Lachlan Cartwright Started in Tabloids. Now He’s a Must-Read Media Gossip.

18:17Peter Kafka:You get to the National Enquirer 2015-ish. 2014. I was at the Daily News. Dylan Howard, who was the editor then, who I knew, being a fellow Aussie, makes me an offer in a nightclub. That's exactly where you should definitely discuss your future job prospects. At the National Enquirer. As the executive editor of the Enquirer and Raider Online. And I think people who listen to this understand that the National Enquirer, some of them are still associated with like aliens landing and sweeping up land. But really they do. And they do some of that. They do a lot of questionable stuff. They also do very aggressive journalism.

18:53Peter Kafka:What was your understanding of the Enquirer when you went? Yeah, I mean, my understanding was that, you know, much like British tabloids, they, you know, break yarns like the John Edwards story. And Dylan had this vision at the time to restore it to that glory and wanted to break big yarns, which is ironic because two of the yarns that we had, and I wrote about this for the New York Times magazine cover story last year, two of the big yarns that we had that were caught and killed were about Harvey Weinstein and Donald Trump. And so his pitch to me was like, we'll break the next John Edwards and we'll break the next type of words.

19:21Peter Kafka:So let's slow down here. So like you said, you have written about your time at the Inquirer. It's a great story in the Times Magazine. I think you did a daily podcast as well, where you talk about this at length. So we're not going to go to it at super length, but you were there when the Inquirer was essentially an arm of the Donald Trump presidential campaign, the 2015, 2016 election cycle. And subsequently, we learned about this idea of catch and kill. So why don't you just slowly explain what catching and killing means? Sure. A catch and kill is when a story is purchased off the market to benefit someone.

19:56Peter Kafka:We know this is a great story or could be a great story. Instead of publishing it, we'll pay you and never run it. Correct. So the person then is signed up on an agreement that they can't speak about the story ever again, a non-disclosure. So it's the opposite of journals. Correct. Yes. And it was a practice that I was highly uncomfortable with. And I then became a source. And the reason the words catch and kill are back in the bloodstream is on the eve of the election, I get a call from a Wall Street Journal reporter, Lucas Elpert. He says, can you help? We have this story about this woman, Karen.

20:27And I said, Lucas, I can't, I need to call you back. We're still in how it was basically where you are to me right now. And I went downstairs outside that building just over there that I was referring to earlier. I walked away from it a little bit and called him back. And I said, two things here. Firstly, I don't exist. I'm a ghost. You can't tell your editor who I am. I'm going to lose my visa if they find out I'm doing this. And secondly, this was a catch and kill. And Lucas said to me, what's a catch and kill? Karen McDougal.

20:50Peter Kafka:Correct. Was a playboy model, I guess. Correct. Who said, I've got to add an affair with Donald Trump. Correct. And instead of you guys publishing that story, you paid her to not tell it. And then instead, you guys, and you were directly involved in this, ran stories about her. Fitness call. And you were also doing stuff. And again, you talk about this in the article. This is more propaganda than catch and kill, right? Where you're doing stuff about Hillary Clinton that you know is not true or it's truthy-ish or exaggerating the way she looks for pictures. Three months to live, you know, these kind of things.

21:22Peter Kafka:You're doing this stuff that you know is either not true or probably not true. You understand why you're doing it. And then, again, you can consult the Times Magazine story for your sort of you leaving there. But you say, look, this was shameful, what I was part of and partly what I did. So do you feel like there was a criminal enterprise going on there? And I don't think anyone's ever been charged formally with a crime. Besides Donald Trump. Besides Donald Trump. The one trial who's actually found guilty. Because that was the trial. It was involved. The Hush Money trial. The Stormy Daniels Hush Money stuff.

