all those different aspects. But

26:00

making news is very costly. The things you

26:02

were talking about earlier with Stuart Ramsey or

26:05

indeed what Yalda will be doing. It is

26:07

expensive. We all know news costs money. And

26:09

are there conversations being had about

26:11

what happens post-2028 in terms of perhaps not

26:13

being able to provide Sky News? Well,

26:16

you've got to take into

26:18

account the scope of this company. And that's why I

26:20

think it's actually the best ownership

26:22

that we could have at this moment in

26:24

time. So we're not by

26:26

far the only news operation that

26:29

they have between the alphabet group

26:31

of other brands around the

26:33

world that I mentioned. And

26:35

they've got the wherewithal to support

26:37

all of that enterprise and see

26:40

a commercial opportunity in doing it

26:42

because they've certainly found that commercial

26:44

opportunity in NBC and CNBC and

26:46

Tellemundo and MSNBC and Sky and

26:48

TG24 and so on. So

26:52

Sky News will make it past 40? Absolutely.

26:55

And you've got to

26:57

also think about the cost of providing

26:59

that coverage in a positive way. And

27:01

I'll explain that just as a manager.

27:03

But that's its own kind of barrier

27:06

to entry. Not many people can

27:09

do what we do. When our people go

27:11

out, whether

27:13

it's Yemen or it's

27:15

Haiti or – by the way, it could be

27:18

– we're pretty robust

27:20

coverage all around the up and down

27:22

the country and the nations and

27:24

regions here in the UK. It's

27:27

costly to provide that. Not many other

27:29

people can. We find ourselves competing often

27:31

against you here at the BBC and

27:34

maybe a handful of others. And that's about it.

27:36

It's pretty lonely out there. Well,

27:39

one of your competitors, at least in the

27:41

UK on terrestrial TV, is GB News, which

27:43

of course you'll be well

27:45

aware of. How do you

27:47

assess Ofcom's reading of the

27:49

impartiality regulations with reference

27:52

to GB News? I mean, first, I

27:54

think they're doing something different than we

27:56

do. And they say that

27:58

themselves. I think they are – trying

28:00

to program for an audience and

28:03

we're programming something very different than

28:05

them. On Ofcom,

28:07

look, we're a regulation taker, not

28:09

a regulation maker, so it's really

28:12

in the government's gift to decide

28:15

and ultimately in the public's gift as far as

28:17

they select the government what kind of regulation we

28:19

want. But it's not just what

28:21

regulation you want, it's whether that regulation or

28:23

how that regulation is implemented. You mentioned Sophie

28:25

Ridge's program at 7pm, as you'll be well

28:28

aware. She's up against Nigel Farage on GB

28:30

News and he sometimes rates above

28:32

her. That's a direct competition with you

28:34

and what GB News can do not

28:37

just in that hour but more broadly

28:39

is decided by how these regulations are

28:41

implemented. Are you

28:43

satisfied with how Ofcom's going about it? Well

28:46

first, I think actually

28:48

since you mentioned Sophie and

28:50

Nigel, they're

28:53

actually probably the best example of how

28:55

these two channels are providing something very different.

