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--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): The Chinese Communist Party has a long record of targeting influential Chinese citizens. We'll talk with a Chinese businessman whose wife disappeared for four years in what is suspected to be politically motivated targeting.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): I'm Georgia Howe with Daily Wire editor-in-chief John Bickley. It's September 18th, and this is your Saturday edition of Morning Wire. More and more American men are not going to college, falling behind women at record rates. We'll look at what's causing the steep decline in enrollment among males, as well as what the outcomes could be for having fewer college-educated men in the U.S. And the 73rd annual Emmy Awards will air on CBS tomorrow night, and streaming platforms have nabbed the lion's share of the nominations. What do the Emmys reveal about how the television industry is transforming?
--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Thanks for waking up with Morning Wire. Stay tuned. We have the news you need to know. today.
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--:-- Host (John Bickley): Four years ago, Desmond Shum's wife disappeared in what is suspected to be another case of the Chinese Communist Party targeting influential citizens. On the eve of the release of his book exposing Chinese political corruption last week, his wife suddenly reappeared. Mr. Shum joins us today from the United Kingdom to discuss corruption in China and his wife's sudden reappearance.
--:-- Desmond Shum: Thanks for having me.
--:-- Host (John Bickley): So you were able to become extremely successful in business in China over the past few decades. And in your book, Red Roulette, you talked about the ways the Chinese Communist Party elites kind of choose who gets to succeed by giving exclusive deals and preferential treatment. Can you tell us a little bit about business culture in China?
--:-- Desmond Shum: I think the business culture is really, you have any business, whether it's a corner shop on the street selling newspaper or the size we were talking about, you know, it's hundreds of millions of dollar deals. You have to align with political power. If you're a corner shop, you may have to align with police on the beat. You have to align with maybe somebody look over your street. Otherwise, you know, they will give you difficulty to run your business. and you have to pay up. It's an official, but it's understood and just the way things are done.
--:-- Desmond Shum: And you also talked about how people live in fear of the CCP and that it's not uncommon for people to simply disappear. In your case, your wife was taken.
--:-- Desmond Shum: In my case of my wife, she was, you know, I call it vaporized. Disappeared by the state for four years now. She for four years my wife in that case has never been seen never been heard for four years And that was until very recently when she contacted you by phone and told you not to publish this book.
--:-- Desmond Shum: Yes. On last Friday, Financial Times and Wall Street Journal both run a story on her situation and also on my upcoming book. And then on Friday, somehow she was miraculously reappeared and made a call to me and asked me to stop the book launch. She claimed she is back into her apartment in Beijing. But, you know, that's anybody to guess, you know, is she really in the apartment? I have no idea. She signed a paper of temporary release and they can take her back any time. and she asked me not to do the book launch. She asked me the question, how would I feel if something happened to our son? And she asked, follow up with the question is, how our son would deal with a situation if something happened to me? So I take that as threats.
--:-- Desmond Shum: How common is it for people to go missing like this?
--:-- Desmond Shum: It's rather common. I mean, it's, well, common and uncommon. It's rather common to take people. I mean, they take people without acknowledging it. But usually those people reappear in a few months, or maybe in some cases, you know, big part of the year. It's not the most common to have people disappear for years. And when they come back, where did they say they were? Usually people just shut up. They never say anything. There's really no recourse. I mean, one of the reasons I'm publishing this book, I was writing this book for my son because she was taken, her mom disappeared for, you know, over the years. And I want to leave a story to my son telling him who we are, what we have done. But I decided to publish the book because, you know, in my view, this is probably, you know, bringing international attention to her case is probably the last resort.
--:-- Desmond Shum: Mr. Shum, thank you so much for speaking with us.
--:-- Desmond Shum: Thank you for having me.
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--:-- Host (John Bickley): That was Desmond Shum, author of Red Roulette, an insider story of wealth, power, corruption and vengeance in today's China. Coming up, the U.S. sees a steep decline in the number of men enrolling in college.
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--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): This show is sponsored by BetOnline. Football season is back and BetOnline is the number one spot for all your sports betting needs. Right now, new BetOnline users can earn up to $1,000 in bonus cash just for signing up. With the earliest betting lines and the largest selection of prop bets available online, sign up now and start this season off a winner with BetOnline.
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--:-- Host (John Bickley): A generation of American men, especially working class white men, are opting not to go to college, while women continue to earn degrees and graduate at a higher rate than their male peers. Over the course of the pandemic, U.S. colleges saw a steep drop in enrollment among men who seem to have decided that the expense and trouble of getting a degree is no longer worth it. Daily Wire investigative reporter Maraid Elordi has the details for us.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Yes, that's what we're seeing. Men now make up only two out of every five college students in the U.S. So over the past five years, U.S. colleges and universities have lost about 1.5 million total students, and male students made up 71% of that decline. This year, the pandemic exacerbated that trend. By the end of the school year that ended this spring 59 of college students were women an all high Only 40 were men That a pretty dramatic decline
--:-- Maraid Elordi: So what you're saying is women are still attending college successfully while men are not.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Yeah, that's right. Women are also applying to college a lot more than men. More than a million more women than men in the U.S. applied to attend college this upcoming school year. The gender gap exists at both two-year and four-year colleges, but it's the most stark at private four-year schools. During this past school year, female students were on average 61% of the student body.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Yeah, they just can't ignore the problem anymore. Some colleges are now accepting a higher percentage of men than women just to balance out the student body. Also, the decline in college enrollment is most dramatic among poor and working class white men. Minority men from the same economic backgrounds are now enrolling more frequently than their white counterparts.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Well, the expense is a big one and the fear that they'll be saddled with student debt and stuck in a low-paying career. But some factors, I'm thinking price here, those affect both men and women equally. Why is it men specifically who are opting out.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Yeah, that is true. There's no consensus on why men in particular are not enrolling in higher education, but there are a few theories. The Wall Street Journal said recently that some social science researchers have pointed out that boys have distractions to education that don't affect girls as much. Things like video games, pornography, fatherlessness, and medication for overdiagnosed attention disorders. Colleges have also found that girls tend to be more organized than boys about getting their applications in. One disincentive is the perception by some that higher ed can be an unwelcoming environment for males, particularly white males.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: All right, Maraid, thanks for the reporting.