21:58Peter Kafka:But you were in the epicenter of this. Your argument is there was a lot of criminal stuff there, and I saw a lot of it, but didn't quite understand what was going on. Look, I, at the time, wasn't part of the central group that was leading this. That was Dylan Howard and David Pecker. And there was this agreement that I wasn't privy to. I remember being at bars late at night telling people, like, I think something's up here. Like, you know, I think this is something much more coordinated than what I appreciate. And people look at me like you're a fucking conspiracy theorist. only then to be proven correct when it came out that there was this agreement that Trump Tower, that David Peck has said, will be the eyes and ears of the campaign.

22:34We'll purchase negative stories off the market and publish negative stories about your rivals. And what they did, and what's kind of stunning here is they turned this news organization, you can say what you like about the Inquirer, but it's on supermarket shelves in every Walmart and in every airport. And they turned this place into a criminal enterprise to protect the rich and powerful, and not just Donald Trump, but Harvey Weinstein.

22:55Peter Kafka:What's the after effects of being at the Inquirer during that period, having at minimum a hands-on role in what they were doing on behalf of the Trump campaign? You know, we're a decade past it. How do you feel about it now? Does it affect your work? Yeah, look, it took a toll. And I thought my career was over, mate. You know, I thought my career was over. I thought no one's going to hire me because they think I'm, you know, one person sort of in order. One, you came from the Inquirer. And two, you came from the Inquirer in that period. In all of this, and I remember I met with Ben Smith at BuzzFeed, and I met with New York Magazine, and I met with a bunch of people about gigs.

23:35And for different reasons, you know, there were not opportunities. And the Daily Beast was a place that I went to and I saw it as a very soft spot in my heart because that's where I rebuilt my career. And I spent six years just working my bollocks off.

23:47Peter Kafka:Were people telling you, we will explicitly not hire you because you're associated with the Inquirer and we just don't want to deal with that in our newsroom, in our brand? Not explicitly. I think the reason, Ben, there was a no-go at BuzzFeed is he was about to lay people off and in your mag, there just wasn't the opportunity. But certainly there was a steer from certain other people that you're tainted by this and we don't want to go there. We don't want to touch you. And I'm fortunate that The Beast gave me that chance and I resuscitated my career. You built yourself up again at the Beast, broke a lot of news.

24:18Peter Kafka:Now we got Breaker. Correct. Yeah. And so I had a newsletter at the Daily Beast called Confider, which I worked on with a couple other colleagues. But I helmed that newsletter and created it. And Breaker is the next iteration of that newsletter. And it's twice a week on Beehive. And I have the VOD on YouTube. And I'm just humbly building this little media company. No shortage of media coverage. No shortage of media podcasts. It's a flooded market. It is a crowded market. I was at Emily Sundberg's third year anniversary last night, and Oliver Darcy's in one corner, Maxi Tarni's in another. Both put out newsletters last night.

24:57Very competitive environment. I should have been writing about, I don't know, flowers or something.

25:02Peter Kafka:But you show up when this stuff already exists, when there's already a ton of this stuff. I'm late to the game. I seem to have a good knack about it. And what is the thing you think you're doing differently? What's the niche you're pursuing? So I look at Breaker as a product that will tell you something you don't know and make you laugh at something you do know. And so whether that's me standing in the rain for five hours in upstate New York outside the Salzburger barbecue with a snapper, getting the great and the good coming in and out and then doing the food review. Thank you, AG. To be clear, you are hanging out where the Salzburger family, which owns the New York Times, is having their annual barbecue.

25:35Peter Kafka:That's correct. This is not a national media event like the Sun Valley confab where it's expected that dozens of reporters go stand outside and yell questions that don't get answered. I don't know why, but whatever. You're there by yourself. No one else is interested in this. Yeah. And you say, this is a good use of my time because what? What are you going to get out of that? I mean, I think some of my readers leading up to were curious who had made the cut, who had been invited, you know, who was there from the masthead, who was there from the business side. But again, even that. Like, so your audience has to know who the Salzburgers are, that they have a barbecue, that who does or doesn't get invited to the barbecue is of interest.

