The Oscars, a Silicon Valley Bank Update, and Data Privacy

Kara Swisher: Not all journalism is the same. Take The Guardian. Our coverage has something unique. Fierce independence. Nobody owns us or tells us what we can and can't say. So we're free to report the whole picture. We connect what's happening in Washington to the rest of the globe. Expose corruption wherever we find it. And give fresh perspective on everything. From wellness and soccer to culture, the climate and more. Read, watch and listen to The Guardian for free at theguardian.com.

Kara Swisher: Avoiding your unfinished home projects because you're not sure where to start? Thumbtack knows homes, so you don't have to. Don't know the difference between matte paint finish and satin? Or what that clunking sound from your dryer is? With Thumbtack, you don't have to be a home pro. You just have to hire one. You can hire top-rated pros, see price estimates, and read reviews all on the app. Download today.

Kara Swisher: Hi, everyone. This is Pivot from New York Magazine and the Vox Media Podcast Network. I'm Kara Swisher. Scott Galloway is in line at the bank trying to get his money out. Now he can. Today, I'm joined by pop culture expert, Texan, and host of *Into It*, Sam Sanders. Welcome, Sam.

Sam Sanders: Hi, Kara. It's so good to be here joining you from Austin, just an hour and a half north of my hometown of San Antonio.

Kara Swisher: Wow. We're both in Austin. We're at South by Southwest. I did a bunch of interviews. You're doing a bunch of things. We had a nice Fox Media dinner last night. What have you been doing here?

Sam Sanders: So on Friday night, I got to moderate the panel for the premiere of *Swarm*, this new Amazon Prime Video show, the brainchild of Donald Glover. It's all about a pop star who feels a lot like Beyoncé and a super fan of hers starts to kill people for this pop star. It is probably the first time I've ever seen a Black woman serial killer on screen. It is really good.

Kara Swisher: So that's like the Beyhive getting murderous, right?

Sam Sanders: Exactly. That's why it's called *Swarm*. And apparently Beyoncé's seen it. I have an interview with a showrunner that runs tomorrow in my podcast feed. It's a good show.

Kara Swisher: A murderous fan? Why? Tell me why.

Sam Sanders: It makes you question a lot of the ways that we are all fans of people that we love. It makes you question internet and social media culture. It's one of those shows that leaves you with more questions than answers. And I love those. It was really good.

Kara Swisher: Seems dark. Murderous fans.

Sam Sanders: And then on Tuesday, I'm interviewing Julio Torres, a former SNL writer. He has a few comedy specials and a former show on HBO called *Los Espookys*. He has a new kind of comedic movie about immigration. Always a funny topic, but go ahead.

Kara Swisher: It's him and Tilda Swinton. And she's wonderfully crazy in this movie. The whole thing is just whimsical and delightful. So that's my week.

Kara Swisher: Oh, wow, that's great. I had to interview Kevin Systrom, who is the founder of Instagram, co-founder. And then he has a new company called Artifact. He's trying to change the way people read news and get good quality news. That was great. It was on the main stage. And then I did a little thing with José Andrés, who was quite important. I was there for that.

Sam Sanders: Yes, you asked a good question. He was really, really great. I don't think he gave you an answer, but nonetheless, it was good. And he's obviously a famous chef, World Central Kitchen.

Kara Swisher: This morning, I had a thing with Slack where I interviewed Lawrence Wright, who was a great writer. He wrote a big piece about Austin and the changing Austin. Essentially, Austin is inheriting all the jackasses who left San Francisco. And I was like, good luck. The ones who complained about San Francisco and wouldn't stop complaining. A lot of them are here in Miami. So we talked about that and the changing nature of this city, which is a well of liberalism in Texas, which is quite conservative. And also how that changes with all these libertarians and especially someone like Elon Musk moving in, who wants to build his own town.

Sam Sanders: I know, right. That's the new word.

Kara Swisher: Well, he wants to build his own town, but there's lots of people. Joe Lonsdale, a whole bunch of people have moved here along with more Hollywood celebrities, etc. He's been here since 1980, so he's an immigrant to the city, too, but loves it. He's from Texas also, like you are.

Sam Sanders: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: So it was a good discussion about the changing nature. And as we were talking, we were surrounded by all these giant buildings. Austin has changed so much. This idea of "Keep Austin Weird" is quaint. That's over.

Sam Sanders: It's over. And these people that are coming in are not weird in a good way. They're weird in a bad way, in a dark way. And so we'll see. I have been coming to Austin since I was a kid in San Antonio, and it actually used to be weird. It actually used to be edgy. And it's kind of gone the same way as Portland, Oregon. It's almost a sister city. It got too expensive. And now you walk down South Congress, where it used to be the live music capital of the world. There's a Soho House and these fancy stores I usually only see in Los Angeles. It feels like Los Angeles.

Kara Swisher: Yes, it does in a lot of ways. And I have to say, San Francisco, I'm going back in a week. It's gotten better. It's been cleared out. It's like the rains have come. We've washed out the assholes and it's back to being just a lovely place to live. We have problems. But one of the things that drives me nuts is how these people leave and they can't stop talking about San Francisco and California. I'm like, well, you're welcome for the internet, all those fruits and vegetables, and we will keep innovating. Good luck here. Good luck wherever you go.

Sam Sanders: My only fear with the folks coming to Austin, it's already getting too expensive for folks. And it seems like some of the tech bros that have come out here are going to start to trickle down to San Antonio.

Kara Swisher: Don't do it. Leave my city alone. Leave San Antonio out of this.

Sam Sanders: They want to take over. They're like a mold, my friend. You'll see. You'll see. And then they'll complain about the homelessness or that you're too nice to poor people. And then we'll go on from there. They could care less about anybody but themselves.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, good luck, Texas. Enjoy. When they started complaining, there's two things that happened when they left. Many for Miami, many for Texas. Texas has had a very significant tech scene for a long time. Not a huge one, but very important with Dell. People forget Dell came from Texas. Apple had a big facility, a lot of stuff. And it started off as a place where we were going to win in the semiconductor wars in the 80s. So it's had a long history. And it's never rivaled Silicon Valley. It still doesn't. But nonetheless, the rocketry has been here. Elon is just the latest, but NASA has always been here. One of the things that was interesting is when they leave, they always talk endlessly about San Francisco. It always reminds me of a girlfriend, someone who broke up with you and you can't stop talking about how much you hate her.

Sam Sanders: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: And then I'm like, good luck. Goodbye. See you. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. That's my feeling. This is what always bothers me about those kind of people. They have the means to move anywhere, but they're awful everywhere.

Sam Sanders: Yes, they are. They'll never find a place where they'll be happy and nice.

Kara Swisher: No, exactly. And also, they're here for taxes. They don't have them. They don't like taxes, and they don't like poor people, and having to pay for poor people or homeless people. And so they blame it on wokeism and this and that. And they'll do the same thing here. They're like locusts. And you're welcome for your billionaire fortunes. You should thank California. Whatever. I hope they build things. And just remember, Alex Jones is a homegrown native here. So you can make your own assholes, command of fact.

Sam Sanders: Anyway, I love Austin. I do love Austin, and I have a great time here.

Kara Swisher: Have you had some good barbecue?

Sam Sanders: Yes, I have a little bit. Salt Lick. I can't eat meat as much as I used to. I don't eat as much, but I love it. I love barbecue, but I'm just getting old, Kara.

Kara Swisher: I got the big beef rib. Where'd you go?

