Shutdown Deja Vu, AI and Actors, and Guest Meredith Levien

22:30has given him an enormous amount of money or did quite a bit. He was supposed to give him more, but then didn't come through with some. But we'll see where Larry's money goes. Guess where? Trump. That's where Larry's money is going. Yeah, he's going to go to Trump. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Or maybe Nikki Haley. I don't know. We'll see. Anyway, let's go on a quick break. When we come back, what we're learning about the AI provisions in the SAG-AFTRA deal, everyone is not happy. And we'll speak with a friend of Pivot, New York Times CEO Meredith Levine, who we've wanted to come on for a while to talk turkey about the news biz.

23:25Thank you.

23:38We'll see you next time.

24:02Scott, we're back. As the new SAG-AFTRA contract moves toward ratification, we're learning more about the deal, specifically the AI components. The agreements include consent and compensation for digital replicas of SAG-AFTRA members living and dead and protection when AI uses actors' specific features, I guess their nose or whatever. In other words, SAG-AFTRA's chief negotiator put it, if you're using Brad Pitt's smile and Jennifer Aniston's eyes, both would have a right to consent. SAG is touting these new AI protections as negotiation for the future. Actors will be notified how and when an AI model is using their image.

24:34They will also be paid equivalent to how replica is used. SAG-AFTRA President Fran Drescher said under the new agreement, the union and studios will meet twice a year. The argument she made was in the world of AI, three months is the equivalent of a year. Actually, it's three days. It's good to keep talking as the technology evolves. We'll see if they do anything about it. Not everyone's happy about the contract. We do want to talk about this for a second so you can react to all of the actor and filmmaker Justine Bateman, has encouraging fellow actors not to ratify it because of the AI provisions.

25:06Bateman had a whole Twitter thread about it, which was quite extensive. And here's what she said on MSNBC on Friday. That that is the unions has given them permission to replace actors with synthetic performers, which is an amalgamation of 100 years of performances. And that means fewer to no sets, fewer to no crew, fewer to no drivers. The list goes on. And that's very bad for the business, you can imagine. Yeah, I think she actually has a point about how more well-known actors can really sell themselves, but others not so much. What do you think about this? What's happening? There's a lot here.

25:49So first and foremost, and I think we probably need some sort of federal legislation. I think everyone should have the rights to their digital twin. And that is, you should own, if someone is using your voice, and clearly they want it to sound like Al Pacino's voice, such that it fools people, or they use your image or your likeness, I think you have rights to that. And I think that that needs to be broader legislation, because here's the problem, it's the same problem the industry or the union SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild are facing, and that is they have no leverage. And this agreement reflects that because all this language was, was the union saying, can you just put in language so we can pretend we got something around AI?

26:32There are payments. There are payments involved in it, but go ahead. It seems pretty tenuous. The language felt very sort of, we agree to discuss or we will notify you. And here again, it comes back to the same thing. We're talking about the UAW before. David Bowe. David Bow was the most handsome, most popular, most likely to succeed kid at university high school. And he was in drama and he was the star of every play. Everyone loved him. And he went on, you know, moved to LA or wherever, got an agent, became an actor, fairly successful actor. That kid exists in every high school. Every high school in America produces great human capital who load up, say goodbye to their parents, move to New York or LA to try and be stars.

27:19No one does that to go install the wiring on heated seats in Detroit. So the absence of human capital, if you will, the absence of supply of human capital that's willing to be trained and live in Michigan and work on the union floor, work on an auto floor, standing on their feet, be constantly worried about quality control, managing people. You know, they work hard. There is not a mismatch of supply of demand. There's a massive mismatch of supply of demand of human capital in the creative industry versus the actual demand. And the result is agreements that look like this one where 90 percent. We should feed the agreement into an LLM and say, what percentage of this is meaningless and it will have no tangible difference on compensation or working conditions?

28:07And I bet it would come back and say the majority of it is all jazz hands. Because AI, I agree that they need protections. I think it needs to be federal, though, because if they give it to them on this, then isn't Netflix using AI in their Madrid studio have the opportunity to produce content at a much lower cost? I think it has to be mandated across all content. So what would you do when you look at it? Because I do think we'll talk about it later. I think keep talking about it is important, but there's no need to talk about it, right? There's no demand to talk about it. constantly, what kind of pressure can these actors bring to bear as the developments get, what essentially is going to be better and better in terms of replacing.

28:54They don't need sets at some point. They don't need it. It does, I think Bateman is right. It does become, what do we need drivers for? What do we need? We can just, we don't have to have sets. Just the famous actors. We'll just take the famous actors. Okay. We used to need carriage drivers. I mean, this is the question. When technology, We used to need 10 times as many farmers. And then technology took the agrarian society from one in two or one in three Americans making their land and farming to one in 25. And the question is, I just don't think you get in the way of technology. If CGI has replaced a lot of puppeteers and people who used to put on outfits, the backgrounds, whatever it might be, Zoom has kicked the shit out of janitors and offices.