28:58

So is it a binary choice

29:00

between people of one to the other? I mean I

29:02

think if you're watching Faraj, you're

29:04

watching him for him. If

29:08

you're watching Sophie, you're watching for

29:10

a really comprehensive political report. I

29:12

think the two are, to the

29:16

degree that they're talking about British politics, they

29:18

suppose that they're similar product but they really

29:20

have a very different thing that they're setting

29:22

out each day to achieve. As far as

29:24

the regulatory regime around that, you've

29:27

got to just, in this way,

29:29

the journalism business is like any other

29:31

business. What you need are clear rules

29:33

that are consistently applied and as long

29:35

as the rules are clear and they're

29:37

consistently applied, everybody's happy or if

29:40

they're not happy, they can pick a different

29:42

government, get a different regulatory regime

29:44

and off we go. But those

29:46

are the two things that we need as a business. Clearly

29:49

there are lots of questions at the moment around elections,

29:51

how we're all going to cover them, including

29:54

of course the American election. We're going to be talking

29:56

about Truth Social and Donald Trump later but I want

29:58

to thank you for that. for you at

30:01

Sky, how will you be advising your

30:03

colleagues to cover Trump? Well

30:05

first, we see an enormous amount of

30:07

interest in the UK and in the

30:10

other markets where our content

30:12

reaches in the US election. So

30:15

there's certainly interest in the UK election and

30:17

we think we have that whole political team

30:19

to cover that here. But

30:22

equally, I think the US election is going to be a

30:24

big night for us. We have

30:26

a really robust Washington bureau and

30:29

we plug into all of the data

30:31

and analysis that comes in. But will

30:33

you be carrying his speeches for example

30:35

or do you have a different approach to covering

30:38

Donald Trump that you may do to covering other

30:40

American policies? Well I think everyone's having conversations aren't

30:42

they about whether to, all newsrooms are, whether to

30:44

take him live and then put someone to do

30:46

the analysis afterwards or whether you know some American

30:49

networks they've already decided they're not going to ever

30:51

show Trump making speeches live. Media

30:53

have made mistakes covering

30:56

all politicians but media have made mistakes

30:58

covering Donald Trump really back to the

31:01

beginning. I mean really to before him coming down

31:03

the escrow. What kind of mistakes? You

31:08

know in

31:10

terms of just thinking about

31:12

the approach that media

31:14

were taking, I give an example from

31:18

actually the CBS experience. Like

31:20

if people remember the Charlottesville

31:22

episode in 2017. It's the

31:24

first year of Trump's presidency.

31:27

There's this fascist

31:29

rally in Charlottesville.

31:31

There's a rally

31:34

against the rally. It becomes violent.

31:36

I mean it

31:38

was a really painful episode. And

31:42

famously he

31:44

had trouble addressing it. He said, Trump

31:47

said it was because he was

31:49

waiting to get all the facts. There was criticism

31:51

that he delayed his response. Then there was a

31:54

response to that later in which he says look

31:56

you have to look at what was happening there

31:58

and there was blame. on

32:00

both sides. Some

32:03

aides like Gary Cohn suggested that

32:05

they later left the administration over

32:07

those comments. But a

32:10

couple of other things happened after that.

32:12

The first was media did make mistakes

32:14

in terms of how those

32:16

remarks were covered. For instance,

32:19

there were accounts that said that he

32:21

said the sides were equally to blame,

32:23

and he didn't say they were equally

32:25

to blame. And you just leave a

32:28

hint of that kind of controversy,

32:32

and that's enough for people to drive

32:34

a truck through and just say, look,

32:36

this is the bias that we've been

32:39

talking about all along. He didn't say

32:41

that. That was a mistake. But equally,

32:43

and the reason why that event sticks

32:45

with me is at CBS, we

32:47

polled it. And

32:49

it was only by about 10 points. It

32:51

was like a 55-45 that people felt that

32:54

he was in the wrong, even though the

32:56

events had been really hard to watch or

32:58

sort of torch-wielding neo-Nazis and all this stuff.

33:01

And when you

33:04

unpack it, though, why do people feel that way?