Sam Sanders: Terry Black's Barbecue.

Kara Swisher: Oh, nice.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, today we'll talk about laundry taxes and the Oscars. That's why you're here. *Everything Everywhere All at Once* and also the worst-case scenarios playing out in user online privacy. We'll get to that. And we'll take a listener question about podcasting, Sam. You have to answer that.

Kara Swisher: Let's talk briefly about the latest with Silicon Valley Bank. President Biden addressed the nation early on Monday. He said that executives at failed banks would be fired, deservedly. His comments came after the government shut down another bank over the weekend, Signature Bank. The government has said that depositors in both banks will be made whole, even above the $250,000 insurance mark of the FDIC. Investors, on the other hand, will not be bailed out, as they should not. Here's President Biden.

[Audio clip of President Biden plays]

Kara Swisher: I think he's correct. Investors should not be protected. They took a risk. That's how capitalism works. A very good way of saying it. We're going to talk more when Scott returns on Friday. But one of the things I would like people to remember for disclosure is Vox Media banks with SVB. Jim Bankoff had a sigh of relief last night when that was announced. This is not a bailout, by the way. This is not a bailout. They are going to take control of the treasuries and the assets. The reason they had trouble is they were doing a fire sale on treasuries, and that's why they were losing the money. The government is just going to hold on to these assets and own them, presumably. They will also own the loans, so they possibly could make money on this. This is not a bailout of rich people. The rich people who are the investors are getting hosed, as they should be. But just try to keep that in mind. There's been a little bit of ugliness about, let's not say, rich tech people. These are small businesses, lots of employees. There's no good, especially when there's no cost to the federal government here. It's the right thing to do. It's an elegant, easy solution. And it's the government at work. What really drove me crazy, I had a lot of difficulty over the weekend because a lot of the tech bros were screaming in all caps about this and that.

Sam Sanders: They were mad about this?

Kara Swisher: No, they were mad about the government not stepping in. Of course the government was going to step in. They are just so dumb. And they just scream. And now they're taking credit for screaming. And what they did is cause panic and fear and anger and everything else. And they did no good. And you didn't have an impact, boys. Let me just say, on Pivot, we had an emergency one. Everything we said was going to happen, happened. Because we're calm. And we don't have to scream just because I get stuck a little bit.

Sam Sanders: This is what I wanted to ask you about. I've been reading up on this. I don't know this world too well. But I have been getting some really interesting emails from First Republic Bank the last few days. I just signed a mortgage with them.

Kara Swisher: Your mortgage will be fine. Don't worry. It'll be fine.

Sam Sanders: But one of the things I was reading about with this bank failure, the thing that this bank was going through happens to a lot of banks. And the way they were going to address it is the way a lot of banks address it, but they didn't communicate effectively to this type of crowd. I keep reading that—

Kara Swisher: This crowd sold fast. They're very online.

Sam Sanders: Well, that's the thing. This is a different type of bank customer. If my bank all of a sudden had to start selling shares or buying things, I wouldn't know and I wouldn't care. And I'd be fine. But it seems as if all these customers at Silicon Valley Bank didn't just know the things that were happening. They were gossiping and talking with everyone else. And they all kind of ginned up some fear. Some of them might have done a run on purpose.

Kara Swisher: They're going to look into that. They're going to investigate that. This was a classic run on a bank spurred by online mania and spurred by all caps screamers about things. And it was solvent on Wednesday. This didn't have to go down this way. So if these tech bros and these startup folks and these Silicon Valley types were less online, could this have been avoided?

Sam Sanders: Yes.

Kara Swisher: Yes. Sort of. I think what happened was, these startups need this money. And so their VCs wrote them. Some of them acted with great responsibility, 100%. This was a good bank for Silicon Valley people. It catered to their needs. They have very specialized needs and were very helpful. A lot of people banked with them. Every startup I know banked with them. I'm very familiar with them. What they did is they made a bad decision to buy treasuries and hold them as the interest rates were going up. They should have been smarter about that. They were fired because they made a bad decision. This is not fraud. The assets aren't gone. It's not FTX. One of the things that's infuriating is this entry into the conversation. I don't think it really does have an impact with regulators in any way. They didn't pressure anybody. Then they take a lap. That drives me crazy. They did nothing. They created a panic is what they did. And that's the problem here. Regulators handle it the way they do with banking crises very well, I would say. I think they did the last couple. Both Republicans and Democrats did a good job on the last couple of financial scares. It's really scary and difficult. One of the things that's important to remember is that this is not fraud. Again, it's just incompetence in terms of not anticipating the rise in interest rates and being stuck in three-year treasury bonds. The government can hold them and then they'll get the money back and that'll be that. Good outcome.

Sam Sanders: Is this going to have any kind of chilling effect on Silicon Valley and startup land in general?

Kara Swisher: It's already happening with the layoffs. I think it'll give an opportunity to do more layoffs and get rid of startups that aren't working. VCs will use it because they're rapacious fucks. So that's what they'll do. They'll clear their thing out and blame it on something else. But yeah, there's a contraction happening in Silicon Valley. And that's natural. It's just the way things are. Kevin Systrom had all his startup money in Silicon Valley Bank. He was like, all of it. He goes, "What's 1% less than 100%?" He had 99% of his money. And he didn't know what he was going to do Monday. But now he's okay. He's also a billionaire, so yes, he's fine. He has five people, so it was a little easier. And he has money. But it was a little scary for everyone, touch and go if you can't have access to your capital.

Sam Sanders: I will say from the outside looking in, because I don't cover Silicon Valley, it feels like the people in charge did what they needed to do.

Kara Swisher: That is correct. Yellen and Biden took care of it. So thanks, guys. Yes, they do. Thanks a lot. And you tech bros, you did nothing and you deserve no credit. But anyway, I whacked them all night long. I was like, stop it. Stop screaming. Stop pissing in your pants, you bunch of wimps. And shut up. Also, they moved from being COVID experts to banking experts. That's my favorite thing.

Kara Swisher: One thing that's interesting, this is from Britain, and you may have some familiarity. Sports broadcaster Gary Lineker was back in the host chair after the BBC suspended him for tweeting criticism of the government's migration policies. He called the government policy to stop people from crossing the English Channel "immeasurably cruel." The BBC suspended him for that comment. He's a sports commentator. This is a weird one. Many of his colleagues walked out in solidarity, calling it a disruption in BBC sports coverage. He's a very popular soccer, football show. On Monday, the two parties announced a deal had been reached for Lineker to return to air. The director general of the BBC apologized and said the network would launch a review of its social media guidelines. You work for NPR, right?

Sam Sanders: I sure did.

Kara Swisher: How do you navigate that? You cover culture.

Sam Sanders: Yeah, I used to cover politics. It was a lot stricter there. I think a lot of times the rules need to be beat-specific. There are things I couldn't say when I was covering the election for president. And I got that. But now I cover pop culture for a living. I should be able to say what I want. Before I left NPR, I was on a committee that had set out to rewrite their social media ethics guidelines. The work was never finished. Literally nothing ever happened. You cannot regulate this because what you're asking these companies to do is impossible. These are people's personal Twitter accounts, personal social media accounts. And the company is basically saying, "We should have the right not just to monitor what you post on these things, but to tell you how you post. And you need to do it from your personal account to amplify our work. And we're not going to pay you for your tweets, but we're going to tell you how to tweet." It's an impossible ask.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, because this has become the way people vent, navigate, have their thoughts. So it's weird. Some people do cross the line if you're covering politics and say, "I hate Trump." That I can think they can intervene in. Even though I've always thought this idea of having no opinion is ridiculous.