29:46The question is, can you get in the way of it? And I don't think you can. The issue is, should there be some sort of federally mandated law that says you own your digital twin because we want to respect IP and IP is good for the economy? me. But if you can create a digital set, I'm not sure how that's different than a green screen. A green screen has obviated the need to fly to the desert to film Dune 2. They can film a lot of scenes now in front of a green screen. So I don't see how you get in the way of this. I think what you have to do is create tax policy that reinvests some of those productivity gains in retraining, right?

30:26That says, okay, there's going to be some people left behind here. They should qualify for training or whatever it is to get them the kind of jobs they need. Yeah. Have you been on sets? I'm just curious. Have you been on sets? I have. I've been on a lot. Just TV sets for one or two episodes and then it's over. Go ahead. Right. But yeah, that's right. That's your shows. But I'm talking about movies and stuff like that. I really haven't. I've been on the Universal Studios tour, so that counts. Two observations. Everyone was great. Everyone was super professional. But I kept thinking, what a lot of people.

31:01Oh, my gosh. What a lot. We had one guy, I'll never forget this, and it was because of the union. I was picked up. It was for a Silicon Valley episode. And I was picked up in a van, and a person who was in the scene with me was picked up in a separate van at the same time to drive five feet. Like it was not very far. It was around the corner. I was like, I'll walk. They're like, no, you can't do that. You have to be picked up on the van. I said, well, why don't we share the van? And it was, they wouldn't let that happen. One, which was, I didn't even, I couldn't get them not to do it. And then secondly, it took so long and seemed so inefficient.

31:36That's all I kept thinking is, I kept thinking of my, and I know actors are going to lose their minds when I say this, but I was like, could this be made more efficient? Because it doesn't seem very efficient. in terms of costs, right? I don't know. Maybe, again, I'm not educated on this. But what I did feel was, boy, is technology going to change this. I kept thinking it. And then some of the rules seemed ridiculous about, like, the van pickup was weird. They filmed an episode of Westworld on my street in Soho. And I looked out one day. And, I mean, they redid the entire street. They must have spent millions of dollars on this.

32:12The Westworld is just so beautifully done and high budget. And there must have been 200 people in kind of modern, I don't know what even the term is, kind of… Futuristic clothing. Yeah, I was going to say Calvin Klein, but that's not that futuristic. And they were so hot. So, I immediately went down and started talking to people like, hey, what are you doing? Hey, can I get in your movie? There must have been, they must have did this for 30 seconds of like background. And then they started filming and some horn went off and it was 4 p.m. and the actor goes, nice. And he goes, that means they have to bring us back tomorrow.

32:45So instead of filming till 4.30, they're like, no, they got to bring us back for a full day. And look, when TikTok wasn't around, when YouTube wasn't around, when everybody was watching American content and Hollywood, a 10 mile radius of LAX or Burbank Airport had 40, 60 % share of all global media, they could afford that. They can no longer afford that. Yeah, that's what I kept, I swear, you're going to get killed by union-y people from Hollywood because they hate us already. But I got to say, all I kept thinking was they could do this for a lot cheaper. And not, is this so much better? That's what I kept thinking.

33:24Is this so much better that they do it this way? And I kept thinking, no, a hundred, you know, I don't know. I just, I sound like a cruel, horrible person, but it seemed wildly inefficient. And everything that they did seemed like you could, like they had to redo scenes and blocking over again. And I understood that. They have to get different shots. And I just kept thinking this could be solved by technology. This will be solved by technology. And the creators will probably like it better because they'll have more choices. You know, it's kind of like using AI for headlines. And same thing with newspapers.

33:55Let me just tag newspapers. Newspapers not using AI for headline writing. I got in a big argument about that. All kinds of stuff that would be more efficient, more efficient. I think it's going to bifurcate. Just as retail went to kind of LVMH or Walmart or Tiffany or Walmart, I think content is going to go to love and death or just incredible Game of Thrones, just artisanal, just incredible content that brings together some of that magnificent talent. That's what they're up against right now. Anyway, we have lots to talk about. Speaking of changes in news, as someone who is tangled with unions and who also has a lot, has done a really good job at The New York Times, someone we both admire, Meredith Levian, CEO of The New York Times.

34:38Let's bring in our friend of Pivot.

34:46Meredith Levian is the president and CEO of The New York Times. Welcome, Meredith. There's a lot to talk about. Hi, Karen. Scott, I'm so happy to be here. I had you not just because you're a fantastic CEO and someone I admire a lot, but you're also a Pivot fan. I'm a huge fan. I think you guys are my running partners because I listen to Pivot when I run. I usually listen on like 1.5 speed, but if it's really important, I slow it down. And I slowed it down a couple days ago, maybe over the weekend for Maddie Kahn, whose book I bought this morning because I loved her interview so much. Yeah, she was really great.

35:21too. This is about young women and women executives and women as leaders, things like that. So, actually, let's talk about you as a leader. We have lots of questions. Obviously, I used to work with the New York Times on Sway, which I really enjoyed doing a column. And my favorite person at the New York Times is Meredith Levy, just so you know. We loved having you there. Yeah, yeah. We had a great time. And I really have a lot of admiration for what you're doing, because you also love journalism, which is really helpful. Maybe you'll have some advice to the new CEO of the Washington Post, but we'll do that at the end.