26:15Peter Kafka:So is it essentially just writing for New York Times employees? I think it's writing for, I mean, I think people are obsessed with the Times. And I think, you know, you go to a party and you see a bunch of Times people, you're like, I wonder what they're talking about. They're talking about Gaza or Trump. And then you get closer, you're like, oh, they're talking about the New York Times. And so I feel like there is this fascination with that publication. and um you know that was a great example of of you know you know because you go you know i it was a 500 buck investment snapper and i got in his car drove up there that morning i i had no idea what i was going to get from that but we got these cracking selective photos and then the best part was at about 4 p.m aj's assistant comes out with two plates of food and my snapper went to go and tuck in i said mate what are you doing we're gonna fucking take photos i've got to do a food review here was the spread and i was delicious it was one of the best chicken i've had they had this great corn salad.

27:04They haven't brought me a chocolate chip cookie. But, you know, that was a bit of fun. And I think that's getting back to your ass, Peter, that that's the point of difference with Breaker that we'll do the Sun Valley, you know, captions. I engaged David Mack to do that. A writer is more hilarious than I am. You know, we'll get Hamish from Substack to write for us for Hamish's hot sauce. It's the voice and it's the color that I think, you know, others aren't aren't doing.

27:30Peter Kafka:Yeah, I guess where I'm going is it seems like you are often picking both people, subjects and levels of detail that other folks aren't. And you could either argue that's great because that's a differentiator. You go, most people don't know who any of these people are. They're never going to see your newsletter, let alone pay for it. Why don't you do stuff that has much bigger reach? Why don't you try to pick topics that normals would care about? Because it's fun. And that's the point of difference with Breaker. The sources are having fun, I'm having fun, and the readers are having fun. And that is the point of difference with my newsletter.

28:06I break news consistently, but also there is this voice and there is this fun that is going on. And I think that's appealing to my subscribers. Okay, let's have fun after we hear from a sponsor.

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30:13Peter Kafka:And we're back. Lachlan, I've teased this. I said we're going to have fun. Let's do it. You were going to tell me some of the great uncovered stories, which you are now going to uncover for us. They're undercovered stories that you are going to uncover for us now of the last year or so. You think they could move into 2026? Yeah, I think one of those storylines is this independent media model of which I am a participant. And these are called sub stackers. Yeah, sub stackers, YouTubers, beehivers. You know, like I feel like there are these sort of splashy. Doesn't feel like an undercover story. Well, I think the part of it that's undercover is that there are these splashy pieces that appear announcing, oh, this person's leaving legacy media and they're off to make their millions and they're going off to fame and fortune.

31:00It's not like that. This is a very, very tough business. And I know that because I'm operating a business and you've got churn, which is a huge problem. You've got people forwarding the email around, which is a massive problem for me. You know, I have, uh, I look at breaker and I see someone's open at 600 times, 400 times. I'm like, fuck, you're going to have me sleeping rough if this keeps up. And so I think, you know, what's the undercover thread here is that this is not easy. And I have people come to me be like, oh, you're living in like this utopia. You don't have a boss and, and, you know, you get to run your own race.

31:32And I'm like, I have more bosses than I've had in my ever life. I have my subscribers and they'll tell me if, if I, if I, if I, you know, have an off send, they'll, they'll tell Mark Lacey with Mark Tracy or Andrew Ross Sorkin with the other Sorkin, as I have done. And so, you know, this is just, I think the disclaimer here is it's not as easy as it's made up.

31:53Peter Kafka:The thing you often hear from the big thinky people is, oh, we're moving away from the big brands and towards the individuals. And that's who people are going to trust. And this is the way media is going. And maybe that is the way it's going. But I'm also wondering, maybe that's actually just a temporary thing. And it turns out there's only a few people who can and want to make a living more or less on their own making podcasts or newsletters or whatever. Do you think a lot of these folks boomerang back to a mothership or something? Yeah, I think, look, we're in the great unbundling right now.