Sam Sanders: Well, the idea of having no opinion as a journalist, the idea of the objective journalist, only serves privileged, wealthy, educated, white, straight men, because that is the default for objectivity. So when people say you have to perform, they're basically saying, "Be less Black, be less woman, be less gay, be less of these things that aren't default. You're being emotional."

Kara Swisher: You're being emotional.

Sam Sanders: Yeah. And so that whole framework has fallen by the wayside as it should. And I think increasingly these legacy newsrooms, and it's always legacy newsrooms. I get so much less heat about what I tweet from Vulture than I did from NPR. But these legacy newsrooms, in order to keep up, are going to have to just get over it. Get over it.

Kara Swisher: It's interesting. They always try to use the words "emotional" and "advocacy." You can be an advocate by what you choose to cover. The New York Times' overweening tech trans coverage for a small group of people. It's even smaller than trans people, it's like detransitioners or, you know, what's her name? Harry Potter lady.

Sam Sanders: J.K. Rowling.

Kara Swisher: You know, they write a lot about it. I'm like, you can be an advocate by writing a lot because you have such power. And then there's always this performance for an imaginary listener or an imaginary reader. But no matter what you do, the people who don't like NPR are not going to like NPR. There will be people saying "defund NPR" regardless of what Stevens keeps tweeting. So at a certain point, who are you fighting this fight for? And is it actually helping? But in general, I think a lot of these newsrooms, to stay relevant, are going to have to let the journalist be pretty free because there are other places where folks can go and be freer. It's a wide open landscape right now.

Sam Sanders: It's also all in plain sight. And I agree. One of the things I don't like is when journalists at the same institution are attacking each other. That's a civility in a newsroom kind of thing. And you can take that offline. You can take your argument offline. And they don't have to be performative in that. Sometimes I'm like, this is not the place for this. And it's a problem for a civil newsroom. You can fight, but again, do it.

Kara Swisher: Although every few years, the New York Times newsroom needs to publicly fight about something.

Sam Sanders: Yeah, they do. That's kind of how it goes.

Kara Swisher: I'm talking about personal attacks on other journalists. They do that, too. And I will say, as a watcher and a journalist, I love it. You know they're thinking that.

Kara Swisher: Anyway, speaking of opinions, we're going to have different ones, I think, here. Let's get to our first big story. This year's Oscars went off without an incident, but not without making history. *Everything Everywhere All at Once* nearly swept the night's top awards. It won for Best Picture, Best Actress, Best Supporting Actor and Actress, Original Screenplay, Directing, and Editing. That's kind of a sweep. That's a lot. Michelle Yeoh is the first Asian-American woman to win an acting honor. I cannot believe this, in the Academy's 95-year history. I guess I can believe it. And only the second person of color to win Best Actress since Halle Berry's win in 2002.

Sam Sanders: That was the one thing. I got to clarify. She's not the first Asian woman. She is the first Asian woman who identified publicly as Asian.

Kara Swisher: Oh, right. There was a winner in the 30s who basically passed as white but was actually Asian. That was Merle Oberon. She won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in *The Dark Angel* in 1935. She was South Asian but passed as white.

Sam Sanders: It is really great to see the Oscars take women as seriously as the men for once. I think this was the year of Michelle Yeoh and of Cate Blanchett. There used to be a time when the Oscars didn't like to even think about awards for folks who weren't a certain age, a certain way. And to see them in their 50s do these works that are like masterclasses and to be honored for it, I think it's great.

Kara Swisher: Let's take a listen to her speech. I loved it. I thought it was fantastic. I did a long interview with her when I was at the New York Times at Sway. She turned out to be kind of wacky and funny. I love it. I'd expect her to be so grave from the mother in *Crazy Rich Asians* or her amazing career in martial arts and stuff like that. She was a Bond, not a girl. She was a force in one of the Bond movies. She's had a long, interesting career, but she's hysterical, but she's also inspirational. Let's listen to her.

[Audio clip of Michelle Yeoh's Oscar acceptance speech plays]

Kara Swisher: I like that. Because it's true. I remember the Oscars of 15 years ago. The nominees for Best Actress had to be really hot and under 35, and that was all you kind of did unless you were Meryl Streep. And I think with the big powerhouse performances of the year from women, Cate Blanchett in *Tár*, Cia Michelle in *Everything*, these are meatier and better roles than the men are getting. And I like that. I think it's great. Netflix also had a strong showing. It won Best International Feature with *All Quiet on the Western Front* and Best Animated Feature for Guillermo del Toro's *Pinocchio*. It also won Best Documentary Short with *The Elephant Whisperers*. So how did you do in your Oscar pool?

Sam Sanders: I figured that *Everything* would do really well, in part because it's a movie that everyone can get behind. And A24's Oscar campaign for that film was pitch perfect.

Kara Swisher: Explain that. You said this last night.

Sam Sanders: Yeah. So, we entered the era of the Oscar campaign during the 90s with Harvey Weinstein. Probably the year that it really took off was when *Shakespeare in Love* beat *Saving Private Ryan*, and that was just because he did a good job of campaigning. Ever since then, the template has been that Weinstein school of, for months, the cast and the directors are out there trying to meet every Academy voter they can to win them over. The cast of *Everything* did that the most. Also, they had a campaign that made the film more than the film. The slogan for the film during award season was, "Everything has led to this." And so it's saying a lot about Asian identity. It's saying a lot about Michelle Yeoh and her whole career. How do you not support that? And I think especially after the year of the slap and declining ratings, everyone involved in the Oscars needed a feel-good story that everyone could get behind and say, "This is good."

Kara Swisher: It was also a feel-good movie and an inspirational one. Even though it was odd with the bagel and everything else, it had the indiness of it. But you felt better after watching that movie.

Sam Sanders: You did. This is a movie about how do you love your family and how do you find meaning in life. The beauty of *Everything Everywhere All at Once* is that you walk into it thinking it's a film about the multiverse, but it's actually about the bond between a mother and her daughter. And the multiverse just exists in service of this family story, which I love. I am used to Marvel movies that will oftentimes treat the world building and the multiverse of it all as more important than the actual plot. This movie did the inverse. The very conceit of the multiverse just existed to get to the family drama. And I think that's why it worked so well.

Kara Swisher: They don't take the multiverse seriously. Everything in the multiverse is dumb. Butt plugs and dildos and bagels.

Sam Sanders: There were dildos in it. There were hot dog hands. It was so surprising and delightful at the same time and also upsetting, too. There was a lot of moments. It's existential.

Kara Swisher: It's existential, yeah. Michelle Yeoh's face. And they also had some wonderful other actors. Everyone around them, who also was up for Best Supporting, Stephanie Hsu, was amazing. There were so many amazing people around them, including the older actor, 94 years old, who has been in a million things. The whole cast was wonderful.

Sam Sanders: I will say, as much as I love that movie, my least favorite part of the movie was Jamie Lee Curtis. And I was hoping that Angela Bassett would win the Oscar.

Kara Swisher: I know. Talk to me about that face she had. She wasn't hiding anything. She wasn't hiding it, and she shouldn't hide it. She was amazing. Everyone knows she is the best part of any movie she's ever in. I think I was actually betting on her winning that movie. I thought that Stephanie Hsu and Jamie Lee Curtis would both cancel out the votes for the other, since they're in the same film. But no, good for Jamie. Love her.