--:-- Maraid Elordi: Anytime. Investigative reporter, Maraid Elordi.
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--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): The 2021 Emmy Awards will air tomorrow night, and this year's nominations provide a window into how the television industry is changing and how it's not. Here to analyze the state of the Emmys race and maybe make a couple predictions is Daily Wire entertainment reporter Megan Basham.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, definitely. The biggest one is the one we've been talking about for a couple of years now. And that is the near total domination of streaming over traditional broadcast networks. Right. To give you an example, we can look at the top two categories, Outstanding Comedy Series and Outstanding Drama Series. Now in comedy, all but one of the eight nominees originated on streaming. The only one that didn't is ABC's Black-ish, which is a cute show if you haven't seen it. For drama, only two of the eight nominees air on broadcast. And that's the same trend that plays through all the major acting and directing categories. One or two nominees are coming from traditional networks at most, while the rest are coming from a handful of streaming platforms.
--:-- Megan Basham: Now, are these nominees dovetailing with ratings and overall viewership? No, not really. Going by sheer number of eyeballs, traditional broadcast and cable networks still really blow streaming away. The most recent Nielsen ratings report shows that streaming accounts for about 26% of the audience share. Cable and broadcast combined draw 64% of the audience. So big difference there.
--:-- Megan Basham: Yeah, that's surprising actually. It is And let talk about that because that creates an interesting cultural disconnect for the Emmys So it used to be that the Oscars were viewed as kind of the elitist out award show whereas the Emmys were more considered grounded and in touch with viewers Well, streaming and the niche audiences it tends to serve has kind of changed that to a pretty significant degree.
--:-- Megan Basham: And just to confirm, Nielsen ratings capture streaming views as well, correct?
--:-- Megan Basham: That's correct. So Nielsen has adapted their metrics to capture streaming views in various ways. And it's proprietary, so we don't know exactly how they're doing that, but we do understand that their ratings are reliable. And what that's showing us is that popular streaming shows are a far cry from the popular TV shows of yesteryear. Now, if you take Ted Lasso, the likely winner for best comedy, that's my prediction, by the way, it's critically acclaimed and it certainly has an enthusiastic fan base, but most people, if you ask them, have never watched it. And at its viewing peak, it was still only the 16th most watched show on streaming. And as we said, streaming isn't nearly as strong as cable. So that shows you just how small of a slice of potential viewers we're talking about here with these winners.
--:-- Megan Basham: And I also think that we're starting to see that, well, we're not starting to see it, we are seeing it in Emmy ratings. They've been on a downward trajectory for quite a while now. Basically, every year we hit a new record low, and that's been going on since 2015. Right around the time, interestingly enough, streaming platforms started to really pick up steam. So the loss of common culture we're seeing through the fracturing of the audience with these dozens and dozens of niche successes rather than three or four huge hits, that's really hurting the Emmys.
--:-- Megan Basham: So I haven't really been following the Emmys this year, but what do you suggest I watch?
--:-- Megan Basham: Okay, well, I've got one just for fun. Dolly Parton really can do anything. I agree. Those TV Christmas movies have been a very popular genre, but like Rodney Dangerfield, they get no respect at all. Until that is Dolly Parton. So Dolly Parton makes a Christmas movie, and her Netflix movie, Christmas on the Square, wins for Outstanding TV Movie. It's only the second time a holiday movie has won in the history of the Emmys. Only other time it happened was in 1977 for a movie called The Gathering starring Ed Asner and Maureen Stapleton. So I would say if you're going to watch something, you got to watch that one because really we got to see what can't Dolly do.
--:-- Megan Basham: Right, I can get on board with that. Thanks for joining us, Megan.
--:-- Megan Basham: Thanks for having me. That's Daily Wire entertainment reporter, Megan Basham.
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--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): Other stories we're tracking this week. Schools around the country are experiencing employee shortages and are now making efforts to attract people to fill roles in the cafeteria, as well as substitute teacher positions. Massachusetts even enlisted the help of the National Guard in order to assist with the bus driver shortage in the state. And the conservative group American Accountability Foundation filed an ethics complaint against Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez for accepting an impermissible gift to attend the New York Met Gala without having a permissible exemption. Ocasio-Cortez's office told NBC News they are, quote, confident they complied with all ethics rules.
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--:-- Host (Georgia Howe): If you liked this episode and are interested in hearing more, subscribe to Morning Wire on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you're listening, and give us a five-star review. That's all the time we've got this morning. Thanks for waking up with us. We'll be back next week with the news you need to know. If you like this podcast, get the Morning Wire newsletter delivered straight to your inbox when you join at dailywire.com slash subscribe. Use code MorningWire to try a Reader's Pass membership and get your first month for only 99 cents.