32:22And I think what comes next is the great bundling. You know, I now am a contributing editor with Vanity Fair because I still wanted that attachment to legacy media. Like I was saying earlier, I miss being in a newsroom. I miss the banter and I miss the fun of that. And so I think what you'll see next is some of these independents getting pulled back into some of these legacy places, or someone coming and bundling a bunch of us together and saying, I want the culture one. I want Emily Sunberg. I want this sports one. This is the thing everyone bounces around.

32:50Peter Kafka:And the problem is if you are successful enough on your own, why do you want to be part of a bundle? Or what would the economics be? Because I can't spend all day with someone saying, I need a refund. I can't log in. I don't know how to use the site. Like, you know, I spend a lot of time dealing with minutiae and, you know, I should just be reporting. So, you know, there may come a time that this gets all bundled back up. I would just call it a magazine. Yeah, that's exactly what it was. You know, it's like a bunch of great writers together and that's what a magazine was. And you don't have to pay, you know, 15 bucks for all these different things.

33:24You just pay one and done.

33:25Peter Kafka:This is basically what every newsletter writer I've talked to says they are interested in or bouncing around. And so at some point, someone is going to take the cue and try to figure this out. I think so. I really do think that's what comes next. Undercovered story number two. So what's going to happen when Uncle Roops goes to the big newsroom in the sky? That would be Rupert Murdoch. Rupert Murdoch, Uncle Roops, who is 95 in March. And what happens to the newspapers under Lachlan Murdoch, who we now know is the successor? Well, it's the whole empire, right? He's got Fox slash Fox News. Correct.

33:56And that's a cash cow. And I think he's more in line with the broadcast stuff than he is with the papers.

34:02Peter Kafka:And that's the thing that makes all the money, like you said. So we're assuming that Lachlan Murdoch hangs on to it. I would I would I would think so. I mean, they've fought this hard to to keep it away from James and Elizabeth and Prudence. Is there any chance that after Murdoch dies, Lachlan Murdoch goes, actually, I don't give a fuck about it. I just want to go back to rock climbing and all the Elon or whomever. Spear fishing, you know, potentially. But I think what goes next and what is the undercover story here is what happens to those newspapers? What happens to the Sun in London, which is losing the millions?

34:32The Sun used to be the cash cow and the Times used to lose the money. It's the flip of that. What happens to these papers in Oz that are just dogs of the business? And what happens to the New York Post? And I know that - You're missing the Wall Street Journal. And the Journal. Yeah, of course. Which many people want to acquire. I mean, you would have everyone from Matthias Doffner or potentially Jerry Cardinal. You would have people lining up around the block for that because that is a prized possession. And also it's a cash cow, more so because of the Dow Jones side of it and the B2B. but you know i know that last week rupert was on the fox lot where the new york post the california post newsroom is he was going over the story list with nick paps papsy the the new editor i don't think lachlan is going to be going through the the story list and having that ink through his

35:17Peter Kafka:veins as much as his old man there was quite a jolt um i'm trying to remember i guess it was this summer early fall where a bunch of people in new york media believed that rupert was i was just about to leave the earth? Chasing that furphy. I wonder if we were all just chasing each other's stories. I think we were chasing each other. You call up someone in that world and go, yeah, some other reporter called me. And so you don't know if that's a true story or we're all just feeding each other. Right. And look, he's bouncing around. Like he was at 1211, the News Corp HQ, not too long ago. Someone saw him in the elevator, said his mind is as sharp as ever.

35:52He's 95, 94, sorry. So he is, you know, walking with a walking stick, I believe. So, you know, like at some point, although he says to people he's going to live forever, at some point the reality is that Lachlan, you know, fully takes over. So Mr. Redstone also said that. Well, he was eating through a fucking feeding tube and punching in the word, you know, shit or fuck into a little prompter.

36:14Peter Kafka:And do you believe that Rupert has said, this is what I want to happen to these properties? I think so. There must be conversations like that with his son. And I think that there might be some direction of like, okay, these are the ones you might be able to get rid of or sell off. At the end of the day, Rupert's a businessman and he's a ruthless businessman and his son has similar instincts. So I think there would have been conversations. Okay, here are the ones that you can let go of. Here are the ones that I actually want to see keep going on to the family. So continuing along that theme, undercover story number three.