Sam Sanders: But I didn't. Actually, her face. I love that she did that. I was like, good for her. Be honest. When I ask Jamie Lee Curtis, "What's your face when you lose? What's your face when you win?" And she did the smiley thing. And I loved it. I was like, "Why are you doing that? Why don't you just say, 'Fuck, I should have won'?" That's what she did. And I agree. Angela Bassett is a national treasure. She was astonishing in the sequel to *Black Panther*. She carried the movie. Women carried that movie, really, in a lot of ways. Big hit. And I cannot believe this woman keeps turning in performance after performance.

Kara Swisher: I can believe it. But think about the way the Oscars treat Black women. It's kind of this way, even when they nominate them. We saw this year, to see *The Woman King* not get more nominations, to see no nomination for *Till*. That's a serious problem. And I think as much as the Oscars did a good thing by getting *Everything* up there as many times as it did, to not honor all of the Black women who deserved to be honored in this last year of film, that was criminal.

Sam Sanders: Agreed.

Kara Swisher: I was sort of like, oh, no. But I think the onslaught of the adorable Jamie Lee Curtis after being in sort of genre movies, as she called them. She watched *True Lies*. She's been in *Freaky Friday*. She's been *Halloween*. Love Jamie.

Sam Sanders: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: I think she was just charming the pants off of everybody and delightful.

Sam Sanders: Well, that's the thing they all did. No one out-campaigned that cast. But they're genuinely charming. They're genuinely charming. And they're all grateful to be there.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Genuinely charming. I don't think she could have. I thought Jamie Lee was going to because people are like, "That lady has worked like a workmanlike actress for years." I've seen those Activia commercials. I know she's working.

Sam Sanders: Poops.

Kara Swisher: I know. She's just—people like that story. I'm not so sure in that case, but Angela Bassett deserves every single award that she gets.

Sam Sanders: Did you like Jimmy Kimmel hosting?

Kara Swisher: I thought he was fine. I like him. I thought he was fine. Did you not?

Sam Sanders: I'm never itching to hear what he thinks, but he's always fine. I'm never like, "What does Jimmy have to say about it?" He was fine. He made the Ass-pirin joke. He made the same joke. He had a couple of good jokes. I like the Nicole Kidman is still stuck in an AMC theater. I thought that was funny.

Kara Swisher: Will that affect future nominees?

Kara Swisher: This is the second low-budget film to win Best Picture in a row. *Coda* last year. It beat out huge blockbusters. Like, who was robbed? *Top Gun: Maverick*. I'm sorry. I love that movie. We got into a fight about this. I only did. And *Avatar 2*. But, like, listen, this is $15 million. I think *Top Gun* spent $50 million on Tom Cruise's hair.

Sam Sanders: Let's take a side note to *Top Gun*. Why do you not love *Top Gun*? It was such a classic.

Kara Swisher: It's horrible acting.

Sam Sanders: Oh, well. The original film is a classic. This new one is that little love plot line between him and Jennifer Connelly.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, who looks fantastic. Let's just take a moment. It was the most unbelievable plot. They're not in love. Come on. I'm sorry. The acting was stiff. They ride around in the Porsche.

Sam Sanders: They sure do.

Kara Swisher: I just felt like it was really stiff and wooden, and the special effects were great. And the planes deserved an Oscar, just the planes. But it was a stiff movie.

Sam Sanders: I think it was a classic. They did the 80s movie. I watched it with my wife under duress because she's one of those. She's like you. Right. But she actually was like, "OK, that was well done." It was 80s. It was an 80s movie with better special effects. And I liked it. I thought they did a really...

Kara Swisher: Of course, it brought people back to the movie theater. Thank you.

Sam Sanders: Oh, it sure did. Made a lot of money.

Kara Swisher: Not just that. It brought people excitement to come back to the movie theater. And I thought it was just... it's OK to have a movie like that. Like, oh, well done. Well done. And like I have been enjoying all the movies that are getting me back in theaters. My thing right now is horror. Like horror will get me back in a theater seat. I'm going to go see *Scream* probably tomorrow. I liked *Cocaine Bear*. It was funny horror. I liked *Megan*. All that stuff. Give it to me.

Sam Sanders: On stage with Jamie Lee Curtis was Donna Langley who runs Universal. And she said *Cocaine Bear* was – she was in a pandemic – not a drug haze. But she said, "I'm in a haze. It was a pandemic haze and I just approved it." *Cocaine Bear*. And they made a lot of money from that. And obviously they're very – Jamie Lee Curtis and Donna were involved with the *Halloween* thing, which they all made so much money out of it. Well done.

Kara Swisher: Another well done. Yeah. I have all of a movie. But again, *Top Gun*, I would have been loving if they won. I would have been screaming.

Sam Sanders: I think Oscar snobs would have spontaneously combusted.

Kara Swisher: I know. To see that kind of movie win Best Picture. Good.

Sam Sanders: I can't believe I didn't like the acting. That's meant to be bad. Ed Harris, who's always growling. I love his whole new growling thing.

Kara Swisher: My favorite acting of the last year was Cate Blanchett in *Tar*. And you don't like *Tar*.

Sam Sanders: I love *Tar*.

Kara Swisher: I don't like *Tar*. Cate Blanchett is doing the work in that movie.

Sam Sanders: Okay, whatever. It's a master class.

Kara Swisher: Oh, come on. Tell folks why you didn't like it. Tell folks why you didn't like it.

Sam Sanders: Because it's a lesbian movie where lesbians don't have sex. I'm sorry. Like, we don't get Cate Blanchett as a lesbian.

Kara Swisher: Well, she's been in *Carol*. She actually plays a lesbian quite a lot. She's done lesbian stuff before. She's done it, and she made out. It was great, like, literally. So let me ask you, like, who do you think is hot? Give me someone hot.

Sam Sanders: Who do I think is hot right now? Oh, Chris Pine. Chris Pine. That's a man.

Kara Swisher: Chris Pine's in a gay movie and they never have sex. Come on.

Sam Sanders: There's never any. He's still pretty. I don't care.

Kara Swisher: It's like, no, I know. Stop walking around. Also, did you want to see that villain have sex? She's a villain in the movie.

Sam Sanders: Yes. It's Cate Blanchett. Stop. Second of all, I didn't even know what was going on.

Kara Swisher: I love, of course, my wife was like, "It's very complex." I was like, "Oh, my God, what the fuck is happening? Get me back to *Top Gun*." I get what's going on. I've watched it like three times. I can watch that opening scene where she's at the fake *New Yorker* Ideas Festival or whatever like forever. I just love it.

Sam Sanders: Okay. All right. Whatever. I just don't know what happened at the end. I was like, "What happened there?"

Kara Swisher: Like, that's the point. You're not supposed to know.

Sam Sanders: I know. I want to know. I was like, "I'd like some..." I don't like *Tar*. I truly did not like *Tar*. I just don't get it. I feel stupid.

Kara Swisher: You're not stupid.

Sam Sanders: It was like... I literally watched *Plane* with Jared Butler right after. I was like, "I need to watch..." I love *Plane*. I love Jared Butler. Okay, I get it. And then I know your type of movie. And then *Top Gun*, which is like, "Oh, they have to blow up the thing and go over the thing and then the thing and then they all have to hug and there has to be..." Speaking of gay scenes, they have to do the gay beach scene of everyone with their shirts off but still like not actually fucking. I don't... that movie... that was that movie was more gay than *Tar*. Let me just say. They had the whole... anyway. Come on. It was that was a good scene. I always loved the gay scene in *Top Gun*. They've had it several times.

