When It Hits the Fan x Fame Under Fire

15:36Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Everything is put on show. they can subpoena Brigitte's medical records. I mean, it's more invasive in many ways than a criminal trial. So them opting to do that, I understand why people are shocked.

15:49David Yelland:Yeah. So this case is going to begin probably in the middle of the year, in the summer. And as you say, in a civil case like that, everything is up for grabs. So it's a very, very high risk decision for the Macrons to take. But what they are saying is, you know, we are going to stand up to candidates. Now, in this country, except for on your podcast, a lot of mainstream media just describe Canada as if she's a sort of, you know, I don't know, medium sized sort of influencer. And she's sort of, you know, young and all that sort of stuff. Let's just talk a little bit about her influence. Because this is a, I think she is more influential than nearly every national newspaper in this country and half and nearly every in the US.

16:28David Yelland:And when I say those things, people look at me very funny. So can you prove me right, please?

16:34Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:She'll probably clip that and put that on her social media. I'm not going to lie. Candace is an uncomfortable thing for a lot of people. She is. Candace rose to sort of fame in 2016. She was very pro-Trump. She's an African-American woman. So she was like an African-American voice for Trump. And she speaks very well. I say she appropriates the cadence of authority. She comes across really well. She's a very forceful speaker as well. Now, she has the fastest growing right wing podcast. Her podcast was getting three million listeners a day. She does live streams to 150 ,000 people. She has been directly addressed by Bibi Netanyahu.

17:15Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:She has been spoken about by President Donald Trump. She's obviously being sued by the Macrons. She's an uncomfortable thing because she talks a lot of crap. That's the problem with Candace Owens. But the problem is a lot of people are in the cult of Candace. A lot of people believe what she has to say. And I'm not coming out there and saying, you're all idiots. How could you believe what Candace Owens has to say? It's born of a, you know, a fear of institutions. It's born of a mistrust in mainstream media. In terms of why the listeners love her. Yeah, it's born of all of that. And Candace taps into those anxieties.

17:48Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:She perpetuates them. And she sort of takes on the position of the individual, independent journalist fighting for the truth against all of that. She's taken that Macron story. She said, Brigitte is a man. They are lying to you. They are the institution. I am the independent journalist and I'm going to tell you the truth. And it has done wonders for her brand and her bank account.

18:08David Yelland:You see, the thing is, I grew up in the Murdoch Company, Rupert Murdoch Company, the Sun and the New York Post. And that is what they did. That is how you build a mass audience. What you say to your audience is, are you thinking what I'm thinking? And that is what she does. She does it brilliantly. So I recognise, I recognise that. but she is absolutely and I don't care if she does clip this she is absolutely brilliant at what she does we just need to explain to the listeners why Benjamin Netanyahu the Prime Minister of Israel has had to stand in the studio and condemn her and attack her and that is because we don't need to go into the detail but she has started saying that the murder of Charlie Kirk was perpetrated by the Israelis that the Israelis murdered Charlie Kirk for which by the way there is no evidence but for her of course to have Benjamin Netanyahu condemning her gives her a degree of global fame, which you cannot buy.

19:00David Yelland:And that is what's happening here, isn't it? And the Macarons is really just another route to market for her.

19:06Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Yeah, I mean, Candace Owens, like you say, she's not doing anything new here. Conspiracy theories and tapping into what people are scared of is nothing new. But her methods of distribution, she is a personal PR powerhouse. She doesn't just get her message out there. she bombards you with her content on every single platform all the time all day it's overwhelming i

19:29David Yelland:agree with you i know what you mean which is basically the way it's chopped up effectively and stuck out there but there are a lot of people listening to this in the pr world and media that don't understand it so just explain how she does that so if you look at the life cycle of a piece

19:41Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:of content typically if we're doing this podcast and it's it's recorded yeah that piece of content lives as a podcast. And traditionally, that's pretty much all it would do. Maybe we'd clip something for social media if we're feeling fancy. For Candice Owens, a 40-minute podcast is also a 40-minute live stream where people can watch you doing it online at the time as it's happening, which builds trust because it gives the air of transparency. She'll also do something called clip farming, which is when you take the longest piece of content and you produce 40 or 50 smaller clips from that that you just routinely post on short form social media.

20:18Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:So apps like Instagram and TikTok. And she will do that throughout the day. And it's basically throwing as much of it at the wall and hoping that it hits. And you will eventually see her content on your For You page or your Explore page. And that is the difference because it's constant. It's not one big sit down interview that everyone tunes into. It's I'm putting this everywhere all the time. You can't miss it.

20:43David Yelland:Yeah, yeah. I mean, we're talking here, folks, about someone in Kansas City who has a major influence on what millions of people think about certainly the president, but very important things at the moment. So this is not an inconsequential person.

20:58Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Another thing that she does well, again, she didn't invent this, but she's funny.

21:02David Yelland:Yes, she is.

21:03Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Her videos are funny. Yeah, yeah. Her videos are funny and humour is soft power. Once you have people laughing, you have people looking, then you have people emotionally engaged with you.

