Deal. Shelly Effect is sponsored by Wall Street, Window dot com and listeners
like you, Shayeah and nowise in our media check a twenty fifth day of
April twenty twenty four, allegedly according to that thing we call a calendar,
and this is the o'celly effect. You probably listening to us via podcast,
But we are live on a Thursday here just after eight pm, a few
minutes late, about five minutes late, going to air eight pm Eastern time
on that twenty fifth day of April twenty twenty four on Ocelli dot com and
the streams and all that good stuff. Anyway, here we go. What
is on our minds tonight? Well, it could be a lot about news.
I wanted to do news shows lately, but I gotta be honest with
you. It's depressing a lot of it. Okay, it's a lot of
the same. It's become homogenized. And I'm wondering if that has something to
do with the delivery system as opposed to the content. Is it the content
or is it the delivery system? Does one have influence over the other.
There's a lot to be said there. Mike Swanson is with me Wallstreet,
Window dot Com, be in the no go to Wallstreet Window dot com sponsor
of this show. Indeed, he is the author of the War State,
the author of Why the Vietnam War, the author of actually a handful of
books, but those who I highly recommend. But he's the author of a
bunch of books. You can check him out on Amazon, or you could
click one of the book links on the website at Ocelli dot com where you
see the War States, that redbook with Ike on the front cover giving his
iconic speech regarding the military industrial complex, the Farewell Address and all that.
Anyway Mike writes about these things, is currently writing another piece about the Vietnam
War, because Why the Vietnam War is just the first in a series of
what was initially planned as three volumes. I don't know if that's still three
volumes, but I guess we shall see. And we're gonna hear from Mike
not only about those things in the very near future, but tonight we're going
to talk about the delivery of news anyway. Mike, how you doing.
I'm doing pretty good. Yeah. I sent you a bunch of links to
various articles about what's going on with news websites in general. And I'm experiencing
all this myself. But I've been on the internet for almost twenty five years
now with websites and various iterations, and have seen different trends come and go.
Isn't it closer to thirty years Mike, because weren't you on the interwebs,
if you will, like in the mid nineties too. Oh yeah,
sure, so it's like thirty years now. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, really, you go back to before the Internet and people had
bulletin boards and we're calling in places. Well exactly, okay, the bullets
I've been doing it for a long time. Well, and let's let's just
go over that, right. So, so we have witnessed as a spectators
but also as participants in news delivery and information delivery right in various ways.
I mean, you're an author. I'm working on a book now, which,
by the way, my co author and I are going back and forth
over a draft right now. But I mean you've actually published stuff in that
way. You've published stuff online Wall Street Window. It's not just about Wall
Street. You do a lot of geopolitics, a lot of current culture clashes,
things that are going on in the world, et cetera. And here's
the deal. We've watched local news basically collapse. We watched a Facebook become
people's news feeds because they were just, you know, totally involved in the
late night talk shows and the comedy guys out there giving them the news mainly.
Or let me talk about those two topics as a way to please talk
to talk about what's going on. So people, you know, they may
especially the Facebook thing because people are use it, you know. But I
was supposed to something about the local news thing. So I've considered. I
haven't done it. I don't know if I'm gonna do it, but I've
considered trying to start a local news business with a physical newspaper that would be
free and make money from advertisers. In the local news industry, the newspaper
subscription business has been collapsing for decades and everyone knows that. But one of
the things that's happened, and I was looking at this locally, and I
actually looked at the paper where you live, because I was curiously the same
things happening. So where I live, there's two newspapers, and one is
owned by a private company of a family that's from this area. It is
like a dozen or so papers, and they have a stable business. They
haven't lost subscribers. They have about ten thousand, Okay, they have,
you know, so just really quickly, Look, there's a couple of different
ways to go at this. And there used to be very localized newspapers that
could be just for a town or just for a set of towns or a
county, and that would be what they would cover mainly, and they might
cover some national news, etc. But mainly if you wanted your real local
news, you wanted to find out what was going on with the school district,
you wanted to find out the scheduling of your local facilities. All those
kinds of things used to be printed in those local papers. Right. So
nowadays a lot of people started getting informed on the Facebook pages and stuff like
that. Oh well, yeah, there might be a state about the local
I want to tell you. The other thing is there might be a state
version or a bigger version, right Like, Okay, so where I am
now in Jersey, I could have easily laid it out for you too.
But in Georgia you might say, Okay, I've got this little tiny local
paper here. But also there's like the Atlanta State Constitution paper which is statewide,
but then again, at least focuses on Georgia, and there might be
a section from my area of Georgia. Right, Okay, so there were
the two ways to go at it. But these things have all virtually been
bought up by bigger conglomerates mostly right. And yeah, occasionally there's a larger
family owned concern like you said or whatever, but most of those seem to
have collapsed as well. Now you still have one in Virginia. But you
took a look at what was going on here locally, what did you find?