Kara Swisher: So I see a question in here, you know, asking if *Everything Everywhere All at Once* winning Best Picture is going to make studios move to smaller movies. Yeah, change.

Sam Sanders: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: They will always keep making blockbusters on existing IP. *Avatar 2* and *Avatar 3*, they're going to do it. You know, *Top Gun: Maverick* or a sequel to that, they'll always do it. I think there might be more money. He's coming with *Mission Impossible*. Just you can go with me. You and I can go together. I mean, the Oscars always love smaller films as opposed to bigger films anyway. That's just in their DNA. We actually have an episode in my podcast feed from last Tuesday where we talk about how historically the Oscars never really award blockbusters. Like *Titanic* was an outlier, you know. So I don't think this drastically changes the industry. If anything, I think it is a shock to the heart for Marvel. The first multiverse movie to win an Oscar for Best Picture wasn't a Marvel movie. It was *Everything Everywhere All at Once*. And I think people are going to expect Marvel movies to be as smart and as interesting and groundbreaking and beautiful as *Everything Everywhere All at Once* is.

Sam Sanders: Some of them are. Most of them aren't. The *Black Panther* movies.

Kara Swisher: That one, but like most of them aren't.

Sam Sanders: No, they're just working.

Kara Swisher: I don't think the entire industry is going to change because *Everything* won, but I think Marvel is taking notes.

Sam Sanders: Taking notes. Absolutely. You got a story. Story's important.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, story matters. Interesting. Speaking, I want to get to international. *Parasite* director Bong Joon-ho called the Oscars a local festival. It is changing. Germany's *All Quiet on the Western Front* won awards in four categories. Best song went to "Naatu Naatu," which is infectious, from Tollywood film *RRR*. They were there dancing their little hearts out. The movies about American icons like *Elvis*, *The Fablemans* came short, though *Top Gun* and *Avatar*, of course, won Best Sound and Visual Effects, respectively. So is there more? There still isn't the international breakthrough necessarily. They're on the sidelines kind of stuff. Is that a local festival?

Sam Sanders: I don't think the Oscars care. It's increasingly local because fewer people watch it every year. At its peak, the Oscars had 55 million people watch the year that *Titanic* won Best Picture. Last year, I think 16 million people watched. But no matter how international you make your show, this is just the nature of TV. It's really hard in the era of streaming and on-demand viewing to get people to sit down to watch a three and a half hour show.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. They're just not going to do it. They're not going to do it unless there's something controversial or whatever. It's sort of formulaic.

Sam Sanders: It's so formulaic. It's an old formula. And I think that we're going to see the way award shows are done change drastically very soon. The SAGs this year, I want to say, did it on YouTube. And it worked out quite well.

Kara Swisher: They get a lot of money. All those Golden Globes, they get a lot of money from these networks, right? I think award shows, as we know them, won't exist 10 years from now. They'll be something different and hopefully better. And hopefully not four fucking hours long.

Sam Sanders: Oh my God. I know, that is long. Although the dresses, my daughter watched it for the first time, you know, she couldn't pay attention last year. Did you notice the red carpet this year? The dresses are great, but the red carpet this year was like champagne colored.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I know. Jamie Lee Curtis had a good tweet. She goes, "My carpet matches my drapes this year." It was really good. She made it good. Again, charming. I don't know. I don't know. These things, the Hollywood people love them, right? They love the parties. They love things. But you could do all of it online. Honestly, that's where I watched every bit of it. I watched in pieces. I watched the best jokes. I may consume a bunch of it, but sitting there is just not a thing. It's an enterprise of diminishing returns. Halfway through the Oscars last night, they just air the trailer for the new *Little Mermaid* movie. Because they could. They're just reaching for straws at this point. The business model is going to make less and less money every year they do this. They have to figure out a new way to give us award shows.

Sam Sanders: Yeah, they do. But I don't know if you can. It's interesting. I think people still like the Golden Globes because you never know what's going to happen.

Kara Swisher: Well, because they're all drunk.

Sam Sanders: Well, and then, yes. But last year, the Oscars, of course, you never know what's going to happen with Will Smith, which they veered away from. Although they did joke about it, which I appreciated.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, a little bit. Yeah, it was good. But it was, you know, that was not something that was good for the brand, although it got attention, right?

Sam Sanders: It sure did.

Kara Swisher: It did. So anyway, he was not there. One thing, last question on this. Netflix still hasn't won Best Picture. Could that help or do they care or is it important to attract an audience? They've made a big move and Apple TV saw a 20% increase in new users after *Coda* won last year. It's not clear if they stick around. Does it matter to them? They definitely are there. Ted Sarandos is there. I think Tim Cook went last year.

Sam Sanders: I think America's conversation about Netflix is so myopic.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, tell me why.

Sam Sanders: Netflix is the international streaming company. They have a footprint in every continent. They're everywhere. And they're poised to be even bigger abroad than they are here. They're truly global in a way that no other streamer is. So Netflix doesn't care. I mean, like, at first, they really wanted to make a point and prove themselves in Hollywood to the industry. At this point, they're hell bent on global domination. And the Oscars matter so little in that larger framework. And what they do really well is they'll take a show that's a hit in one country and then make like 12 other versions for 12 other countries where it could also be a hit. If you're doing that, you don't need a Best Picture Oscar.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I think so too. And I think putting that Chris Rock show, I didn't love the show, honestly. I thought it was kind of tired. But that was a great idea. That's the sort of brainchild of Bela Bajaria. And they're still the biggest. They have the most customers. I don't know. Everyone wants to act like Netflix is over. They're just less cool than they used to be. They're fine. They're just fine.

Sam Sanders: Yeah. Speaking of streaming, Paramount is reportedly looking to sell its majority stake in BET, perhaps to Tyler Perry. He's basically Mr. BET already.

Kara Swisher: I know, right. It could use the cash to build out a streaming network. It did turn down a $3 billion offer, and before that, a $6 billion offer for the Showtime network, which includes shows like *Billions* and *Yellowjackets*. I had an argument with Matt Belloni, who writes a great column for Puck. I was like, "They can't sell Showtime. It's where they have to get content." BET is a side or is a smaller thing. This is the heart of attracting great content makers. They're saying Paramount Plus with Showtime or something that was confusing from a branding perspective. But what do you think about this?

Sam Sanders: Yeah, it's confusing, but also it can be fine. Right now, FX kind of only exists as a brand on Hulu, and that's enough. I think also Showtime has to exist as long as it's on cable, right? They have to have some kind of infrastructure to be there. Larger picture, I want as a consumer all of these streamers to just go ahead and consolidate because it's getting too busy for me anyway. So if any of these machinations mean that I have to click fewer buttons to watch what I want to watch on streaming, then good. But this is the way it has to be. There's too many streamers. Some of this stuff has to go or get consolidated. So for me, that's the big picture long term.

Kara Swisher: Or become very niche-y. So you like it like BET. Like BET's got an audience and they can if it can reach all its audience that's great but part of a bigger thing it gets lost. It gets lost in those consolidations.

Sam Sanders: Yeah, but I don't think they are going to say... It'll be really interesting what happens over Paramount if it sells itself because Showtime does have... Showtime has shows that critics and TV fans love. They got *Billions*, they have *Yellowjackets*.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, I would hold on to Showtime.