35:50But the Times announced its third quarter earnings last week. The company has close to 10 million subscribers with revenue up 9.3 % from last year. Nice performance. We've seen a lot of your competitors struggling right now. Talk a little bit about how you look at the bigger landscape and the Times in particular. Your News Corp had layoffs. The Washington Post is cutting jobs and offering buyouts. Gannett is struggling. Last week, Vice Media laid off dozens of staffers and the website Jezebel shut down. Vox also had previous layoffs and just across the media landscape. And of course, on The Morning Show, there's a lot of trouble for UBA.

36:26I think they merged, not to scoop it for anyone. I think they merged. Well, anyway, they had a billionaire trying to buy them for also. So talk to me a little bit about where The Times is. I'd love you to talk first from a bigger perspective and then The Times and specifically. Yeah, I'm happy to answer that. And let me first say the reason The Times has gotten to where it's gotten. And by the way, we still have a lot more road to travel. But the sort of most important idea of the place is that the first dollar of investment goes to independent journalism and making sure that the quality of the product is there.

37:12And I would say, I feel like that's the thing that doesn't get talked about enough in the story of the Times. I would say it's been a pretty good year so far against a backdrop of really tough headwinds for the industry broadly. I think journalism is under pressure in a lot of ways in terms of public trust and safety of journalists and legal protections and obviously business model pressure. So it's been like, it's a hard environment to operate in, but we have a really clear strategy that we have been at now for, you know, seven, eight years, like a long time. And, you know, clear idea of where we're going.

37:55We want to be the essential subscription for every curious person who wants to understand and engage with the world. And we've got a lot of ways to bring people into our ecosystem and get them ultimately to engage with news. and I think it's working. Let me just interject because lots of people do great quality, right? You know, I talk to a lot of journalists, but everyone seems to be suffering but the times. Is there, there can be only one? Is this like Highlander or what is this? I so don't agree with that, that there can be only one. Okay, explain me why. I know, but it feels like that. It feels like everybody else.

38:29It doesn't feel like that to me. So let me say a couple of things about that. The first thing to say is I think the biggest sort of enemies of quality independent journalism are not within journalism itself. It's not, you know, one journalism company competing with another. It is the things that are going on in society. It's, you know, disinformation. It's degradation of public trust. It's, you know, the fact that it has gotten physically harder and legally harder for journalists to do their work. and it's all the business model pressure that you're poking at. So I want to acknowledge that. I think what is working at the Times, and I'm always careful to say it is working now, but every bit of growth or success that comes to the Times is exceedingly hard fought as it is at the Journal or the Post or anywhere else.

39:24It is working now because of a very long-term commitment to the first dollar of the place, going to the journalism, going to the, you know, what everybody else would call content, the quality and the value of that content to very, very large numbers of people. So that's the first thing. The second thing I want to say is, you know, we all saw, you know, a very big uptick in news engagement after the election of 2016 because the political news cycle was so dramatic and so interesting. And then after that, we saw an even bigger uptake of news engagement with COVID and the tragedy of a global pandemic and all of its implications.

40:10And we sort of deeply understood that the business model shouldn't be reliant on any single story or storyline or news cycle to be the sort of, you know, propellant to growth in the future. So we did a lot of work in 2021 and early 22 to say, how do we ensure that we're able to harness demand for news and really high quality content in other big spaces that people care a lot about so that we always can grow subscribers? But let me follow up on that. But you made investments elsewhere. You all were super, whether it was Wordle, whether it was The Athletic, other things, and others didn't. Was that the secret sauce in that you saw other, or cooking, the cooking app, some things worked, some things didn't work, but a lot of them did work.

41:08The secret sauce of the place today, tomorrow, yesterday, forevermore, I think will be the quality of the journalism. In addition to this really high-quality news report relevant to a lot of people, have other products in really big spaces that people spend a lot of time on. Tens of millions of people play Wordle every week. It is almost two years since we bought Wordle. And one of the most exciting things to see is how many people still play all the time. And we actually announced on earnings last week, we have a homegrown game, Connections. that's like a few months into the wild. And 10 million people are playing Connections a week, which is awesome.

41:51And lots of other great games. And we've got a huge sports journalism site now that we have big ambitions to build into a world-class sports journalism destination. It's already great. We wanna make it even greater, even more widely known. And all of that, the idea behind all of that is so that we have a product set that is so compelling that whatever the news cycle, we can bring people into the Times ecosystem. And ultimately - You said casual. It's interesting you used the term casual. Yes, and let me just say, why am I using that term, Cara? We said on our earnings call, subscriber engagement is really, really strong.

42:29We keep growing subscribers and subscriber engagement. We now have 10 million subscribers is as high as it's been in three years. So subscriber engagement with news and all the other stuff we're doing is really, really strong. The challenge is how do you keep a casual audience growing? Because that's where the next 5 million and the 5 million after that subscribers will come from. And all of, you know, playing in these other spaces, very big spaces that people care a lot about with really high quality products is the way to do that. Good to see you, Meredith. So innovation around digital, innovation around infographics, I would argue that the most visible innovation, at least from a consumer standpoint, is the daily and podcasts, consistently like a number one podcast.