33:06

And you saw in the surveys people saying, you

33:08

know, I disagree with him. I don't

33:11

like what he had to say on that day,

33:13

but I hate the media so much, and he's

33:15

in opposition to you guys. And

33:18

so I'm with him. And

33:20

so you've got to, I think, as a

33:23

profession, take account of how did you

33:25

get to a place where there's at

33:27

least some aspect of 45 percent

33:29

of the American people that could actually think

33:32

that the media is that dishonest that they

33:34

would not be willing to express a certain

33:37

opinion on that. That's

33:39

like something people should take stock of. Well,

33:42

listening to his talk, David, has been

33:45

Madamita M erger from the

33:47

Financial Times, who we heard from a little bit

33:49

earlier. And we all hear because we're going to

33:51

talk about artificial intelligence. And David, I know you're

33:54

looking at this. Every newsroom is looking at this. But

33:57

let's start off with the lead story on the front

33:59

page of the FTE. today which is

34:01

all about OpenAI, an

34:04

organization and META. For people who

34:06

haven't seen it, tell us what

34:08

the story is. So this is based

34:10

on having spoken to two

34:12

leaders from the two companies in

34:14

the past week, both of whom

34:16

sort of tantalizingly dropped hints about

34:19

the next models, the next AI

34:21

software that's going to be rolled

34:23

out. For most of us today,

34:25

you know, our first introduction directly

34:28

to AI systems was probably ChatGPT,

34:30

maybe Dali if you were kind

34:32

of playing around a lot. And there

34:34

might be lots of people listening who's never tried any

34:37

of it. Yeah, but I mean, I think ChatGPT

34:39

was really the first time that people were able to

34:41

interact with an AI system. But even before that, you

34:43

know, if you have recommended ads

34:46

and posts on social media, if you've

34:48

chosen something to watch on Netflix, if

34:50

you've ordered an Uber, you are interacting

34:52

with AI systems. So ChatGPT was not

34:54

at all the first time, but it

34:56

is the first kind of interface where

34:58

we can literally communicate with

35:00

AI generated text. But

35:03

this year, we're looking at the next kind

35:05

of wave of more sophisticated

35:07

AI technologies, which

35:09

will again be able to converse

35:11

back and forth, but also kind

35:13

of summarize information, create videos, code,

35:15

you know, doing things that we

35:18

believed to be, you know, human

35:20

domain, creativity and, you know,

35:22

kind of qualities for

35:24

decades. And the

35:26

kind of really interesting thing from what

35:29

I wrote about this morning was that

35:31

these scientists and CEOs and

35:33

so on believe that the next models

35:35

will be able to reason, will be

35:37

able to plan. And this is really

35:39

what the word means in English, they'll

35:41

be able to kind of look forward

35:43

to how to perform an action and

35:45

be able to figure out what are

35:47

the steps they need to take in order to

35:49

achieve that. So it just

35:52

makes them a lot more able to

35:54

do tasks autonomously. Essentially,

35:56

is that making them more

35:58

human? I mean, I know Elon Musk on Mars. they predicted

36:00

that AI will overtake human intelligence in the next

36:02

year. He previously said that wouldn't happen until 2029.

36:05

Yeah, I'm not sure how much store I put

36:07

by his comment. Okay, so great. You were saying

36:09

he's not right. We've got a bit of leeway.

36:11

But what would that mean for the media? Your

36:13

story, if it's true, that they're

36:16

going to be able to reason... What does

36:18

it mean for newsrooms in the media? So

36:20

it doesn't mean they're going to be human

36:22

in any way. But what it does mean

36:24

is that these companies are trying to develop

36:27

AI assistance. So think of it as just

36:29

your own individual assistant or agent.

36:31

It might have a name. Today

36:33

we have things like Alexa that

36:35

we kind of recognize by name.

36:37

And that will be how you

36:39

interface with the internet. So

36:41

today you kind of go to maybe Google as

36:44

the front page of the internet for you, right?

36:46

Or Twitter or X or Meta,

36:49

whatever, TikTok. And that's where

36:51

you kind of look through where you want to

36:53

go. Or it might be the ft.com homepage or,

36:55

you know, TV channel. But what

36:57

they want to do is create... everyone

36:59

should have their own personal AI assistant,

37:02

which will decide for you where to

37:05

go, what to read, what you need to do next.

37:07

So you think journalists will have that, newsrooms will have

37:09

that. What would it mean for the media? Well, everybody

37:12

who reads us and watches what you make

37:14

and listens to us will have that

37:16

and help. It will be the interface

37:19

and the mediator that chooses what we

37:21

watch, what we read, what we consume.

37:25

But more than that too, if I want to get

37:27

from A to B, how do I get there? If

37:29

I want a recommendation for

37:31

a restaurant, can you book it? So it just

37:33

becomes kind of our way in which we will

37:35

talk to the internet more widely

37:38

because it will be able to kind of plan

37:41

what we need next. So I think it will kind of be

37:45

the thing that filters our digital diet,

37:47

which includes all of the news that we

37:50

consume. David Rosen, Sky, you're listening intently to

37:52

all of this. How does AI fit into

37:54

your plans for how the Sky

37:56

newsroom would be operating in the coming

37:58

years? We're out to... about it. So

38:01

much of the coverage, not yours, because the book

38:04

is actually, as much as

38:06

I've got familiar with it in the last three

38:08

hours, really got a lot to

38:10

grab on to. But so

38:12

much of the coverage has been about it's all the zombie

38:15

apocalypse, and I think that just leaves

38:17

out a lot of really extraordinary possibilities

38:19

that come from it. Such as?