Sam Sanders: Yeah, it's a good brand.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's a good brand. And they also have, you know, obviously the *Yellowstone* juggernaut, which will eventually fall out of favor. But, you know, Dick Wolf is still churning out *Law & Order*s, and they continue to do it. It's a very lucrative business. So it'll be interesting to see what happens to these smaller studios, which Paramount is now, versus the big ones. It's going to be a struggle for them. It's not worth very much.

Sam Sanders: Well, what is streaming worth at all right now? Most of these streamers are losing money, losing lots of money. So they all have to find a way to be profitable.

Kara Swisher: Not Netflix.

Sam Sanders: But I think increasingly all of these streamers are going to have to feel a lot more like the TV that you and I grew up with, with commercials and set showtimes. And you know what? That might be what needs to happen. I think watching shows like *The Last of Us* become destination viewing on Sundays. People like that, you know? People like that. And I think people are actually okay with ads. I have Peacock and I have the ad version. I watch the ads. It's fine.

Kara Swisher: Do you think binging is over though?

Sam Sanders: I mean, look, look, *Succession*'s another thing that's about to come back. I'm doing the podcast on it for them. That's every week. You have to wait for it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Sam Sanders: I think that is, that leads to more of a water cooler feel, which people want. When I binge a show by myself, I have nobody to talk about it with really.

Kara Swisher: Yeah.

Sam Sanders: When I watch *The White Lotus* over those seven or eight weeks, when I watch *The Last of Us* or *Succession*, I have dozens of fruitful and fun conversations with my friends and strangers online because there's time to do it. I think that's the way that we're meant to watch as a community. So I want more of that.

Kara Swisher: Well, good, good. And then maybe you could do a podcast on what the fuck was going on in *Tar*. Anyway, Sam, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, we'll talk about another scandal involving priests and location data and take a listener mail question about podcasting.

[AD BREAK]

Kara Swisher: Sam, we're back with our second big story. Some Catholic priests are being watched from above, but not in the way they thought. A Catholic nonprofit group spent millions of dollars buying up location data of priests who use gay dating apps to share the data with bishops across the country. We've seen something like this before. In 2021, a high-ranking priest resigned after a Catholic publication used purchase data to show his visits to gay bars. Some of the same men behind that effort are said to be involved in this one. Creepy, although. Question, though. Question. So these gay apps will sell location data to anybody who wants to buy it?

Sam Sanders: No, you can buy location data and then you track them to gay apps. But not from the app itself. Some of them are. Like there's, you know, you can get people's location data.

Kara Swisher: Wow.

Sam Sanders: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: Wow. Okay. Yep. I mean, gosh, I just feel like at this point, I feel horrible for these men and what they went through. But also, as a gay man, speaking to these other gay men, you really wanted to join the Catholic priesthood? There are other churches where you can just be gay. This is the one where it's going to be an issue. Who are these people that are still trying to become gay Catholic bishops? I don't get it.

Sam Sanders: Yeah, it's an interesting issue. My ex-wife used to run PlanetOut, one of the two gay original portals. One was gay.com, and they ended up merging. But I don't know if they probably still exist. And one of the things she always said in one of her decks is 1% of their traffic came from the Vatican City.

Kara Swisher: I know.

Sam Sanders: And so she was always like, "Look at that." Of course, they were using the site. I get that, but I do see why people are closeted on some level. They may be very religious, and they have to – it's just not just limited to gays. I have friends who are Catholic. They had a miserable marriage. They didn't want to get divorced. Their religion held a very strong thing on it. And so in this case, it's creepy that they are being tracked by much more conservative members who are trying to get rid of this. And so it's very hard to choose between something that means a great deal of your faith and this, which is who you are, right?

Kara Swisher: And so I focus on the surveillance part of it. Like, they could do this to anybody. Where did you go? What did you do? And especially when it comes to gay people tracking. Oh, no. You know what I mean? This is a constant risk and danger. And it's sad. I'll see these headlines every few weeks or months. You'll see a new story about location data and personal data being places it shouldn't be. None of it shocks me anymore. I just assume everyone's buying and selling everyone's data. And it's sad that I'm so resigned to it.

Sam Sanders: But I'm like, "Oh, of course." I tell everybody, your phone is a tracker. You're being tracked. You put it on yourself and you carry it around. And then you give up data about where you are too. You're feeding the data monster in a way. But on Apple, there's even a setting that if you don't turn it off, it will tell you exactly where you've been. It stays on the phone. But if someone gets a hold of your phone, they can see it. And so I show it to people. I'm like, "Okay, you spent 45 minutes here and then you were here." And they're like, "How did you know I was there for 45?" It says it on your phone. It's tracking you. So my thing is just like, all right, that's happening. I guess can't stop it at this point.

Kara Swisher: I do wonder what a scandal like this says about the future of the Catholic Church.

Sam Sanders: The Catholic Church needs all the people it can get right now. People are not going to church anymore. The Catholic faith is losing people all the time. Just from a business perspective, it would be smart for the Catholic church to be as open and affirming and welcoming to any and everybody as possible because they need more people. This is what I don't get.

Kara Swisher: Not going to happen. It's not going to happen. I was raised in a Catholic school. I'm not Catholic, but I know that faith well. And yeah, they're not setting themselves up for like long-term success, I will say.

Sam Sanders: My heart breaks for these priests, but it's like...

Kara Swisher: I don't think they care. I don't think they care. And, you know, I think it does get to the issue of meaningful privacy legislation. Do you know I bang on about a lot? Was that ever going to happen, though?

Sam Sanders: Well, that's the issue. It almost did in this session. Of course, it was that and antitrust legislation and algorithmic transparency legislation ended up on the floor. Congress's health insurance data was stolen last week, for example.

Kara Swisher: Yes.

Sam Sanders: They claim to have the data. It's up and verified, including Social Security numbers on Blackmark 4. And there's so much information everywhere. And the companies are being sloppy about it. And then they themselves are using it for all kinds of things, selling it and things like that. They say it's anonymized, but much of it isn't.

Kara Swisher: This is who else benefits from our lax privacy environment. The FBI admitted this month that it previously bought Americans' location data instead of getting a warrant.

Sam Sanders: Why wouldn't they?

Kara Swisher: Oh, my God. Wow. *Politico* reports that Amazon's Ring gave police footage from inside a man's home as they investigated his neighbor. You know, spokesman called the story a hoax, but Amazon walked that comment back. People can hack those things, all of them, not just Ring. I don't have any. My son went around unplugged. We had a house we moved into, had some, and my son literally walked around and unplugged all of them.

Sam Sanders: I believe it. They're so scary now. I'll be walking the dog around the neighborhood, and the little cameras in the front yard will say, "We see you," or "You're on camera." It's so creepy.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah, it is. These data brokers, they sell the location of people who visited Planned Parenthood. It starts to get very frightening. And then, of course, what you watch, something you do, what you watch, not just for selling you stuff, but who are you? And they can parse you into the smallest little bits. And it's good for, say, the area you cover, culture in Hollywood, because they can know what to give you, right? You do that on Amazon by what you watch. You put footprints everywhere.

Sam Sanders: I'm not sure it's good, though. You know, I mean, we're in this. You like some of it?

Kara Swisher: No.

Sam Sanders: But OK. Let's think about it. OK, I cover a lot of TV and movies and the folks that make TV and movies have gotten better than they ever been at tracking what I watch, how I watch it, when I watch it. It hasn't made the content better for me. I don't think the TV I'm watching now is drastically better than the TV I was watching 15 years ago. I don't.

