Taylor Lorenz on Zohran Mamdani, Mass Surveillance and the Rise of Nick Shirley 

0:00Hello again, everybody. Coming at you here with part two of the conversation that I had with Taylor Lorenz. If you watch part one, if you listen to part one, you saw we talked a lot about AI, about social media, I'm a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot of a lot back. And then we also had a conversation just about the media, why everybody hates us, why nobody trusts the media anymore. And just before we get into part two, a reminder that if you're watching us on YouTube, you can also listen to us on all the big podcast platforms.

0:43You can like and subscribe on Spotify, on Apple Podcasts, iHeart, all those guys. And then throw us a comment, throw us a like on YouTube. Everything always counts, always matters. And of course, you can always reach me at my email address, which is at the bottom of my column in the 1600 every morning. This country was stone cold dead. Speaking of politics, right, so you're starting to see the Trump, you know, sort of like MAGA coalition unravel. I'm sure you saw this New York Times poll from the other day that just showed, you know, just showed all of these groups. Right. You know, voters who don't come out often, Latino voters, black voters, young men, young people just in general.

1:23They're all snapping back to where they were before 2024. for. So I guess my question is, are the Democrats and I already know the answer to this, are they capitalized? Are there any Democrats out there that are actually capitalizing on the fact that you have all of these coalitions that are essentially politically homeless right now? No, they don't care. They want to just like I don't know their strategy right now. I was talking to a strategist like recently who's just they're like very Newsom, Gavin Newsom pilled like they're just like they're like, we didn't go further to the right enough. You know, Kamala Harris wasn't woke enough.

1:55She was too woke. And so we need to go, like, we just need to even be more Republican, which is just crazy because it's like, but then the Republicans are actual Republicans. So like, they're always going to be more, if you're trying to get people on the right, like, guess what? Those people already have a party and it's one that caters very well to them. So I don't really know what their whole strategy is. They seem just totally delusional about like issues, as you said, that matter to people. I mean, I think we saw this with Israel and Gaza. They're just completely out of step with like public opinion, the majority of their base.

2:30And they remain that way. And yeah, I mean, I would think like they should use this opportunity to rail against AI, rail against surveillance capitalism, rail against all this stuff, you know, past consumer protection laws. I mean, I'm so disappointed that we weren't able to break up Meta and Google last year. Like we lost, Democrats were barely, they didn't even talk about that. You know, it's like, guys, we just missed the opportunity to break up, you know, two of the biggest tech monopolies. And you're happy about it, actually, that they remain because they fund you. Right. Yeah. Because they fund them.

3:03There is one there is one Democrat in who I think is doing something interesting. And that's Zoran Mamdani here in New York. Yeah. I always forget he's even a Democrat. Yeah. Well, yeah, I guess he technically isn't, but kind of is. So you're in L.A., you're not here. He's, you know, since he's one of the things that's very noticeable in New York since he took office a couple of weeks ago, other than now everyone is a communist. No, is that we have these big screens on the street. They're called like Link NYC. They're basically just like, you know, they show you like the weather and like when the subway is coming and stuff like that.

3:34He's all over these signs, right? His face, you know, he puts these really good TikTok videos out and they put them up on the screen. To me, what's interesting about that is he's basically taking a page from the Trump playbook, which is you have to always just be on the screen, right? It doesn't even matter what you're saying. It doesn't even matter what you're doing. Always be posting. Just take credit for stuff, right? One of the things he, the first things he did was he paved over this little bump on the Williamsburg Bridge that, you know, a lot of cyclists were having a hard, would fall over, right?

4:06Stupid little, little thing, right? Kind of crazy for the mayor to be out there, you know, shoveling asphalt on a little, you know, pothole. But, you know, it went viral and he comes across as somebody who is actually in touch with, you know, you, the citizens, day to day life. And I think one of the reasons why he's doing this, he just he has a pretty natural ability to understand that you have to be on people's screens, whatever those screens are and wherever they are. Do you sort of get that sense? And again, I know you're not here in New York. Yeah, no, I'm a New Yorker. I'm a New Yorker. I was there on election night.