36:45Peter Kafka:Is what happens to Bloomberg when Mike goes to the big newsroom in the sky. I have not seen him for a while. He seems pretty fit. He seems pretty fit, for sure. But, you know, like we're all dying. But, you know, at some point someone is going to have to figure out what happens. And we know this. Bloomberg, the giant terminal business. Just mints money. It's almost as impressive as Google and Facebook in terms of like cannot be displaced. Every year someone says, I've figured out a way to disrupt the Bloomberg terminal business and I'm going to cut into it. No one ever has managed to do that. And then there's Bloomberg Media, which is a very, I think, very, very, very good media operation, but is not core to what Bloomberg does.

37:25And doesn't make anywhere near amount of money as the terminals. And actually, I think, you know, loses money between the huge TV apparatus that no one seems to watch. You watch Bloomberg TV? They do fine work there. Yeah, thank you. And the magazines and all these other products. So the question then is, OK, the LP is going to go into the philanthropies. What would then happen to the newsroom? and people I speak to there, you know, John Micklethwaite has been in the chair for 10 years. There's no indication immediately he's going anywhere. But the question is, who would replace him? Would it be Stephanie Flanders, who came across from the BBC, or would they look outside for a prestige buyer?

38:00Peter Kafka:Periodically, you will hear that, actually, Bloomberg Media is for sale. Make an offer. Is it actually for sale? Do we have to wait until Michael Bloomberg is no longer on the earth for Bloomberg Media to trade hands? I think, potentially, that's what the scenario will be. And then the question is, who would pony up for that and who would buy that? I mean throw out some names I mean do we I mean Matthias is always sniffing around for for opportunities that's my boss or one of my bosses Matthias Doffner owns Axel Springer which owns Business Insider right um does not have unlimited money yeah yeah so I mean and again like the question is would anyone actually then want to want to want to buy it um we say usually we usually say a financial investor though instead of a strategic investor picks it up yeah and then And maybe they could do something with it or they strip it or whatnot.

38:48Peter Kafka:And can Bloomberg Media exist on its own separate from the terminals? Separate from the terminals. It adds value to the terminals? Yeah, where a lot of that content does find its way. And, you know, there's some cracking work that goes on at Bloomberg. But I think people there, when this comes up, they're like, I don't want to even have to think about it. I don't want to think when Mike goes because that, you know, right now we have rivers of gold. We get to spend all this money. There's no real accountability for it. what happens when he does. Yeah, every so often I'll have layoffs at Bloomberg, and I think, that's weird.

39:19Peter Kafka:They don't have to lay people off. They have just unlimited money, or they put up paywalls on their web content, I think. It's odd, but it seemed to work for them. Do you have a non-death-related, undercover story for me? I do have a non-death one for you, Peter. I have Penske Media, where I worked briefly last year. Also an owner in Vox Media. How into why this world is. and how much of a monopoly that they have with all of these trades from The Hollywood Reporter, where I previously worked, to Variety, to Deadline, to IndieWire. Billboard. Billboard, Rolling Stone. Before we get to Rolling Stone, basically all of the media trades of consequence, just about all of them, are owned by one man.

40:03Peter Kafka:Correct. And then you also have all these award shows he owns and these festivals. So everything from the Golden Globes to South by Southwest. and how those relationships are leveraged. And we've seen with the Golden Globes that they started a pod category this year. And it turned out that the nominations were being handled or the category group by an organization, a company that Penske Media owns itself. So not really that independent. And, you know, I think that there's been sort of dealings such as you could buy a Golden Globes ticket for 75K. They were leveraging advertising in variety as part of the awards.