38:22

Well, first of all, it should,

38:24

AI should help

38:27

solve a bit of a productivity

38:29

crisis across the economy, and the

38:31

media is not, you

38:33

know, not out of bounds for that. But when

38:35

I mean that in terms of

38:37

a newsroom, what AI

38:40

fundamentally does in the near

38:42

term is it intensely values

38:44

information that has yet to

38:46

be revealed, and it

38:49

devalues information that's known

38:51

and sort of in the public domain

38:53

and maybe needs to be organized. Well,

38:56

so what I'm saying is it

38:58

values journalism. Like if I can

39:01

report something that hasn't yet to

39:03

be reported, that becomes very valuable

39:05

because the AI may not be able to

39:07

tell you that. And

39:10

so what we see in our

39:12

own newsroom is that things that

39:14

already have pretty much been bit

39:16

away to search, well, they're

39:18

just all those trends are sort of

39:20

accelerated. So that's like, you know,

39:23

just, you know, what's the temperature going to

39:25

be? What's the stock price? That sort of

39:27

thing. But as far as being able to

39:30

tell you that, you know, two people familiar

39:32

with someone's plans say that they have decided

39:34

to do something, it can't tell you that.

39:36

And that's fundamentally the service

39:39

that we provide. Amadamee from the

39:41

FT? Well, I do feel optimistic

39:43

there will be a place for

39:45

quality journalism, but I think the

39:47

big current challenge that everybody who

39:49

runs large media organizations needs to

39:51

be thinking about is, is this

39:53

the next wave of disintermediation? So we've already

39:55

had social media. I was gonna say, what

39:58

does that mean? Yeah, well it means... that

40:00

big tech companies become the platform

40:02

through which we consume the news.

40:04

Say the word again. No,

40:07

disintermediation. We've heard that phrase before.

40:10

Disintermediation. Disintermediation, okay. We

40:14

used to distribute news through newspapers

40:16

and that was the big cost.

40:19

But then you have Facebook or Meta

40:21

and all of the social media platforms

40:23

and the internet itself which made it

40:26

extremely cheap to put something online and

40:28

reach billions of people at once. But

40:31

then they also become the pipes on

40:33

which we are now reliant. Online

40:38

media organizations are dependent

40:40

on these big tech

40:42

companies for their views. You need to

40:45

go via Google to be found. And

40:48

with AI, that risk becomes even

40:50

more extreme because not only are

40:52

they responsible for showing your website

40:54

to your viewers, they

40:56

may also provide the answer. And

40:59

that's what they're all working on at the moment,

41:01

right? Generative AI is essentially a sort of

41:03

question answer summarization system. So what it's saying

41:05

is ask me a question, I'll tell you

41:08

the answer and that's kind of the point.

41:11

And one of the reasons we've asked you

41:14

all and David just alluded to it is

41:16

that you have a new book out called

41:18

Code Dependent. And it looks at how AI

41:20

risks exacerbating existing inequalities in society. And I

41:22

wonder if I could ask you that from

41:24

the point of view of news and from

41:26

journalism, because already, and I'm sure Sky is

41:28

very focused on this, there is a risk

41:30

with news that it super serves some sections

41:32

of society and other sections of society

41:34

largely don't access the news that's being

41:36

produced. Is there a risk that we

41:39

could end up with that being exacerbated

41:41

as AI becomes more instrumental in both

41:43

the creation of content and the distribution

41:45

of it? Yeah, I think that one

41:47

of the patterns I saw again and again across

41:49

my book, and I traveled to nine countries because

41:51

I wanted to go outside of the sort of

41:54

bubble of Silicon Valley to look at really how

41:56

AI is impacting people and industries

41:59

in Argentina. and Kenya and India,

42:01

and I saw it with healthcare, with public

42:03

services, with work, you're seeing a

42:05

concentration of power more than we've seen

42:07

before. And it's a very small handful

42:09

of tech companies that are amassing

42:12

that data, that knowledge, and now

42:15

these kind of algorithms that they're

42:17

running. And with the news business,

42:20

you've already seen local

42:22

news media kind of dwindling

42:25

when we had social media. And

42:27

even recently with the LA Times

42:29

Washington Post, we've seen major dwindling

42:32

of journalists there. And the concern is

42:34

that that kind of inequality

42:37

is going to grow. David, do you think AI

42:39

is going to put journalists out of shops? No.