4:36Yeah, I covered it for The Hollywood Reporter. And I actually wrote about that, that exact angle that he has throughout his campaign as well, like understood the value of communicating his successes like digitally. I mean, if you just look at his entire campaign, it was structured around that. And part of it is he has just such an amazing digital media team, but also he's accessible and he's not he's not scolding people. Like, I think that's what the Democratic Party has become is they've become this party of people that just it's like, well, you have to vote. Sorry. Like you mentioned that little pottle.

5:09I used to bike across the Williamsburg Bridge. I know exactly that point that they're talking about. And it's like this little thing. But it is those little inconveniences. And it's the type of thing that Democrats traditionally would be like, suck it up, you know, suck it up. You're not getting universal pre-K. You're not going to get anything. It is what are you going to do? What are you going to do for the Republicans? That's funny. Exactly. Yeah. Maybe you should run for office, Taylor. No, I would lose. Yes, I would lose, too. Hey, Zoran's controversial and he won. Yeah, but I'd be like, let's put phones in schools.

5:43People would be like, no. Right. Before I let you go, I want to ask you about the media. And I know that there's nothing more annoying than two journalists complaining about the media. But I do, you know, as a member of the media and, you know, you're independent, I'm a member of the, you know, godforsaken mainstream media now. Why does nobody trust us anymore? What explains this insane decline of risk? I mean, there was the Gallup poll. I forget. It was like a year ago. And the media now polls less favorable than Congress, which is like so embarrassing for us, for me at least. I know. It's you know, I think part of it is due to the Republican Party's effective messaging on the media and Trump's like fake news.

6:28Like, I do think that they have really made a dent in that. But I think the media has done it to themselves. You know, when you look at corporate media, it's overwhelmingly like these for profit behemoths that don't challenge power in like meaningful ways. and they kind of exist to, like they're pro-capitalism, they're pro-corporations, they're not, they're anti-labor. And I think just with the decline of digital media, which I think a lot of digital media places like BuzzFeed News and Vice and stuff actually did challenge power and actually gave these mainstream news organizations a run for their money.

6:59But when we saw the bottom fall out of that industry kind of in the late 2010s, I think that these big media companies that are still around, they feel like they can just do no wrong. And they're and they're ultimately beholden to capital and a lot fewer people that they just they see through it. I think also one other thing I'll say is that, you know, a lot of them, I do think that conservatives are correct that they give deference to the Democratic Party. And I saw that firsthand myself. Sure. You see the way they cover, for instance, ice under Trump versus the way they covered ice under Biden.

7:32And yes, Trump's doing crazier things and being extra cruel and all this stuff, but they don't hold Democrats accountable in the same way. And I do think that that's a huge problem. Also, look at how they dropped the ball and completely misled people about so many major events. I mean, I think the Gaza stuff has come to fruition lately, but also COVID stuff was really— We did ourselves no favors during COVID. Yeah, it was really bad. And so, you know, I think there's just they never really again, it's that scold energy. It's kind of like, what, you know, what are you going to do? Believe misinformation.

8:08It's like, well, it turns out some of that misinformation was not misinformation. And actually, you guys are publishing kind of misleading headlines. And so who are we going to trust, you know? Right. No, I mean, I think I just think of like the reporting around the lab leak theory in, you know, the early part of COVID. And, you know, this idea that that was somehow, you know, some sort of like racist, you know, propaganda, when in fact it could have, we don't know, but certainly could have been true and obviously deserved much more reporting and, you know, attention in the moment. Right. Right.

8:40Yeah. Or I mean, I just will say, too, like I was working at The New York Times during this time, like the way that they covered Biden versus Trump's. I mean, Trump Biden enacted some policies that were further to the right of Trump when he came into office on covid, forcing people back to work, removing labor protections. I mean, this was a big battle even in the newsroom. We were being forced back to work when it wasn't safe. And so I just yeah, I just think they dropped the ball on so many issues. Problem is, it's like what replaces it. Right. So you see, I mean, obviously, there's great, you know, there's there's digital journalists and independent journalists like yourself who have sort of like come up in, you know, in a proper, you know, proper journalism background.