21:12David Yelland:I couldn't agree more. And again, that is a core thing in the tabloid world. I can many, many times when, you know, Rupert Murdoch and people around, we've got to make people laugh. We've got to get them, use your humour to get them. If you listen to Steve Bannon's podcast, which I do quite a lot, he's very humorous. And what happens is you come into his world and, you know, I don't agree, I don't think, with a single thing that he stands for. But I'll tell you what, Anushka, after five or six minutes, I'm starting to think, you know, well, you know, maybe there's a point there. And it's the same sometimes with some of the stuff that Candice says.

21:48David Yelland:You're lured in. and these guys are taking over the manipulation of public opinion from all the people that I see in my day-to-day life in the PR world and in the media world in a way that I think we know it's happening but we don't talk about it enough and that's why I love Fame Under Fire because that's what you do.

22:06Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Let's clip that guys for Fame Under Fire particularly fat Candice's book. Well yeah and I completely understand why people are uncomfortable taking a look at somebody like Candice Owens. I get that. I get she kind of stands for everything that we detest in terms of just peddling complete misinformation. But there are things that we can learn from her when it comes to meeting people where they're at, being in the arena where the conversations are being had, not standing on a mountain and preaching from on high, but going, okay, if you guys are on TikTok, truth or just being a counter voice. So these people don't just completely monopolize the platform.

22:43Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And that's what needs to happen. And we are getting towards that but the problem is and we've spoken about this before it's so fast moving so everyone's going oh i think people are on tiktok now no they're streaming now yeah it's all about streaming now 24-hour live streams and feeling like you're there with the person it's live it's completely transparent they're bringing you into their world and by the time we catch up to streaming they'll be doing something else i don't know how we fix that but i think the first step is acknowledging that there are people who are doing it well and if we allow them to continue to do that you know uninterrupted it's not going to be good or none of this is hidden either we can see it's

23:21David Yelland:it's all there i mean every night when i'm watching tv news here or in the in the us i see donald trump's the president's truth social posts are that's how he communicates with the world now people know that he owns that company there's a company called trump media and tech with a it It has a stock market valuation of nearly$4 billion. It's got 29 employees in Florida, right? It doesn't make any money yet, but the valuation is about, obviously, like all in business, the future. Now, that's, you know, he's controlling not only what he says and how he says it, but he owns the means of production.

24:02David Yelland:You know, we don't talk about that enough. You know, things are moving so fast now that I sometimes think if I was working in PR for one of the world's big companies, say a pharmaceutical company, where the law can suddenly change in Washington, you can be out of business. I would have many, many people looking at what Candace Owens is doing and how Trump is communicating rather than looking at the Wall Street Journal and New York Times and the FT and all those traditional newspapers.

24:32Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:I think, yeah, you need to look at what Candice is doing. But it's kind of a double bind because Candice is what they say. She's native to the space. Like my generation, Gen Z are digital natives. So she knows how those platforms work and everything feels rather effortless. She knows how to grab engagement in less than one second. So you don't scroll past her videos, etc. The problem is when you try and replicate it, but like from the outside looking in, because it just feels, for lack of a better word, like cringey.

25:02David Yelland:Yeah, I mean, we are, as we sit here, distinguished Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his press PR team are about to launch him on TikTok and there's been a huge amount of discussion around that. I mean, what do you, when you see that kind of talk, what do you think about it?

25:18Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Well, I think, why didn't they have an account already? I mean, I can't believe they're just doing that. My whole feed at the moment is just all the memes that the Democrats post. the Republicans responding to them in the comments. And there was that whole like takeover from Gavin Newsom's camp when they were building him up to the governor of California, who was just cranking out some really funny memes. And you know that they've got two Gen Zs behind that TikTok account just working overtime. And so it was funny and it worked. I hope, for Keir Starmer's sake, that the people on the team who are launching it really get the platform.

25:57Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Otherwise, we're going to end up with another kind of

25:59David Yelland:six, seven, six, seven moment. I mean, they need to understand what's going on, but not necessarily get involved, right? Because if it's inauthentic, it is going to fail. I have observed, Anushka, that a lot of people, you know, my generation, you know, in the media elite, they don't understand the digital world, and then they suddenly dive into it. And if you do that, you can make a massive mistake. You've got to understand it before you get involved.

26:27Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Are you not Gen Z?

26:28David Yelland:I don't know what I am.

26:29Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:I think that is it. No, I completely agree. I mean, the only thing I will say about, I can't give advice for business PR. So feel free to ignore me, guys, if I'm just chatting.

26:39David Yelland:You'll put us all out of business if you do, to be honest.

26:43Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:But user-generated content, so content that occurs naturally anyway, when you have those huge companies, but the apprentices are doing like, come and spend a week with me at this company, and it kind of humanizes the workforce. That's some of the best soft launching of having a personality as a business that I can see happening.

27:01David Yelland:You think that works?