42:41

I mean, some of what happened

42:44

in news organizations was there

42:46

are some which navigated the technological moment that

42:48

came just before this. And there's others that

42:50

just didn't do a particularly good job of

42:53

that. And so I think if

42:55

you look at, and you mentioned a couple of US

42:57

newspapers, some had a value proposition

42:59

where they could charge for it, and they have

43:01

a more robust news report than

43:04

they ever have before. And

43:06

others just weren't offering anything particularly unique or

43:08

different or keeping up with the pace of

43:10

change in their own

43:12

community to where people were

43:14

willing to pay for it. Look,

43:17

there are a lot

43:19

of built-in biases, algorithmic

43:21

biases, to be aware of. And then

43:24

you have to consider, I think, that, and

43:26

this would be maybe controversial, but some of

43:29

those aren't necessarily a negative. I mean, we've

43:31

been here sort of speaking up for British

43:33

journalism, for its value system

43:35

as far as going out, doing

43:37

eyewitness reporting like we do. I

43:40

mean, the fact is that the

43:43

majority of the internet's written in English. Many

43:45

of the sort of first principles of what

43:48

these language models are learning off of is

43:50

English language

43:52

and, in some cases, journalistic

43:55

content. So there's kind

43:57

of a built-in advantage here for people who are

43:59

interested in the world. involved in the kind of

44:01

activity we do in terms of the rule writing

44:03

of this whole system that we're in. David

44:05

Rhodes, Executive Chairman of Sky News Group, thank

44:07

you very much for being here. All very

44:09

illuminating. I know you've got to rush. Madam

44:12

Speaker, you're going to stick with us, please,

44:14

because I do want to

44:16

talk about something else, which is on Monday,

44:18

Donald Trump posted a video about abortion laws

44:20

in the US, and he did so on

44:22

his social media platform, Truth Social. He posts

44:24

there regularly. We wanted to have a look

44:26

at Truth Social in detail, and we'll do

44:28

so with the help of one of the

44:31

people who set it up. But first, let's

44:33

look at what it is. We've got Joshua

44:36

Tucker, who's a professor of politics at

44:38

New York University and co-director of the

44:40

University Center for Social Media and Politics.

44:43

Joshua, thank you so much for being,

44:45

well, almost with us, with us down

44:47

the line. And for someone who hasn't

44:49

heard of it before, just explain what

44:52

is Truth Social. Thanks, Katie. Thanks

44:55

for having me here. Truth Social is

44:57

one of a number of new platforms that

45:00

have emerged in the US that have tried

45:02

to cater to different audiences. Truth

45:04

Social falls into the category of what we would

45:07

call Twitter clones. It kind of looks like Twitter.

45:09

It has the same basic affordances as Twitter. But

45:12

as Billy explained in the beginning, it was

45:15

primarily directed at an audience of

45:17

people who were supporters of President

45:20

Trump and who were interested in

45:22

continuing discussions that the

45:24

organizers of Truth Social thought were not being

45:26

able to have

45:28

on these mainstream platforms. So there are

45:30

a bunch of these platforms. There's a

45:32

lot of them that have sprung up

45:34

that are sort of smaller kind of

45:36

niche platforms that go after particular target

45:39

audiences, but use a similar setup to

45:41

one of the big mainstream platforms. And

45:43

hi, Joshua. It's Ross here. People

45:45

may be aware that Trump's Truth Social has

45:47

been in the news an awful lot because

45:50

it's recently gone public in the last couple

45:52

of weeks. And for a while, at least

45:54

it had an incredibly high valuation in

45:56

the region of $11 billion. Just explain

45:58

what's happened there. Right.

46:01

So, TrueSocial, like a lot of

46:03

these new platforms, struggled to attract

46:05

many users. And there are reasons

46:07

why, there are sort of structural reasons why it's very

46:10

hard to break into these kind

46:12

of, to break into these information ecosystems.

46:15

All these social media platforms follow something called

46:17

network effects. They get their value from the

46:19

number of people who use them. And when

46:22

you're not introducing a kind of new feature,

46:24

and especially if you're targeting a particular niche

46:26

audience, it becomes hard to break

46:28

in and build up a large user base.