40:42Peter Kafka:It is quite funny that the suggestion is, hey, the Golden Globes and or this podcast award might not be above board. But the Golden Globes have always been a joke. The idea that it's an important, I don't know. A prestige award show. That is of meaning. Like the Oscars. But I think the thing is, it's not healthy to have all of these publications under the one roof, and it doesn't allow for any real competition. I will say, I mean, I think that is a legitimate concern. On the other hand, out of that empire, that Penske media trade empire - Has been born the anchor, Janice Mann. And Richard Rushfield, which is an absolutely brilliant publication.

41:26Peter Kafka:Matt Bellany from Puck was the editor of The Hollywood Reporter and is enormously, way more influential now on his own slash at Puck than he ever was of The Hollywood Reporter. There is a lot of good coverage of L.A. And now the California Post, they're going to have their own page six. So that does help, I think. I mean, we have a lot of undercover parts of America and the rest of the world. The L.A. entertainment business, pretty well covered. Yeah, I mean, I still do think that it isn't healthy to have all of those titles under the one ownership of one person, where they're also leveraging all of these other things in the background with advertising, over editorial, with the award shows.

42:05Peter Kafka:It's just a really icky environment. What's your sense of Jay Penske, who runs Penske Media? It does not do a lot of public appearance. He's not that transparent. Yeah, he's not that transparent. But he also doesn't seem to want a lot of, occasionally you'll see a photo of him on a red carpet, but he really does not do very much. And there's been a couple of profiles that have tried to sort of get at that. I think the Times did one and LA Magazine did one. It was very favorable. But, you know, I think that he is someone that has, you know, brought up all of these entities, all of these titles.

42:36And it's kind of unclear what the vision is for them besides running some of them into the ground. I mean, I think some of them have just become irrelevant under his reign, whether it's THR or even Rolling Stone.

42:46Peter Kafka:I mean, the trades are still the trades. People still read them. Do you have any idea why he bought 20 % of Vox Media, the company whose building we're sitting in right now? I've been trying to find out what that move was about and also where some of this money is coming from. Oh, yeah, Saudi money. Yeah, it's washing in from foreign shores. Which is public. And, yeah, which was, I think he took the, yeah, he definitely had the money post-Kashoggi. for whatever reason, no one seemed to care or pay attention to it. As I'm speaking to you right now, we've learned that Saudi and Abu Dhabi and Qatar were going to put$24 billion into the Paramount bid.

43:26Peter Kafka:And that was a story they knocked down, by the way, if you remember. The Variety put it up and then Paramount said, this is categorically inaccurate. Untrue. That's why you don't use words like categorically. I always just say, no comment. Right. Would be easier than categorically untrue. Let that go through the keeper. But it turned out, well, actually, that story was kind of really true. All right. What is your favorite scoop of the year that you produced? So I had a tip a couple of months ago that Puck was going to buy Airmail. And this had come after I'd reported. Puck is a publication we talk about all the time on this podcast.

44:00Peter Kafka:Right. Airmail we never discuss. It was created by Graydon Carter, legendary editor of Vanity Fair. And it essentially was his online version of what he used to do at Vanity Fair. Correct. And the tip was kind of vague enough. It was, you know, it was almost like, I think this is happening or is this happening? And so one of those ones where you just start jamming on the phones and trying to figure out if this is true. And I was able to stand it up within sort of, I think, 24 hours. So it was ready for Tuesday's column. I had it written. I had it edited. I had it built. And I said to the copy editor, as soon as I say fire, we're off stone, because I felt they were going to try and front run me.

44:37and I went for comment and I went in order of different people. And as I was trying to get a hold of people, someone who's on the good side, the news gods said, you need to go like, this is this, they're going to go to the times. And so I then put it out there and we broke that. And then following that, they put out a statement confirming it that night. And after that, I got a leaked audio recording of the puck all hands where the CEO says, guys, this is really important. This is highly confidential, don't speak to media reporters. Matt Bellany's asking about what happens with Graydon. And then we had more follow-ups about inside the deal.