43:16What's next? If you were to try and own something or really strike out and have a signal or a flag of innovation, would it be around short form video? Would it be more podcasts? When you think about how you kind of pulse that innovation, where are you looking to make forward-leaning investments? Thanks for the question and thanks for the love of the daily. I want to say, by the way everybody talks about podcasts under a lot of pressure. That's pressure because the ad ecosystem, we still have huge listenership for the daily. And we have other podcasts that have launched like Hard Fork. We have existing ones like the Ezra Klein Show that as Kara knows, have great big audiences and are doing very, very well.

43:55So first thing to say, we're going to keep making audio products, Scott. So we're going to keep innovating around audio. We've got all kinds of experimentation going on in our audio destination right now. So that really matters. But you're asking, what is the, what's, I think you're asking, what's changing and how consumers want to engage with journalism? And I do think TikTok, you know, how many people use TikTok now for news and other information would suggest there is a real desire for people to be able to see things, to see them in short form. And I think one of the best innovations of the Times right now that you can see is on the homepage last night.

44:36It's probably still there today, but further down. We did a story, I think it came out yesterday, on an ammunition manufacturing plant, which is mostly made ammunition for the Army. And now you can trace from a number of the most horrific shootings we've seen, Las Vegas, Uvalde, I think Parkland, back to ammunition that was made in that plant. And a year ago, we would have launched that investigation and we would have hoped people, it would have been on the homepage, we would have hoped people would have read it and maybe we would have done takeaways. Yesterday, you had the journalist who actually did the investigation with a two-minute sort of multimedia video, might have been even shorter than that, on the homepage saying, this is what the story is about.

45:26This is how it came to be. We, Megan Tuhi of the Harvey Weinstein story fame did an incredible investigation into Adidas and Kanye West and their relationships. Scott, I'm sure you have lots to say about that whole thing. But we did that a few weeks ago, and we launched it on the homepage with Megan Toohey in a short-form video telling you this, you know, this is what this story is about. And by the way, if all you do is watch that video, you've gotten some of the Times journalism, but hopefully it's going to entice you to do more. I'm going to say two more things. The amount, we've produced something like 600 pieces of journalism from Israel-Gaza since the Hamas attack on October 7th.

46:12A huge portion of those have been video or multimedia. So even the way we are covering a war on the front lines now has evolved to be more visual. I bet, you know, Roger Cohen, who's a, you know, now the Paris Bureau chief, worked for us for like four decades, lands in Tel Aviv a few days after it happens. And the first thing he does is make a TikTok. You know, like to me, that is showing you where our ability to engage people at scale is going. So let me ask you about the Israel Hamas War. You're not the editorial side of things. You obviously pay a lot of attention. But what is your approach as CEO of a major news organization?

46:51Times ran a piece last week saying, does the boss need to weigh in on the war in the Middle East? Protesters occupied the lobby of the New York Times headquarters last week, demanding a ceasefire, criticizing the media. The Times also faced a criticism a few weeks ago over a headline of who was responsible for a hospital explosion in Gaza. Again, not your area. The editor's note was later released, giving some of the backstory and acknowledging some mistakes. But when you think about running a new organization, if you're the Disney CEO, if you're any CEO, how do you look at your role? Because you have a particular sensitive thing because your organization is actually covering.

47:25Yeah. Listen, the job of any CEO of any company is to see that the company is sufficiently economically stable, that it can keep doing what it does best to create value in the world and that that is a growth business. So that is my job, you know, first and last every day. In the case of the Times, what that means is that our business model is sufficiently secure and growing so that we can keep doing more journalism. And I'll just go right to what you're poking at, Cara. There, you know, this story of the, you know, Israel-Gaza war is, you know, it's a story of vast geopolitical consequence. And it is evocative of enormous feeling and opinion.

48:13And our job, even, you know, against that backdrop, is to pursue the truth wherever it may lead. And what I tell people is we are often judged for a single headline or even a single story. And people ask, was this fair? And by the way, we should be judged for that. But I would say zoom the camera back and say, look at the package of stories in how we strive to be fair in every bit of it and to show the nuance of a story in every bit of it. But sometimes it takes the package of stories to get that, you know, sort of sense of fairness and nuance. And sometimes it takes more than one news cycle or a few news cycles.

48:57We are five weeks into this war. And I would say, look at the body of work over those five weeks. How do you as a manager deal with it? Obviously, Bob Iger got dragged into the Ron DeSantis campaign. You must get dragged in all the time. And I think every CEO does. I would say broadly, you know, our take and my take as CEO is you, you know, the sort of wish to curry favor or get the win, win the room with either your audience for your product or your own employee base, which are often almost like the same thing now. That is just a losing game. You have to know what your principles are. You have to know what your values are.

49:40And the only thing to do in those situations is to say, what are my values? Do I have something to express about my values as a company in this moment? And if I do, then express it. And if not, don't. And in our case, you know, in the Times case, we express our values. But, you know, the most sacrosanct value of the place is the independence, the journalism, the pursuit of truth, wherever it may lead. And let me tell you, you cannot work at the New York Times happily and not understand that on any given day, some part of the journalism may piss you off. You may disagree with it, but the work is to pursue the truth wherever it may lead.