46:30

So like a lot of these other platforms,

46:33

it attracted some users, but it was quite

46:35

a small portion of the information ecosystem. But

46:37

what makes it different though, is

46:39

that it has attracted, it completed

46:42

a merger with a

46:45

company that was set up only for the

46:47

purpose of completing a merger with a company

46:49

like TrueSocial and to bring an injection of

46:51

capital into it. And following

46:53

this merger, suddenly the valuation of TrueSocial

46:55

went skyrocketed. And the question that everyone's

46:57

been asking is, why did this happen?

47:00

And so on the one hand, you

47:02

might expect the basic financials of the

47:04

market are doing it because people see

47:06

promise in it as developing future economic

47:08

value. But the other explanation for it

47:10

is that it's become a meme stock.

47:12

It's become a way essentially for people

47:14

to bet on former President Trump.

47:16

The ticker symbol appropriately enough is now

47:18

called DJT. That's the ticker symbol that

47:21

pulls up for this new company. And

47:23

as you pointed out, the price of it skyrocketed, but I've been

47:26

pulling it up over the

47:33

course of, as we're talking here today,

47:35

it's down another 4% today. And

47:37

whereas it had peaked around $80 a

47:40

share, it's now down to about $36 a

47:42

share. So there's a huge question about whether

47:44

there's a financially viable model here for this

47:46

to go forward other than this process of

47:48

being a meme stock. Okay, well, I would

47:50

like Joshua to bring in Billy Boozer, who

47:52

was a chief product Officer

47:55

at TrueSocial back almost from the

47:57

very beginning. Billy, welcome to the

47:59

Media. So am I Just want

48:01

to know when did you first hear

48:04

about says. Treat. Social. And

48:06

how did you end up getting involved? So.

48:08

I actually have a good friend that

48:10

was being brought into the project or

48:13

because of his expertise and specific technology.

48:16

And they they had some expectation

48:18

said this. This application with scale

48:21

are extremely quickly in the right

48:23

and because of that the technology

48:25

that we base. To

48:28

social On was called Mastodon which was

48:30

a open source social networks and that

48:32

Mastodon instance was also based on other

48:34

technology called Ruby on Rails that has

48:36

the ability to scale but is more

48:38

difficult to scale than other technologies And

48:40

so they brought in an expert which

48:42

was a good friend of mine. He

48:44

called me and said hey, have an

48:46

opportunity. Would you be interested in coming in

48:48

and showed up and there's or people. They

48:50

are five people there are a thinking about

48:53

and hacking on what it would look like

48:55

to create a social network. For a you

48:57

know, a Us President that is probably met

48:59

the most controversial Us President in Us history

49:02

and so on. and so I I. I

49:04

was like this isn't the craziest thing that

49:06

you could ever be a part of and

49:08

there's no way to not say yes to

49:11

it's as well as I had a lot

49:13

of the inclinations towards free speech and had

49:15

a lot of. Friends that were being

49:17

the platform door fired from their jobs

49:19

in the U S because of their

49:21

Christian values and so just decided that

49:24

this was the right opportunity to address

49:26

a problem that we were seeing in

49:28

our country where free speech was being

49:30

limited and also the media was not

49:32

necessarily distributing information that seemed accurate to

49:34

the real world picture that we were

49:36

seeing everyday and. How much into ice

49:38

and did you have with D J P

49:41

Donald? Trump. I mean. Why?

49:43

i get good and immoral i go

49:45

and present the application tools for the

49:47

first time ever i'm we had like

49:49

special devices that we we give him

49:52

so that he could have the application

49:54

and engage with it's p actually gave

49:56

me the key the the white house

49:58

retrospectively s i'm fairly certain that it

50:00

does not unlock a door there. You haven't tried

50:02

yet. Yeah, I have not had

50:04

the opportunity to try yet. You might get shot.

50:06

I think it's not a good idea. No, no,

50:08

no, I do not think so either. But I

50:10

got the opportunity to meet with him. And one

50:12

of the things that was really interesting about President

50:15

Trump is that he's, this is I think what

50:17

engenders him with the conservative right, which is he

50:19

seems like an everyday person when you're sitting

50:21

down in front of him having conversations with

50:23

them. We've all met,

50:25

you know, highly influential people throughout

50:27

our lives. But at times, those

50:30

people seem to talk through you, not to

50:32

you. And President Trump was not like that.

