Episodes

  • Brian Stelter on the 60 Minutes Mess; Nilay Patel on Apple’s AI Problem

    Brian Stelter on the 60 Minutes Mess; Nilay Patel on Apple’s AI Problem
    Jun 10 2026
    Brian Stelter and Nilay Patel are both covering big, powerful institutions that are undergoing real change, whether they like it or not. Stelter, CNN’s chief media analyst, joins me to talk about the mess at CBS News and 60 Minutes: What is Bari Weiss’s rationale for trying to remake Paramount’s news operations? And does owner David Ellison care about the very inevitable stumbles that have followed since she showed up? We talk about Scott Pelley’s public exit interview, what 60 Minutes might look like next fall, and why this has morphed from a media industry story to one normal people seem to care about. Also discussed: The fact that Stelter could end up working for Weiss in the near future. Then Nilay Patel, editor-in-chief of The Verge, joins from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference, where Apple tried to convince everyone that it has an AI plan — and why that plan is different and better than the one it promised in 2024 and never delivered. A new Siri — if it works as advertised — sounds great. But what’s really important for Apple's AI strategy, Patel argues, is prepping for a future where the iPhone gets displaced by… something. Also discussed: The fact that Vox Media, the company that owns both The Verge and the podcast network you’re listening to right now, are about to split up. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 6 mins
  • How Dhar Mann Turned After-School Specials Into A Billion-View Business

    How Dhar Mann Turned After-School Specials Into A Billion-View Business
    Jun 3 2026
    Dhar Mann’s videos look simple, because they are simple: Someone acts badly, someone learns a lesson, everyone gets a moral by the end. You don’t have to be a kid to enjoy these, but it helps.The business behind them is complex. Mann has built a scripted-video studio that turns out TV-length episodes in weeks, generating billions of views a month. Now he tells me he’s expanding beyond YouTube and Facebook into places like Samsung TVs and Fox-backed microdramas, and he thinks the assembly line he’s built will work, there, too. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    38 mins
  • Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour Explains Why Boring Data Is a Great Media Business

    Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour Explains Why Boring Data Is a Great Media Business
    May 27 2026
    I think of Dow Jones as The Wall Street Journal, because that’s the part I know — and the part I used to work near/around/inside. But Dow Jones CEO Almar Latour has built a much bigger business around the Journal: risk and compliance, energy data, Factiva, AI deals, and other stuff that sounds boring until you realize how much money companies will pay for it. So I asked Latour to explain why Dow Jones is doing well while so many other media companies are struggling, howEmma Tucker, the Wall Street Journal's editor-in-chief, is changing the Journal, what he’s trying to do with AI, and what it’s like to run a Murdoch-owned newsroom that covers Rupert Murdoch and Donald Trump. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    47 mins
  • Vox Media's Jim Bankoff Explains Why He's Selling to James Murdoch

    Vox Media's Jim Bankoff Explains Why He's Selling to James Murdoch
    May 20 2026
    Jim Bankoff has spent nearly 20 years building Vox Media. Now he’s selling a big chunk of it to James Murdoch, who is acquiring Vox Media's Podcast Network - the same one that produces this podcast - along with New York Magazine and Vox.com. We do all the disclosures at the top of this interview, but let’s do it all here too: I’ve worked for Jim for a long time, and I work with the podcast network he’s selling, and I just like him as a human. So this one’s way more conflicted than a standard Channels chat.Still, I have some straight-ahead questions for him. Like: What does it mean when multiple buyers were interested in his podcast business, but much less interested in the rest of the portfolio he’s been assembling for years? What changes for the properties Murdoch acquires? And why is Jim staying on to work for Murdoch, when he can almost certainly do something else? And, because it’s Channels, we also gaze backwards a bit, and poke at some of the steps and missteps Vox Media took along the way. But if you’re looking for a wake for a digital media startup, this isn’t it. Jim is very optimistic about what comes next, and I have a vested interest in him being right. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    29 mins
  • Versant CEO Mark Lazarus is Running a Post-Cable Cable Company