50:22And all we can do as a company is to express that value through more journalism. I was going to ask a question about metrics and role models, but when you're in a time like this and you get accused, there's sort of no winning. It's very hard to thread the needle between, by virtue of the fact you're in the business of journalism, people are going to perceive you as having a bias. What's the decision model? Like at the end of the day, who gets to make these calls? Is it just the editor-in-chief? Is it a group of people? Is it we respect the journalism in such that the journalist and the editor get to decide?

50:57When you're facing, I mean, I remember when I was involved in the New York Times, I read that 60 % of world leaders read the New York Times every morning, including in autocracy. So you do play an out, you command almost a larger role than you occupy, so to speak. What's the decision model when you're faced with accusations of a bias and you think this is really serious and we want to get it right? Who gets in what room and how do they make those decisions? Yeah, great question. And the shortest answer, I'm going to repeat something I said before, is the work always is pursue the truth wherever it may lead.

51:32And I'll finish the sentence and say, even when that truth is uncomfortable or people don't like it. And there are so many examples in our journalism of reporting on something that people wish not to be the case, but is. The actual, let me say a couple of things about the actual process. One, there is no business person at the New York Times, and this includes me as CEO. It includes, Scott, you know this because you were on our board for a stretch. no director, not the CEO, nobody in executive management on the business side of the New York Times plays any role in the journalism other than ensuring we have a growing business that can keep funding it and keep protecting it.

52:15Now, how do we do that and what role does that play? Well, we have a giant standards department, that's some of what you're asking, relative to what other publishers might have. So a group of people, long experts in journalism and reporting and editing whose job is to say, is this the most sensitive way to get the truth out? Something horrible happens. Do you show, you know, a treacherous image of someone being killed? What is the best way to get the truth to someone in a way that is fair and nuanced? And so people will understand it. So we've got a big standards department. We have a journalistic leadership team, a masthead an executive editor, and his set of direct reports that is as expert as they come.

53:07And what I want to say is they have an unbelievable process for pouring over every decision in a way that the chain of command works as it should. And in the instances, in the rare instances where we don't get something right in a story, an ongoing or developing story, we name that. And what I would say there, because Scott, you started this as a leadership question, is that the, I'm ripping off somebody's quote, but it's like the difference between greatness and arrogance is humility. Like you need every organization, including the New York Times, needs the humility to say, if we don't do something, if we would have gone back and done something differently, knowing later a different fact set, then you have to tell people that.

53:52And the headline you both referred to, that was the case. It's not that we shouldn't have run the headline. We should have given more context to it. We might, you know, we shouldn't have used the sort of giant treatment it got. It was a developing story. Yeah. So let's talk about things that you do have an impact on. I do, you do not meddle, in other words. I do not meddle. Although other CEOs do, as you know, in media organizations. But one of the things that's gotten a lot of attention is your deal to buy The Athletic, which was a very big, a big swing for you. It was$550 million. I think it was your first big deal.

54:27I'm not going to count Wordle. I mean, I was in his or Wordle. It was a little more expensive than Wordle. Wordle was what? How much was Wordle? A little less than$550 million. So he got some, the sports department was disbanded this past July. The coverage was handed over to the athletic. Very controversial, especially around union issues that you've also had to deal with. That is your job. Let's talk a little bit about what you're going for here, because there was a lot of complaints by the unions. I know you've had, you know, the tribes have had struggles with this union, as many companies have.

54:58Can you talk a little bit about that? I'll talk about the unions. Let me first say what we're trying to do with The Athletic. We, you know, we're almost two years into our ownership of The Athletic. And I would say what we're trying to do here is as the preeminent brand in global news journalism, we want to build a category leading brand in global sports journalism. We acquired The Athletic because we thought it was already awesome at what it did. It is a giant newsroom. It's 450, I think, growing now. So even more journalists, one of the largest sports journalism newsrooms on the planet. And we are throwing gas on that fire.

55:36And we have huge ambitions to be, you know, a sports journalism destination befitting the New York Times and befitting what we are as a global news destination. So that's what we're trying to do. We did disband our sports desk just a month or so ago. So, Cara, and we did it because it was the right thing to do for our readers. I want to say, and this has been out there, I feel like it doesn't get covered enough. Not a single person lost their job. So sports desk was about 40, somewhere between 40 and 50 people. A group of them went to the athletic. A group of them will continue to cover sports in a general interest way at the New York Times, how sports tie up with business and culture and politics and so forth.

56:20And a third of them went into other jobs in the newsroom. So no one lost their job. And what we did for our readers, which I very much believe is the right thing for our readers, was give them access to the output of 450 and counting sports journalists who are covering, you know, the biggest teams and leagues in the United States. And Scott, you cover European football very aggressively. I understand you care a lot about that. And we're now, that is now a much more prominent thing on the New York Times, both in the newspaper and on the website. And as I said, we intend to make that bigger. We feel like it was well within our rights to do that from a labor perspective.

57:02And we think doing it actually helps the New York Times, helps grow the business of the New York Times, ultimately, right? We're playing a long game. here to be a growing company, such that we can keep investing in the newsroom, keep hiring journalists, keep investing in journalists. And the last thing I'll say, Karen Scott, is that I've been here 10 years. And the thing I am proudest of is that the New York Times newsroom, before the acquisition of The Athletic, not counting puzzle makers and recipe makers, not counting Wirecutter, is hundreds of journalists larger today than it was when I got there.