So the thing is, there's in the county I live in, there's
a stable local one I mentioned. The neighboring county has a stable local one
too. However, the one there's another paper that's been bought up one of
these conglomerates. And the conglomerates, the Lee Enterprises, owns the one where
I live. There's a company called a Clatchy that owns the one where you
live, and the paper the Lee Enterprise Company. For the past couple of
years, all of these companies in clatch included. What they've been doing is
downsizing and cutting you know, the staff, well, get reporters local offices
cutting to and they and they turn off the readers because they're getting you know,
they're seeing their newspaper degrade in quality, and then they're losing subscribers that
way. Now, what these companies have said and lee enterprises of public company.
So they make these statements on earnings calls and their reports which I've looked
at, and they're losing money and their market capitalization. I mean this company
and it's like one hundred newspapers and it's not worth one hundred million dollars.
I mean, it's like a penny stock. So it's a troubled company.
But what they have been telling people over the past couple of years is that
print isn't profitable or prints dying, people don't want print, and we're gonna
move everyone to online subscriptions and that's the future. And they have had a
drive in doing that. Yeah, so is now hold on because not only
have these little papers done that, but even like the big monsters like the
New York Times have gone to the hey, which I always find funny,
pay for independent journalism, The New York Times. That's hilarious, right,
independent journalism. This big conglomerate is out there saying, pay us a couple
dollars a month, otherwise we're only gonna let you read one, two,
three articles a month. Right, And they do that to you, even
with the big name papers, right, everybody seemed to go to the online
subscription model and pay us a couple dollars a month so you can access the
newspaper. Then you say, well, screw it, I'll go buy the
print one. There are no print papers, or there's very few, i
should say. So we're in a new age where there's a digital one.
Nobody's buying that. There's no print papers. So where are people getting their
news? And you said those articles? What what's happening is that these companies,
there's this startling story I saw that said that these this isn't the New
York Times and Post, but these other companies like Lee Enterprises, mclatch and
so forth. Yeah, that they are having a churn. They had a
boom and getting people online in the past couple of years just because they're moving,
you know, there's something new that they're doing. But now they've discovering
that the online subscribers are unsubscribing within eight months. It's called churn. Now,
I've was in an online subscription business myself with a website for seventeen eighteen
years. I mean that's where I that was my main that was my one
of my main businesses. And I mean I obsessively was studying that, going
to conferences about it. I know all about the industry, and this is
financial publishing starting the seventies of publishing newsletters. Then moved it moved online way
before these newspapers did. Now I was going internet marketing conferences and on and
on on. So really correctly tell reference just for everybody's reference point. Is
you sent me this article which was printed in December of twenty twenty three on
a local news initiative, and it says the title of the article is churning
toward disaster. And you guys will see that in the show notes, or
if you're on ochelly dot com, it's in the chat room already. I've
already posted the link there if you want to go ahead and reference the article
that describes this. But as you said, independently, you were studying this
because you were in this sort of business as well. I was in the
business, right you know, and I had a large for a few years
before I met you. It was large, it was sizeable. I had
an email list of one hundred thousand people on it, right, I mean
in two thousand and six to twenty ten or so. And even that email
list quite frankly, because look, every time people wanted to negotiate with me
about, you know, purchasing pieces of what I'm doing, your email list
is a commodity. And you have a gigantic email list because you literally just
say that to say, I know what I'm talking about. And I could
tell you that an eight months churn is awful, I mean awful. And
internet marketing, which is like bizop and sleazy. They would trick people into
subscribing to something and it would and their churn was in ninety days. And
that's what I'm saying, the lowest quality customer, lowest quality product. You
have a ninety day churn. And the standard in the financial publishing industry when
I was in it was about twelve months. So nine months is just awful.
So when I read that, I was like, how can it be
so bad? On one hand, what that tells me is that those newspapers,
including and I looked at the well these newspapers with a nine month churn
that that had a sudden surge in like two years in the you know,
within the past couple of years, within I would say, two, three,
four years from now, they're gonna be almost doomed at that rate.
Because it's a different business than say financial publishing. It's a worldwide, national
wide thing. So if you lose someone, you know, there's someone else's
you know, if I lose someone in Montana, well there's someone interested in
Detroit with this local news thing. If they lose, you know, they
don't they have a limited pool of new customers. You know, they don't
really have a pool of new customers. Okay, what you're saying is that
when you have a concern, Okay, when you have a concern, let
me tell you why it's happening. So I went and looked at the those
two local papers that are stable and compare them to what these other papers are
doing. And it's it's so obvious to me from what I you know,
know, my, my, what I know from this business. Sure,
So what is the what is the comparison to the difference are charging sixty?