Kara Swisher: It does give you knowledge. You know the Ashton Kutcher, Reese Witherspoon movie, *Your Place or Mine*? I don't want to know about it. Was it good? You know what? It's Kara Swisher. I wouldn't have seen it. But I was like, yeah, it was ridiculously stupid. And it was so old school. And I love it. I love old school. It was like a romance drama. And, you know, I definitely... and then I was served up on Netflix also.

Sam Sanders: *You People*. I did not like that movie. Tell me why. Kenya Barris hasn't made a good thing since *Black-ish*. And I think he's stuck in this kind of feedback loop with himself where he keeps rehashing his own life on screen instead of just dealing with his stuff with the therapist. I don't know. It's just the jokes were tired, if not just downright offensive. It was a strangely sexless movie to be a rom-com. Like the romance between the two leads made no sense. They didn't seem to like each other, you know? So it just felt off. It just felt off and not made for this era or this moment.

Kara Swisher: It was such a good cast, right? That's the thing. How do you screw up David Duchovny and Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis-Dreyfus? How do you screw that up? How do you screw that up?

Sam Sanders: Yeah, and I love Lauren London. I love her. She's great. She's great. But the movie didn't hold together for me. It didn't hold together for me.

Kara Swisher: You know what was interesting is that it felt like *Guess Who's Coming to Dinner*. I was like, "Look what I'm watching."

Sam Sanders: That was a better movie, right?

Kara Swisher: That was a great movie.

Sam Sanders: Yeah, it was.

Kara Swisher: I will say, you know, I think it's like, all right. We have to rewatch that. It might not have been a better movie. You could be like, "Oh, ow." This question of like, is the data and surveillance on what we watch making stuff better for us to watch? It's not. But I think the larger issue with our viewing experience is period. There's just too much shit to watch right now. And it makes the experience of watching anything harder than it should be and less fun.

Sam Sanders: Like last year, there were over 550 scripted shows.

Kara Swisher: Well, that's going to be less with the writer's strike and the contraction.

Sam Sanders: Yeah, but like that's too much. And so part of what makes a TV or film experience good is how you get to it and how comfortable it feels to watch it and whether or not you feel overwhelmed by the amount of stuff you have to watch. But sometimes the very number of things I need to watch makes me less excited about everything I end up watching. It's just too much.

Kara Swisher: So how do you find what you like? I'm curious if they, you know, without being tracked and being told what you like and they serve up more of what you like, which is very common now with all of them, by the way. You know, my daughter watches *Frozen* on repeat on, as I've talked about many times on Disney Plus. And we're getting, there's like 90 *Frozen*, like two minute ones, 10 minute ones, 12 minute ones. And so, and I appreciate it. I'm like, "Oh, another, Olaf is doing something for 13 minutes. Perfect." Well, I clean the dishes and you can watch this. How do you find what you want to watch now? What is your method without being it forced, you know, down your gullet?

Sam Sanders: Well, I work at Vulture, so I trust the fine folks there. Some good folks that cover TV and movies there. And what do they say to watch? I watch. I rely a lot on newsletters and, like, online voices I trust. Like, if most of my favorite follows on Twitter are watching the same show and tweeting about it, I'm probably going to try to watch it. So I kind of trust my colleagues and peers.

Kara Swisher: Okay, so people, not AI, not machine learning.

Sam Sanders: Yeah, I trust people. I trust people.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, yeah. What about you, Kara? I think we're being manipulated in ways we don't even understand of what we should look at and what needs to be seen. And I think it's only going to be increasingly more. This AI will be telling us, "Go watch this, go do this." He'll tell us to do a lot of things. "This is time to brush your teeth. This is time to do that." I just want less things to watch.

Sam Sanders: Yeah, yeah. That's what I want. What's your favorite thing right now?

Kara Swisher: I really have recently become obsessed with *The Real Housewives of Potomac*.

Sam Sanders: Oh, okay.

Kara Swisher: I hadn't watched *Housewives* since Nene in Atlanta. But a critical mass of my friends were like, "You must watch *Potomac*." I started and Andy Cohen is an evil genius. It's just, it's just like, it's trash TV. And the stakes are so low. I love it. There was a three episode plot arc about how one of the housewives was mad because the other housewife had Googled her. And they got like three episodes out of that. They just make something out of nothing in this hilarious way. That's my current obsession. It's not good TV but I like it.

Sam Sanders: Yeah. Okay. What about you?

Kara Swisher: Well, I have seen some of the episodes of *Succession* because I'm doing this podcast. I cannot reveal a thing, but it's terrific.

Sam Sanders: Okay, okay. I'm ready for it.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's quite good. The writers are pulling out all the stops. It's just so beautifully... it's so beautifully written. And now they've... they're really writing the hell out of it. So I can't say a word about it, but the podcast is coming soon. But I watch old things. I'm now watching all of *Madam Secretary*. I love Téa Leoni. I love Tim Daly. Turns out Tim Daly's a Pivot fan. I didn't know that, but I found out. I love that show, and I thought it's beautifully done. I like it better than *West Wing*, which I also recently watched the entire all the seasons. So I go back and watch old seasons of things that I really like that are smart. And I love her. She looks fantastic. She's plucky. She's plucky. Between her and Jared Butler, I'm very happy with my watching needs.

Sam Sanders: Anyway, let's pivot to a listener question. This question comes from Twitter, user BGWG. Thank you, BGWG. BGWG. This is for you, Sam. For Sam, who I first heard as a political reporter on NPR, what do you think is the future of independent journalism? A small question. Is it Substack, podcasts, blogs? Will those survive? I don't think they call them blogs anymore, but will those survive and thrive or be replaced by the next new thing? And I'm going to add, what is the next new thing, Sam?

Sam Sanders: Yeah, we don't know. But I will say, I think independent journalism always finds a way to survive. I think journalism is inherently a precarious endeavor, and it usually doesn't make money. Like, usually journalism as an enterprise does not make money on its own.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it's not a good business.

Sam Sanders: And when you think of the heyday of newspapers, the news division wasn't making the money. The classified ads were making the money, right? So there's always going to be a problem, an existential crisis over whether there's enough money to make the journalism, because that's just the way this business model is set up. It's not a money-making venture. So that question, I never want to get too worried about it because that's just always the question.

In terms of what's next — is it Substacks or podcasts or blogs? — we just find new ways to do the same thing. You will either read a story or you will listen to a story. Before podcasts, you listened to stories on the radio. Now you do it on a podcast, right? Before you read a Substack or a blog, you read a physical newspaper. None of these new things are reinventing the wheel. You're either going to read it or listen to it or watch it. It's a question of where you do that and what buttons you click to get there. But there'll always be folks writing good shit and making good shit to listen to.

I'm less interested in whether I read the good writing on a blog or on a Substack or on a New York Times website. I'm more concerned about who are the people making this stuff and are they paid enough wherever they are? And is it a diverse group of people making this stuff? I want whatever the new space is — the new blog, the new subsection — to pay people well, let them own their shit, and make sure that it's not just white guys doing it. Besides that, I don't care where it is.