57:39but the unions are not happy they want it unionized we we um we had a much long we believe much longer than it should have been um period took us two years and i think five months to get to a contract um with the new york times news guild the contract we ultimately got to is one that was ratified in the high i think by 99 percent of the people it's a contract i think the newsroom feels very good about it. We feel very good about it. You know, it's we ended up exactly where we wanted to. And so I'm confident that this remains a place where the best journalists can come and do the most fulfilling, exciting work of their careers to a huge audience.

58:23All right. Well, well played, Meredith Levin. Yeah. So, Meredith, I've found that CEOs have their favorite metrics and kind of role models, whether it's NPS or gross margins or engagement, they tend to get fond of one or two metrics. And then they're constantly citing a competitor or someone else to their team, what they're doing, why aren't we doing this? What are your favorite metrics and role models? I think the most important business metric at the New York Times by far is the number of engaged users we have every day and every week at the New York Times, and particularly subscribers. and my own view is if the people who are already paying for you aren't, you know, growing in their engagement, even as you grow them in number, you've got a growth problem.

59:12So time on site or? So, so percent of subscribers. So we have 10 million plus paying subscribers. Now, the percent of them who come to us every week or multiple times a week is what we pay sort of obsessive attention to at the New York Times. And that's the number I said earlier. We are seeing now to be, even as we grow, the number of subscribers is as high as it's been in, I think, about three years. So we are obsessed with growing that. We're also obviously very interested in growing engagement from the casual audience. That's harder for any number of reasons, including some of the platforms that essentially done what feels like turned off news or had a radical reduction in directing audience to news.

1:00:00But we are in what I would describe to you as a race against time to build products that are so valuable and so good and so worthy and essential in your lives that, you know, huge numbers of people are going to come to us directly or find us however the ecosystem evolves. So that's the metric I'm obsessed with. And who do you look up to in media? Lots of people. I mean, I'm going to say I remain deeply interested in Disney. I think like the Times, although at a much greater scale, Disney has a very clear strategy, at least as I understand as another business person who watches them from the outside and also as the mom of a 12-year-old.

1:00:44You can't not have Disney. It's essential for so many reasons. And I think they are able to be essential, you know, first to a media consumer, but also in lots of other ways. You could be CEO of Disney. You'd be on the list. You know, Carol, I love my job. You know what CEO job I want? I want to be the CEO of the New York Times, Carol. Yeah, but if Disney came a knocking. That wasn't a no. Oh, that wasn't a no. I want to be the CEO of the New York Times. I have the best job in media. I would drag you to Burbank. I would like say, come on. Let's go to the big one. Let me ask you two more quick questions.

1:01:22One is you said business metrics you use. Your predecessor, Mark Thompson, gave an interview in 2020 before you took the reins predicting the print version of The New York Times would be gone in 20 years. He did not do that. Okay. All right. Okay. All right. What did he do? Our running joke was anytime he would say it will be here at least 10 years or at least 20 years, someone would write, it's over in 10 years. He was not high on it. He was not high on it. And you mentioned that in a recent earnings call that you expect continued head liquids in print advertising. What is your feeling about print?

1:01:54I think we still have this magical product that, you know, lands on hundreds of thousands of people's doorsteps every day and even more on Sunday. And I would say, for the money, show me something else that valuable to every member of your family and that much a sort of central part of your day, especially on Sundays. And that is the thing we are trying to do. But at digital scale, we want to do that for tens of millions of people, maybe hundreds of millions of people one day. So I think the print is still inspiring and magical, still makes a lot of money. But headwinds. Of course, of course. And what I want to say is one of the best things about the Times business model is, you know, from the time I got there 10 years ago.

1:02:40It was like, we're not trying to protect print, which is the highest margin thing by miles that we do. We are trying to take the thing that we did of value to consumers, do it at a digital scale, recognizing we're now competing with the largest and most powerful companies on earth to do it. But it's like print is almost like the emblem of the value. That Sunday paper is emblematic of the value we can create. But instead of doing it for a million people, let's do it for 10 million people or 100. May I just say, I want to give the quote for Thompson just to say we actually are accurate. I believe the Times will definitely be printed for another 10 years and quite possibly for another 15 years, maybe even slightly more than that.

1:03:24I would be very surprised if it's printed in 20 years. Can I get my real beef with Mark Thompson and also Will Lewis so you don't forget to ask me about both of them? Yes, yes. What's your real beef? They both got knighted, I think, in the same class. And I feel so unworthy to be completing. Well, you are British. Right? They both got knighted. But the truth is, I feel like this is kind of insufficiently talked about in media. The New York Times wants and believes the world desperately needs a very healthy ecosystem of other publishers and purely other serious news publishers. All right. So what was your advice?