50:34

He's one of those people that actually will

50:36

sit down and look you in the eye

50:38

and have a conversation with you. Now, a

50:40

lot of those conversations devolve into having conversations

50:42

about President Trump. But that's primarily because there's

50:45

a lot of gravity there. So he'll talk

50:47

to you, but if primarily about himself. But

50:49

I wonder when you were talking to him, could

50:51

he use what you were building? Because

50:54

he thought, famously, he's not that

50:56

keen on using computers, is he? That's

50:59

correct. I mean, he's not necessarily a technologist.

51:01

And I mean, honestly, that was one of

51:04

the bigger outcomes that came out of building through

51:07

social was we ran into a lot

51:09

of political people and people that were

51:11

very interested in that political spectrum. And

51:13

so few of them understood technology in

51:15

itself. I mean, like

51:18

we were talking earlier about artificial

51:20

intelligence and the breakdown between what

51:22

society realizes or expects out of

51:24

these technologies and how they can

51:26

communicate them. In the

51:28

AI world, they talk about tokens a lot and things

51:31

like that. And those

51:33

aren't terms that the average person

51:35

understands. And so the same goes

51:37

for politicians. The vast majority of

51:39

them have no understanding about technology

51:41

whatsoever. And because of that, it's

51:44

actually one of the things that concerns me

51:46

the most because that technology is actually what

51:48

is Disintermediating society in

51:50

itself. If You look at it from

51:53

a non one to five year perspective,

51:55

but a 20 year perspective, you'll see

51:57

that technology is shaping the entire. The

52:00

or the of Society. So if our

52:02

politicians don't understand that technologies, they won't

52:04

understand the direction of society moving forward.

52:07

And met a meter from the finance times. This

52:09

into this I guess that very complicated word you

52:11

used as a bit light. London Buses you wait

52:13

if you're anti media so grave them to come

52:15

along and then they come along twice in one

52:17

sammy run as that. Even with any meantime

52:19

he got a said it and everybody knows

52:21

what that means. he out essentially to getting

52:24

in the lane, aging the place and something

52:26

else that but I think it's interesting that

52:28

you say you know he doesn't like technology

52:31

doesn't that using it The wanted to build

52:33

a social media platform that's kind of powered

52:35

by algorithms and and I'm just wondering you

52:37

know, how does somebody who doesn't like technology

52:40

a peep a users who don't like it?

52:42

You know why. Why build attack platform little.

52:44

Monotonous and that with us try and

52:46

understand the impact of this platform has

52:48

had we a lot about as valuable

52:50

as understand his impact as well. Uni

52:52

Shanks, his assistant professor at the department

52:55

of Communication at the University of Buffalo

52:57

and Edu done some of the first

52:59

academic research on Truth Social tell us

53:01

what you've been routes that he ensue.

53:04

Thank. You for the question I

53:06

think you're right at me like

53:08

are certain really looks as a

53:10

political on and which he sent

53:12

out to social elite. get cel

53:14

by comparing Trump's ability to eat

53:16

or to drive throughs attention using

53:19

Truth Social are geared at Twenty

53:21

Twelve or Twenty Twenty Two arms

53:23

Us midterm elections are versus his

53:25

ability to do sell was Twitter

53:27

during the Twenty Sixteen primary elections

53:29

in the Us. So as we

53:31

all know on during that Twenty

53:33

Six election. Cycles. Trump's Ah was

53:36

very good at using to on

53:38

Twitter to promote his preferred messages

53:40

and to attack his opponents, and

53:43

he emerged on triumphantly on out

53:45

of that cycles. And I think

53:48

that Cycle also like cemented his

53:50

status as a Twitter Salons on

53:52

Air in that sense arms after

53:55

Trump was the platforms die on

53:57

Twitter and after he created and.

54:00

The new our platform we were curious

54:02

to see his arm. He was able

54:04

to do the same thing with through

54:06

Social as he was able to do

54:08

so with Twitter Back and Twenty sixteen.