27:02Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Yeah, well, I engage with the content. I'm like, oh, I've always wondered what happened here or like what the inside of that office looks like. And they take you with them and it's very natural. And they are the people who are naturally on those spaces and they are giving a face and a voice and a heart to corporate entities. And that to me, I would be capitalizing on that and going, it's already happening. And they know what they're doing and it's working. Let's encourage them. Let's encourage them. Let's give them stuff in their content that makes us look like we are a company full of real people.

27:33David Yelland:Well, you talk about real people and there is the crux of the problem, Anushka, because in business, if I had a pound for every time I've heard a CEO or a big business boss say, it's not about me. I don't want to front this. In other words, we'll put a press release out and it's on behalf of the company. and it doesn't work because it has to be a human being. And on Fame Under Fire, you talk more, as you said earlier, about major celebrities. We talk about business, but business doesn't understand, in my opinion, that if it's going to move into your world, it has to be fronted by a human being.

28:07David Yelland:And we have to see, don't we, all aspects of that human being. You have to see them having breakfast or whatever. Do you want to talk a little bit about what you've had to do in your social media?

28:16Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Yeah, it's a weird thing that's happening in journalism. I mean, by trade, I'm a journalist first. And that typically meant it was never really about you. It's always about the story, which is right.

28:29David Yelland:Yeah, the classic BBC news division policy.

28:31Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:That's how it's supposed to be. But now, if you have something that you're fronting or something that you're working on, because people are so distrustful for many different reasons, they want to know who the person is who's telling them the news. And I have been encouraged, and I agree with it in many ways, to share more about myself. In fact, if you are doing a podcast or you're fronting a doc or something, they want to come with you. They want to behind the scenes, you know. And that means, you know, I got up at 5am and this is me doing my hair and this is me on the way here. And I have found it to be immeasurably helpful because when I was in New York doing the Diddy trial, you didn't just hear me pop up for 15 minutes a day doing a court report.

29:12Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:You came with me every step of the way and then I streamed live for two hours at the end of every day. and you could just directly ask me questions that I'd answer on the spot. And I did see, I mean, it's a real ask and I get that. I really do understand that. But the proof was in the community that we built of people going, you know, I wouldn't normally come to the BBC because I typically hate the BBC. But I know where she is. I know what she's doing. I know she's actually in that courtroom. I know who she's speaking to when she gets out.

29:39David Yelland:And she's a real person.

29:40Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And that had to combat, you know, that ecosystem of content combated that mistrust in the mainstream media. But in that way, you're asking journalists to turn themselves into brands.

29:53David Yelland:I mean, what applies to journalists also applies to business. But I can tell you, Anushka, that what you've said will horrify people in business. The idea that, you know, somebody running a business, a CEO, for example, would have to show themselves at breakfast or whatever, what they like to do is they like to stay pretty anonymous for most of the year and then go into the media and announce their results or acquisition or whatever it is, and then come out. PR, traditionally for my generation, by the way, you asked me if I'm Gen Z, I don't want to know what I am, but I'm definitely not Gen Z.

30:30David Yelland:It has been, we go into the media when we want and we come out of it when we don't. And when the politicians have, of course, much more difficult and complex, they have to be in it. But this is why, one of the reasons why business has lost the argument. It hasn't got a voice. It can't speak because the human beings within it simply don't want to engage in the way that you've talked about.

30:51Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:I know it is different, though. If you're a CEO of a huge business, people don't necessarily want to see you do a day in the life in the same way they would me or somebody else. But like I said, if you can foster the people within your organization who already organically are showing a human side and make them kind of a business influencer for your organization, you can disseminate some of that messaging through them is one way I could see that applying. I mean, people might be like, oh, my God, I'm not doing that. But I do see big businesses with people, usually younger people at the company who work there, showing their lives, having an interaction with the followers.

31:29Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:And you can utilize that because those people are a human face of something without making it you as the CEO.

31:35David Yelland:Well, that's it from both of us for this week. Thanks, as always, for listening. Anoushka, thank you so much for joining the pod this week.

31:43Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Thanks so much for having me.

31:45David Yelland:Now, I know we're only mid-January, but Anoushka, your year is already filling up.

31:50Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty:Yeah, 2026 is really the year of the celebrity trial. We're going to start with the Blake Lively-Justin Baldoni trial in May. Then off the back of that, we have Russell Brand over here and Andrew Tate as well. There's a civil lawsuit in the UK if Romania don't charge him first. And then we also have the Tupac trial, which is scheduled for 2026 as well. So that'll be a big one.

32:10David Yelland:And of course, folks, you can subscribe to both our podcasts, Fame Under Fire and When It Hits the Fan, by subscribing on BBC Sounds. But that is all we've got time for today. Anoushka, it's been an absolute pleasure. Bye bye. Goodbye.

32:32David Yelland:We focus on the part of the Internet that most people don't know about. It's called the dark web. undercover in the furthest corners of the dark web. US special agents are on a mission to locate and rescue children from abuse. Move in now. From the BBC World Service, World of Secrets, the darkest web follows their shocking investigations. Listen on bbc.com or wherever you get your BBC podcasts.