1:04:05That's your last question to Will Lewis. What is, he's British charming. Mark Thompson's British charming. He's overrunning CNN. I think he'll be fine. I don't think you have any advice to him necessarily, but what advice - Mark Thompson and I have given each other a decade of advice. Right, exactly. Will Lewis, what is his, what would you say to him? The most important challenges in journalism to ensure that the New York Times and the Washington Post and CNN and the Wall Street Journal can do what we do for another hundred years and then a hundred after that are kind of on the outside. They are about, you know, the public's trust in high quality independent journalism, the public's understanding of what it means to actually be and do independent journalism, the public actually placing a value on that.

1:04:50I think that is the number one thing we are all facing that we need to be working on and working on together. I think journalist safety and legal protection feels as fragile as I have known it in all the time I've worked on the business side of serious journalism. And I think we all need sustainable business models and the information ecosystem, not entirely, you know, not in most ways, not controlled by us, needs to honor the value we produce. And I think those are the most important things we should all be focused on. So you know what I tell them? Get Jeff Bezos to open up your damn checkbook.

1:05:29That's what I'd say. Time to be buying. There is no substitute for investing in the product. That is the only answer. It's why the Times is where it is. Stop investing in yachts, Jeff. Start putting money into pension. All right. Yeah. And my last question, what are you going to buy next? Is it a time to buy? Well, I don't need to buy your house, Cara, because in D.C., we're down the street from each other. I want to say the times, you know, I certainly don't rule out that there's more, you know, to come at some point in the portfolio. But at the present moment, we are intensely focused on the awesome portfolio products we have in, you know, our news report, making our news report even more widely read, even more accessible.

1:06:16are, you know, I've told you sports and games are giant spaces and we want to have the leading sports journalism product and we want to have the leading puzzles product in both of those spaces. So we are intensely focused on executing on that vision. We've got an incredible recipe app. I hope everybody is going to get off this, listening to this podcast, go download it and get ready for Thanksgiving next week. That's when we're at our finest, but it's useful all year. And we have an incredible shopping advice site. So we already have a portfolio right now. Our focus is on executing, on being excellent there and becoming essential to more people.

1:06:55All right, Meredith Levy, and as you can see, an impressive executive who's someday going to be CEO of Disney. Really fun to be here. Thanks, Meredith. Keep running with me. We need to speed up. Thank you for having me. This was a treat. We appreciate it. Thanks so much. See you soon. Anyway, interesting times. Merith is very impressive. She's one of my favorite people. We'll take one more quick break. We'll be back for, Scott, your prediction.

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1:10:00okay scott let's hear a prediction you're so good at them i by the way i got i can i say i got one right i got one right which was my prediction that marvels wasn't going to do well uh which it didn't it was a disappointment for disney i think they're not surprised did you have you seen it i didn't go i was busy this weekend i now set a toothache so i didn't i didn't i sort of lay around and moaned quite a bit for the weekend but uh but it didn't do well 40 million dollars which which is very not good for a Marvel movie. So, but I think they were expecting it in any case. I will see it. I will see it.

1:10:34By the way, if you were Russian and knighted, do you know what you'd be called? What? Sergei. Do you know what I'd be called if I was knighted? Okay, that's good. You know what I'd be called? That one was good. Thank you. Go ahead. What would you be called? Cirrhosis. Oh, that's good. You know, because you're gay and I drink a lot. I get that. Because you're gay and I drink too much. I felt like you had it. And then you lost it. Like it was interesting. It just took a second for you to lose it. You had it and then you lost it. Let's keep working on that. Keep workshopping the cirrhosis. I thought you were going to say Sir Dogg or something like that.

1:11:10No. So I think that the Democratic and the Republican Party going into 2024 will pick kind of one key issue to lead with. to try and create this umbrella brand around why you should vote all red or all blue. I think that the issue for the Democrats is going to be women's rights or specifically reproductive rights. I just think it's a winner. It resonates with a lot of moderates. They've, it has turned out people. It's a winner for them. And the Republicans have kind of backed themselves into a corner, especially if the, if the nominee is anyone but Haley, it's going to be difficult. I think that's their lead.

1:11:50And I think the Republicans were – it wasn't obvious what their lead was going to be. I think their lead is going to be rooted in education, but they're going to show videos of people interrupting math classes at MIT. They're going to show these protests at elite universities. And they're going to juxtapose that with kind of 30s protests, pro-Hitler protests. I think they're going to basically try and attach the elite, the far left universities with being just out of control in terms of their – what they will say is an inability to push back. That's not going to work. On terrorism or fascism. I think that's where they'll go.

1:12:34You know what I think the Democrats should do? I was just talking to a bunch of – I'm saying Republicans. No, I know. But you know what Democrats should do? Freedom. We're for freedom. Book banning. I think they should wrap the whole thing in a, we're for freedom. We're for your freedom of speech. We're for your freedom of medical choices, freedom of books you want to read. Why are the Republicans so censorious? I would turn it on them. Why are they so woke? I think they should turn the whole thing and use the word freedom, freedom, freedom. It's such a good thing for them. We're for your freedom.

1:13:07We believe that you should be free. I don't think it works. I need to ruminate on that. Think about it. Ruminate. It's a great word. Take back everyone. Take back patriotic. We're for defending Israel. We're for freedom. We're for democracy. We're for, use the big words, pull out the big ones, patriotism. I've been shocked at how many conservative families I have met who have decided that they're not going to send their kids to college. What? Yeah, that they literally think college has become this weird. I wouldn't do it because it's expensive. Weird and daunting. No, these are people who can afford it.