You also have to be, as a reporter, entrepreneurial in terms of picking different things. And I've done that. You're writing, you're doing podcasts, you've done a lot of different things and you've shifted a lot. You're very much like me, shifted as times change and as interest changes. It doesn't matter what the medium is, but you do have to, as a journalist, be very adaptable.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. Well, and you have to be — this is a thing that I had to unlearn. When I started out working in public radio many years ago, they would tell you, "You're not part of the story. You don't matter. Get out of the way." But in this media landscape, you need to be — and I hate to use the word — you have to kind of be your own brand, a thing that people will follow wherever you go. I want to make journalism so that wherever I make it, people will come to hear it or see it or read it because I'm doing it there.

Sam Sanders: Right.

Kara Swisher: I think that the days of just trusting the institution to always take care of the journalist, those days are over. The industry's changing too quickly. I literally had that conversation last night with a couple of people.

Sam Sanders: Yeah.

Kara Swisher: And like, God bless these institutions. NPR trained me well, but I have to be in charge of my career at no company.

Sam Sanders: 100%. That's a very good piece of advice. Thank you, BGWG. All right. If you've got a question you'd like answered, send it our way. Go to nymag.com/pivot to submit a question for the show, or call 855-51-PIVOT.

Kara Swisher: Sam, one more quick break. We'll be back for wins and fails.

[AD BREAK]

Kara Swisher: Okay, Sam, let's hear a win and a fail. Besides Tom Cruise being cheated from his much-deserved Oscar. But go ahead.

Sam Sanders: I think Rihanna fans won. She performed at the Oscars Sunday night. She performed that song, "Lift Me Up," from the *Black Panther: Wakanda Forever* soundtrack. I hate that song. And I didn't want to hear it live. It sounds like a funeral dirge, which it kind of is. But I was worried that she was going to butcher the live performance. It wasn't bad. And she also said this week that there might be a new Rihanna album by the end of the year. So I think if you're a Rihanna fan, you're feeling okay right now.

Kara Swisher: So she tapped out. Now she's tapping back in heavy, right? We need a new album. It's been six or seven years since her last album, and we miss her.

Sam Sanders: Don't you think she should have that baby first?

Kara Swisher: I feel like, I don't know. Maybe not.

Sam Sanders: Okay, whatever. Make a dance hall album about the baby, about the pregnancy.

Kara Swisher: Oh, great. Whatever you got to do, Rihanna. You know what? I've never done more work since I had children, but go ahead. I didn't say that.

Sam Sanders: So I think this will be a good year for Rihanna fans. And I think that in spite of me hating that song, she didn't butcher it at the Oscars. So I'm happy. So she's my win right now.

Kara Swisher: Did you like the Lady Gaga one adjacent? The jeans and the simple. She's a powerhouse.

Sam Sanders: I didn't love that song, but whatever she sings, I'll listen to. She can sing.

Kara Swisher: She can sing. All right. Fail. What's your fail?

Sam Sanders: These Silicon Valley folks getting on my nerves with this bank stuff. Let Uncle Joe and Aunt Yellen figure it out. Shut up. I mean, we've talked about it already, but I do think that there's a class of man on Twitter, further inspired by Elon Musk, to just tweet bullshit and act like it's fact or like it's Bible. So for me, the fail is all the men of Twitter. Shut up. Shut up. Shut up.

Kara Swisher: I love it. I would agree. And Elon, too. Stop tweeting, Elon. Stop doing it. I'd be like, frequently wrong, but never in doubt. And then they play victim. They're the victims. And then they had the nerve to say that women are too emotional. Have you seen these Twitter bros?

Sam Sanders: Yeah, I know.

Kara Swisher: Oh my God. I call them pants pissers and they don't like that.

Sam Sanders: Oh yeah, oh yeah.

Kara Swisher: Oh, you know, one or two of them had an issue with that back in the day. So I knew it would hit land. Those are very good. I like those. Those were great. I agree.

A win is the government handling this really well. As we thought they would, because this is a serious issue. They could not handle this badly. This is the thing I keep saying about Joe Biden. It's like, actually, he's doing fine. He's not exciting at all, but he's doing fine. Ja-Biden.

Sam Sanders: Ja-Biden.

Kara Swisher: And I think a fail is probably these budget negotiations. Stop taking us on the brink. Well, we're going to have a shutdown, right? We're going to have a shutdown. I don't know. I just stopped taking us to the brink. This is ridiculous. We didn't elect you to do this.

Sam Sanders: We didn't.

Kara Swisher: Some people did. The people who elected Marjorie Taylor Greene elected her to do this.

Sam Sanders: Well, it's one tiny little part of Georgia. They shouldn't determine these things to hold the rest of us hostage. Most people just want these things to work, just like with this banking thing. Everyone just wanted it to calm the fuck down.

Kara Swisher: It didn't work, yeah. So anyway, that's what it is. Sam, that is the show. You can and should listen to Sam on his podcast, *Into It*, from Vulture and Stitcher's *Vibe Check*. Sam, what else is coming up on your shows?

Sam Sanders: Yeah, so we just took *Into It* from once a week to twice a week. Now we're publishing on Tuesdays and Fridays. If you check our feed right now, the last week was all devoted to the Oscars. We talk about Oscars' historic problems with blockbusters. And then we have predictions from two Vulture film critics, and they were pretty spot on. Everyone was like, "It's going to be the year of *Everything Everywhere*," and they were right.

This week we're going deep on internet celebrity feuds. It'll be in feeds Tuesday of this week.

Kara Swisher: What's the big one?

Sam Sanders: The Justin Bieber, Hailey Bieber, Selena Gomez eyebrow feud.

Kara Swisher: Yeah, it contains a multitude. I'm gonna just listen to it. I don't know about this.

Sam Sanders: And then we'll also break down what's being called the biggest scandal in reality TV history. This is the Scandoval from *Vanderpump Rules*. I usually don't follow these things, but there's something to be said about internet culture and TikTok and studying them. So that's what we do.

Kara Swisher: Wow. Is there a scandal? They're lying all the time.

Sam Sanders: They are. They are. People are shocked by this. People are shocked. And that's hard to do for reality TV fans. It's like thinking World Wrestling is...

Kara Swisher: Okay. Whatever.

Sam Sanders: Oh, it's real. It's not real.

Kara Swisher: Oh my God. Anyway, please listen to all those things. They're wonderful. Sam does a wonderful job, as you can see from here.

Sam Sanders: Thank you.

Kara Swisher: So, *Into It* publishes Tuesdays and Fridays, featuring the best and brightest from Vulture. And my other show, *Vibe Check*, comes out every Wednesday, and we're talking about all the things on that show as well.

Sam Sanders: All the vibe.

Kara Swisher: All the vibe.

Sam Sanders: All the vibe.

Kara Swisher: Well, get with the vibe. I have no vibe, just so you know.

Sam Sanders: You have a lot of vibe, Kara. I love your vibe.

Kara Swisher: I don't know. It's not. It's whatever. It's just a grumpy old lady. That's my vibe. Me and Jamie Lee Curtis. She's just more friendly.

Okay, we'll be back on Friday with more *Pivot*. And Scott will be back wherever he is. I have no idea where he is. Sam, please read us out.

Sam Sanders: Today's show was produced by Lara Naiman, Evan Engel, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie Indradat engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows and Mia Silverio. Also, subscribe to this show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thank you for listening to *Pivot* from New York Magazine and Vox Media.

Kara Swisher: Kara, thank you for having me on.

Sam Sanders: Of course, anytime.

Kara Swisher: Yeah. The show is back on Friday for another breakdown of all things tech and business. Till then, don't trust the Twitter dudes.

Sam Sanders: Don't trust them.