9:21And there is still something there is still a craft here. Right. It's like not, you know, it's not brain surgery, but there is still something to it. Right. You can't just like walk out on the street. You go, oh, you know, I'm a journalist now. I'm going to like uncover the story. But that is now what's happening. Right. You see people like this guy, Nick Shirley, who is like taking credit for the, you know, the Somali fraud story in Minneapolis. He's just some kid like he you know, he's out there with his camera. And I guess, you know, more power to him for I don't know. for he's barely coherent i mean he got fed that story by a republican lawmaker like i i don't right i don't think that influencers are ever going to like you know be a um a permanent or good solution to you know the the what this sort of traditional media did in terms of a lot of amazing investigative work um because the business model is not built to support it and you are subject to audience capture, you're relying on these social media platforms.

10:18People like Nick Shirley and the right, generally, they're funded by billionaire donors that understand the value of independent media. The Democrats don't understand any of that. They refuse. They actually, they hire these centrist Democrat influencers just to bash leftist influencers that are like pro-worker, pro-union. So, yeah, it's just another example of like the Democrats kind of screwing everyone over, but... If there's any young journalists listening or watching, what would your advice to them be? Like, would you go to like what if you had to choose between like going to journalism school, you know, trying to get a job at like the local paper and like building your clips or just going out like Nick Shirley, not necessarily like him, but, you know, in that same vein and just building your follower count.

11:05Like what is more important in this industry now? It's not even a question. Obviously, the second one. Don't do anything. Don't do not go to journalism school. Huge waste of money. You do not need to do that. Some of these journalism schools like$100 ,000. You don't need to do that. This is a trade you can learn. Local news is just completely gutted and you're not going to gain any sort of national attention. There used to be this on ramp. I mean, again, as a millennial, that you could come up through digital media. Like I was writing for Mike.com, Mashable, BuzzFeed. There were sort of this middle class of where you could learn, but now it's all gone.

11:37And so, yeah, I mean, I just think, you know, you can take some extended continuing education courses on journalism and stuff. There's actually a lot of information on YouTube about reporting. And there's people that, you know, it's a trade you can learn. It's not rocket science. And it's just, yeah, but the business model is not there. You're not going to get a salary while you're doing that. So you've got to hope that your YouTube video takes off. And that's a broken system. But if you're, you know, if you are a hiring manager, as I guess I am now in, you know, in sort of like the quote unquote mainstream media, I guess I'm more interested in your follower count, right, than I am in your sort of, you know, resume.

12:14I've never really actually thought about this myself, but I guess, you know, we, people in our business, in the mainstream media, we need people, we need new, you know, readers. We need new audience. You're going to get that new audience from people who are already have a built in audience, right? Yeah. And you see this time and time again. I think people like the reason why hiring managers want to hire those people is that even if they're not that successful, even if, you know, this person's been making YouTube videos for three years out of school and they're like, maybe they only have 2000 followers or something, but they clearly have digital skills where they clearly have skills and they're trying to operate in this new media environment.

12:49They're trained. They can at least understand YouTube analytics like that's more valuable than somebody that's been sitting in a local newsroom filing into some archaic system and can't navigate inside the new media climate. That's a very good point. YouTube analytics is something I'm still trying to to figure out. Maybe I'll pick your brain on that later. Taylor, my final question to you is what's the most undercover story on the Internet right now? What are the what are the kids talking about that us olds can learn from? God. Well, guys, I'm going to beat a dead horse here. And I'm just going to say, I do think that the rise of mass surveillance is not being covered.

13:25If you look at especially the mainstream media, tech reporting has been so, I mean, like, so effectively neutered where when you look at like the coverage, it's like, wow, this exciting startup from Sam Altman just raised$10 billion. and people are not covering, you know, a lot of these state identity law, you know, verification laws and other things like that. So I think that's really undercovered. The cultural stuff is so covered because it's the internet and everyone likes to talk about like clavicular and stuff. But I just don't think people are willing to dig into like all this dangerous tech policy that's happening.

13:58It's not as fun, but it's important. I know. And it deals with numbers. Journalists hate numbers. Yeah. We get lazy, you know. No, Taylor, thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate it. Before we go, let's just tell everybody where they can find your work. Yeah, well, subscribe to my YouTube channel. Like, no joke. I'm just Taylor Lorenz on YouTube. I have my live streaming channel, Taylor Lorenz Live Streams. And then I have, I'm on every social platform, but also my sub stack, usermag.co. That's usermag.co, where I write about all this stuff and more. We'll put that in the description.

14:33Taylor Lorenz, the one and only. Taylor, thank you so much again. Thanks so much for having me.