1:13:40They would rather the kids take a gap year and start working that they are so turned off by what they see happening on campuses. Yeah, there are certainly a lot of mad people, that's for sure. Did you know that just 10 years ago, two-thirds of American parents hoped their kids go to college? It just dipped below 50 % for the first time in like 50 years? Largely because of the fucking cost and how bad it makes you feel to get in. Honestly, that whole experience was ridiculous. I think that's a big part of it. But that's been I just don't think there's any getting around it. I think some of the imagery coming out of campuses right now really turns off a lot of households.

1:14:14Really interesting. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know. I've had really good debates with my kids about this. And I feel like I don't know. I don't think it's going to work. I don't think people think about it that much. I think a very small slice of people do. But I think suburban moms are like, stop telling me what books to read and stop, get your hands off my uterus right now, like immediately. Get your hands off my uterus is there are a lot of families who, and maybe they don't talk about it, but at some point in their life have experience with reproductive rights and have said, look, that's all fine and good until it's your niece or you, right?

1:14:53And they recognize the distinct of their personal feelings that this is just a war on women, young women, especially young women of color. And anyone who's had any sort of, you know, scare around this stuff, it kind of comes to that, what I would argue, that correct position. I think in terms of the book stuff, while I agree with you, I think it's reprehensible. I don't think that's why. I don't think that motivates people to vote. No, but I think it's a package. It's the same thing. It's like, leave the gays alone. Why are you so mean to the gays? I have a gay cousin. Like that kind of stuff.

1:15:24It's all like, what do you do? Get off of my lawn. Get off of my fucking lawn. That's what I would use. I think a lot more people don't like being lectured to by Glenn Youngkin, Mr. Star of the Republican Party. Stop talking 15 weeks. We don't want to hear anything from you. We want you to get off our lawn. He got whacked. He got double whacked. He's lost control. He was going to win the entire legislature. He lost the entire legislature and made it worse. He's not going to do anything for his next couple of years. He's washed up. But we've been thinking in higher ed, we thought that disruption was going to come in the hands of technology and costs and that there would be some sort of Old Navy AI driven certification that you could get for a fraction of the cost.

1:16:05And technology was going to come in and hand us our lunch. I invested behind this. I started an ed tech company. I've been waiting for the disruption in higher ed for a decade. Quite frankly, it hasn't happened. The elite universities until recently have never been stronger. The thing that's disrupting higher ed right now is what's happening on campuses. The distinct of what side you're on, campuses are in a state of turmoil right now. And some of them are losing. I mean, they might wake up next year and see their fundraising down by 60%. And they have built cost infrastructures that demand that type of fundraising.

1:16:40And all of a sudden, they're going to wake up and think, okay, last year we raised$700 million. This year we raised$210 million. Oh, and by the way, we have fixed costs with tenure and these ridiculous relaxification of the campus. that we've capital plans we've approved. It's really interesting. Disruption is coming from a place they weren't expecting. Although at some point that's also going to, I mean, ultimately, it'll be interesting to see where these rich people send their money then if they're not because they love doing the campus thing and they love being on the boards and this and that.

1:17:11I've heard from so many wealthy people, mostly people who are upset by the anti-Semitic nature of so much of it, complain to me. And I was like, you know what, just stop. Just stop giving money. I don't know what to tell you. Stop calling me. I don't want to hear from you. Don't give money. That's all you get for your money is an ability to lord it over people. So just don't give it. I like what you said. You don't like Chick-fil-A? Don't eat a Chick-fil-A. Don't eat it. Don't eat it. Literally, I've hung up on so many rich people. I'm like, I don't care. Just don't give the money. Like, stop talking.

1:17:38I think they do, like, you know, ultimately. That's all you can get for your money is an ability to speak. And if you don't want to speak, walk with your wallet. Take your wallet and go. And speaking of which, Jeff Bezos, give more money to The Washington Post. You have to. If you want to be successful like Meredith Levy and Mr. Lewis, you need to milk that guy for some money. He should give it. It's a good spending of Jeff Bezos' money, I think, personally. I think there should be more than one major or at least three or four really important news organizations like the New York Times. Anyway, we want to hear from you.

1:18:11Send us your questions about business, tech, or whatever's on your mind. Go to nymag.com slash pivot to submit a question for the show or call 855-51-PIVOT. Okay, Scott, that's the show. Well, you look lovely today. Your tie is very, I hope you get to see 10 Downing. At some point. Yeah, or I'll take you next time I come in. Anyway, that's the show. Of course, of course. That's the show. We'll be back on Friday for more. Please read us out. Today's show was produced by Lara Neiman, Zoe Marcus, and Taylor Griffin. Ernie and her Todd engineered this episode. Thanks also to Drew Burrows, Miel Savera, and Gadda McBain.

1:18:46Make sure you subscribe to the show wherever you listen to podcasts. Thanks for listening to Pivot from New York Magazine and Vox Media. We'll be back later this week for another breakdown of all things tech and business. I put a tie-ons. I refer to me as cirrhosis.

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