54:10

And did he could? He does. He get

54:12

the same impact with the news media and

54:14

with everything. Three Trump Social As it is

54:16

a Trump Social Precise. When you're going to

54:18

do that, I have three. They do. That

54:21

I loaded with the relax. Well

54:23

that the answer is on as

54:25

a say more complex then on

54:27

we expect weeks back to to

54:29

beat. While I would say there

54:31

are two sides are wealth up

54:34

the first that are successful side

54:36

is that slow to so saw

54:38

on. This was almost as effective

54:40

as Twitter and terms of driving

54:42

use attention to who Trump and

54:44

his social media activities and on

54:46

a during that Twenty six see

54:48

let's send during the Twenty Twenty

54:50

Two elections on cycles but to

54:53

social. Was not that effective compare

54:55

to twitter and the sense that

54:57

swell like in during the twenty

54:59

or twenty two ah, midterm election

55:02

cycle journalists stuffed directly embedding his

55:04

tooth, social posts or his truth

55:06

on in in the news stories

55:08

on their website on and didn't

55:11

the number of such stories arms

55:13

actually is orders of magnitude smaller

55:15

than the number of stories on

55:17

embedding. his tweets are bathroom us

55:20

when he sixteen. While. You do.

55:22

We appreciate your help in In in

55:24

helping us understand the impact of of

55:27

these posts on Truth Social. I'm Billy

55:29

Boozy You help create this product but

55:31

you don't. Work. For Truth

55:33

social any more, How com and

55:35

how was the process of leaving

55:37

Trump World. You.

55:40

Know Ah, I believe that a

55:42

lot of the social networks. Have

55:44

gone through an interracial where they realize I

55:47

think you on was the the one that

55:49

really pointed this out really well with with

55:51

an axe is that. They've

55:53

gone through this aeration were

55:55

advertising has been the primary mechanism

55:58

of monetization and hours. That

56:00

there are other opportunities and other

56:02

options to create monetization and create

56:05

value for your underlying users. And

56:07

so I was kind of for

56:09

for for for my entire career

56:12

of have been an anti advertising

56:14

person I believe that is is

56:17

a mechanism of control for a

56:19

platform and puts the platform and

56:21

it's creators in an adversarial relationship

56:24

based on algorithms and based on

56:26

Ah their need to create more

56:28

impressions for their underlying ah. Advertisers

56:31

and so still we we bifurcated and

56:33

leadership for based on that idea of

56:35

just not having advertising is the predicate

56:37

for how we were going to make

56:40

money with that service. and so I

56:42

just decided it was not the right

56:44

of place to v because I didn't

56:47

feel like that in itself would allow

56:49

for a true free speech network. But

56:52

just and then as quickly Barry, I'm

56:54

wondering, Trump doesn't have a reputation of

56:57

going separate ways with people always amicably

56:59

did. Did. You manage to exit without a

57:01

fool out. One. Day

57:03

and like the day to day operations

57:06

had nothing to do as President Trump

57:08

the day to day operations of that

57:10

business had to do with technologists building

57:12

technology where the purpose of free speech

57:14

while he was co signing and you

57:17

know putting his likeness on the line

57:19

for that service. It wasn't like you

57:21

know day to day operations was going

57:23

through a o am also of yeah

57:26

it. It. Really, it wasn't a split

57:28

on that because I mean even are not,

57:30

they are now. I would support President Trump

57:32

going into the next election and I merely

57:34

because of my values as A even though

57:36

I didn't really make a ton of money

57:38

off up with it. While we appreciate you

57:41

coming on to talk to us about your

57:43

experience of working with Donald Trump and helping

57:45

set up Treat Social those Betty booze a

57:47

former cheap product offsets with through social Joshua

57:49

Tucker's Well from the News from New York

57:51

University and yet he jang from the University

57:53

of Buffalo. Hurdles, it's Coors Light. doesn't

57:56

matter me to merger from the S.

57:58

P. David Ways the executive Ten. at

58:00

Sky News Group. Now I'm off next week, because you're going

58:02

to be holding the fort. Thanks for doing that. I

58:04

will be here, but now I'm, neither of

58:07

us will be here for now, because that

58:09

is it. Goodbye. Bye-bye. I'm

58:12

Helena Bonham Carter, and for BBC Radio

58:14

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