45:12We had the money, we had what Puck was losing, what AirMail was losing, which was around 5 million, I think, a couple of years ago. And then we also had the developments about who was going to lead AirMail. So it was one of those giants that you own, but you also know that your competitors, that could have ended up in the pages of the Times.

45:31Peter Kafka:So one, again, for folks who are not engaged in the news business, this idea of like, I've got to get this story out before either one, my competitor gets it, or two, the company or the people I'm going to write about tell someone else about it. That pressure is still very much a thing that you deal with day to day. Correct. And it's exciting, right? It is exciting. It is exciting when you get that tip. Do you ever worry like, fuck, I'm going to overshoot here because I'm so worried about Max Tanney or Peter Kafka, probably not Peter Kafka, getting this beforehand and I'm going to push it out and it's not fully baked.

46:05You, you, you can't do that. You just can't do that because once that newsletter goes out, once I'm off stone, I can't pull that fucker back. And so for me, it's like, this thing has to be copper bottomed. And, and if I get beat, it's better to get beat than, than fuck it up and get it.

46:18Peter Kafka:Two, do you get an extra thrill out of breaking a media gossip story about a site or that deals with media gossip? Yes, it was. It was, it was particularly fun because I have a rich history with John and with Pac. I almost went there and the last minute the beast counted and I stay with the Daily Beast. You get an extra little thrill there. I did get an extra little thrill that he was trying to sort of play 3D chess and trying to figure out how he can front run me. And Breaker was the little Aussie battle, the nine month old startup was the outlet that broke it. And this is the most astonishing thing you've said in this entire podcast.

46:53Peter Kafka:You talk to your copy editor. You have a copy editor? It's 2025. It's a person, not an AI? Yeah, and I love this story, Peter. I love this. It's part of the breaker origin is my copy editor was working at a cheese shop in a cheese factory. An accomplished journalist, by the way, who I rescued out of the cheese shop. I think he still works there a couple of days a week. Nick King, I'm going to give him a shout out. He just had an operation. And he's been brilliant. He helps me sharpen headlines. He makes sure I don't fuck people's names up. I'm all for you employing journalists. That's great. Copy editors basically don't exist for for the most part.

47:25Peter Kafka:Everyone needs an editor. Everyone needs an editor. And I want this thing to be shit hot because every edition has to be shit hot because it could be the first time someone's reading Breaker. And when they get forwarded it by, you know, all those people, it might be the one that they subscribe on. And so I want the professionalism of a newsroom. And that's why, for me, one of the most important, the most important thing was to get legal insurance and a lawyer on call, which I have. The second most important thing for me was to have a copy editor. And it's just fun that he came out of a cheese shop.

47:51And also the best part is when we go for Bevy's, He brings all this delicious cheese from Murray's Cheese. So I'm just gorging myself with fucking cheese at the weekend. Oh, you didn't work at a cheese factory. You worked at Murray's? Murray's, yeah. That's a famous cheese market. And delicious cheese that I get to sort of chew over

48:06Peter Kafka:as I plot out the next edition of Breaker on a Sunday afternoon. We've covered a lot of territory. We've got a plug in here for continuing to hire actual human journalists. You are not an AI. You're definitely a human being in the flesh and blood. Great to see you. Good to see you too, mate. Thanks, Lachlan. Cheers. Thanks to Lachlan. He is maybe inspiring me to get my own trademark hat. I'm not totally convinced about that, but I will mull it. Thanks to Charlotte Silver for producing and editing. Thanks to our sponsors. Thanks to you guys for listening, reading, writing. See you soon.

48:42Peter Kafka:We all do it. You have a night for yourself, but don't like the sound of the silence. So you turn on the TV just for the ambiance. It's a little trick that helps you feel like you've got company and aren't alone. And other insurers, well, they may make you feel alone. But when you switch to GEICO, you've got claims reps available around the clock. So whenever you need, you'll have people around to help. And let's turn on the washing machine, just for good measure. Isn't that soothing? It feels good to have support. It feels good to GEICO. We're all feeling it, getting pulled in a million directions.

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