    Versant CEO Mark Lazarus is Running a Post-Cable Cable Company
    May 20 2026
    Versant is the new company Comcast created when it spun off CNBC, MS NOW, USA and other cable networks it no longer wanted inside the mothership. That makes Mark Lazarus’ job pretty simple to describe and very hard to do: take a business built around cable TV — an industry in obvious decline — and use the cash it still generates to build new businesses.I talked to Lazarus on the day Versant reported its first real earnings as a standalone company — and the day its stock bounced after getting hammered out of the gate. He says the early selloff was predictable; that Comcast didn’t “ditch” Versant; and that independence gives him the chance to invest in assets instead of kicking the cash up to the bosses in Philadelphia.We talked about what Versant is supposed to become, whether MSNBC -- now MS NOW -- can build a Fox Nation-style subscription business; why CNBC is getting into investor tools; how long NBCUniversal will keep selling Versant’s ads; what kinds of companies Lazarus wants to buy; and why he’s not buying the Vox Media Podcast Network yours truly works with.The bottom line: Lazarus says he needs about three years to prove this works. Let’s see if Wall Street is that patient. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    40 mins
  • Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch on AI, the Met Gala and His Secret Succession Plan

    Condé Nast CEO Roger Lynch on AI, the Met Gala and His Secret Succession Plan
    May 13 2026
    Roger Lynch has spent the last seven years trying to turn Condé Nast from a magazine company into a profitable portfolio of global brands. Now he has a new set of problems: Google traffic is disappearing, AI companies want to use Condé’s work, and everyone in media is trying to figure out who still has leverage. I talked to Lynch about the end of Google search traffic, why Condé is doing deals with OpenAI and other AI companies, and how the company thinks about the Met Gala, independent creators, and The Devil Wears Prada 2. And if you're looking for news about who succeeds legendary editors Anna Wintour and David Remnick: Lynch says he has a plan. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    54 mins
  • The Internet’s Let-It-Rip Era, With The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel

    The Internet’s Let-It-Rip Era, With The Atlantic's Charlie Warzel
    May 6 2026
    The internet is in its let-it-rip era: more AI slop, more video, more clips — and very little in the way of guardrails or rules. Charlie Warzel, who writes and hosts Galaxy Brain for The Atlantic, joins me to talk about what happens when the platforms stop trying very hard to separate the good stuff from the garbage. Do we actually care if a human made the LinkedIn post, the marketing copy, or the video in our feed? Or do we only care when the slop gets in the way? Then we get into the video-everything moment: Why every podcast is becoming a video podcast, why clips may matter more than the shows they come from, and what Charlie has learned from becoming a video person — as I mentioned, he has a podcast now — after years of writing about video people. That leads to a bigger media question: what can old-school media companies learn from creators, Substackers, and YouTubers — and what do they usually misunderstand when they try to hire or absorb them? Charlie has been one of my trusted guides to internet culture for years. I highly recommend starting your own podcast so you can invite him on to talk to you directly. And in the meantime, enjoy this one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    1 hr and 4 mins
  • AI Can Make Software Now. That Changes Everything, with Paul Ford

    AI Can Make Software Now. That Changes Everything, with Paul Ford
    Apr 29 2026
    Learn to code, they told us. Then the computers went and learned to code. Now anyone can do it, in theory, courtesy of Claude Code and other vibe coding apps. Tech people I talk to are very, very excited about this. But they often have a hard time explaining to me, a non-coder, why AI-powered coding is such a big deal. And whether it’s a big deal to everyone who already codes or deals with software for a living — or whether it’s a big deal for everyone who uses software. All of us, that is. Here to the rescue is Paul Ford, a guy who learned to code and who also learned to write and talk, like a human. Paul is the guy who wrote an entire issue of Businessweek dedicated to a single question — What is Code? — and blogs at Ftrain.com; but his day job is making software, which he does at Aboard. Paul is not the guy who can tell you what’s going to happen to Saas stocks, or if AI is going to wipe out all the jobs, some jobs or will create a gazillion new jobs. Anyone who tells you any of those answers with confidence, he says, is making it up. But he can tell you and me why the recent change in AI-produced software — something that really kicked in over the last few months — is changing his life, and why it’s going to change software for good. And he’ll help you think about what that means for you, a normal person. You’ll like this one. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
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    53 mins