How does he get the stable? Good? Huh? Oh? How is
it that you get the stable they're not losing people. Yeah, how how
is that happening? How is that happening as compared to these other ones?
Uh that? Yeah? Yeah? Yeah, the ones that are stable,
you know, in the two in my area, right, they're charging an
annual fee of like sixty one sixty seven dollars, the ones like thirty five
okay, okay, and then the Lee Enterprise papers are all charging fifteen a
month, right, And I went and looked at the McClatchy one where you
live, and it's the same same sort of fifteen ninety nine or something like
that. So they're charging, you know, multiply that bout twelve. They're
you know, they're charging it's like one hundred and fifty dollars a year.
Yeah, they're charging about one hundred and fifty a year with these little monthly
charges. And I know, you know from had when I was stone all
this stuff you're about. You don't want to charge someone if you can help
it, every single month. You're better off to charging once a year if
you have to a quarterly, and then and then if you are going to
charge a monthly, you want to have an option that entices them to pay
annually, so you may say fifteen ninety nine a month and then offer seventy
five a year, and most people will take the seventy five or at least
half, and then you're you're you're kind of pushing people actually to spend.
You know, you're going to create a more stable business. So these people
don't they don't know that kind of information, they don't know what they're doing,
and it's just I mean, it's just crazy. So, I mean,
I figured I was reading about this last year and this is one of
the what I what I believe is that that Lee Enterprises paper where I live.
It's that because they report earnings, I can see that they've lost a
huge number of people in twelve months, and at that rate, they're they're
going to be gone or they're going to be a ghost paper. So I
was thinking, well, if they're gone, and it's kind of an opportunity
to start something on my own. But I don't know if I got the
energy to do it or try to fight that battle. But I just wanted
to tell you, this is the local news thing, and I can see
another collapse coming because these kind of companies own so many newspapers. In the
next couple of years now, Facebook is more symptomatic of all the other the
other news stories I sent you, and it's directly affecting me and you and
you know, other content creators because of why it's happening so well. Look,
it's a different circumstance because for a while there people were blaming Facebook and
like the social media outlets because now you could get your headlines through them and
you didn't have to subscribe. But if all you wanted was the headlines,
I mean, you could search online and get them yourself. I mean,
there's a reason why Google is a profitable company still and continues to be profitable,
right, which I always find bizarre. That's something that started as a
search engine. Effectively, is this huge company now? Right? The alphabet
alphabet's doing pretty well, right, I mean financially, sure, yeah,
financially it's doing well. But it also dominates, whether people know it or
not, it dominates a lot of the flow of information. Oh yeah,
you so in a way, here's the thing. Yeah, it ends up
being profitable and not everything. Okay, And when you're looking at monthly subscriptions
for newspaper, I mean think about this just in your own heads, right,
If you're gonna pay for whatever name your local paper, right, You're
gonna pay almost the same amount to get Netflix as you do your local paper
every month. Yeah, something's off there. I mean, you get a
lot more out of Netflix, you know what I mean than you do out
of the local paper that way, when meanwhile, two things. One,
there's either a free news app right that does alert you to stories in your
area, or you don't need the news app necessarily at that kind of price
anyway, Like you said, a lot better if you just pay a singular
fee once a year, at least you'll have steady customers. You'll have steady
well the news app, like the new news break is one. We talked
about it before. It's kind of a huge threat to these companies. I'm
sure it's hurting them, Oh yeah, because a lot of the content that
these publishers publish and are charging people for are simply pressure releases that they're copy
and pasting. Yeah uh. And and those pressure releases are available for free
on the news apps. And then there's people that are you know, getting
paid a small amount of money per article, like say five dollars, when
they you know, anyone can write on there, and they're creating news too,
and they can copy and paste the press release or reword it and write
all kinds of stuff. And there's I'm sure people you know in India wherever
writing articles about where you live. Yeah, exactly, because letter you know,
I could pick up and say, okay, I'm gonna write for the
Michigan Concern and I could just write all about it. I've never even been
there. I don't even know where the streets are, nothing, But anyway,
it's gotten to a weird business where there's a disconnect. Plus there are
the people that only really want the headlines anyway, which you're already shared on
whatever the hell app they're on, or whatever the hell social media thing they're
on anyway, right, and then you got guys like me who you know,
podcasters and podcasters. There's local podcasts by the way, where it's like
it's just about your area and stuff like that, right, and you know
we're giving most of those away for free. So I mean, there's tons
of free content out there that if somebody really is interested, they don't got
to pay the local paper twelve bucks a month or whatever, right, they
can get it elsewhere. But social media is weird too because now that's peeling
back. I mean, yes, Facebook has fallen out of favor anyway.
Elon Musk, in my mind, has destroyed Twitter, even though Twitter is
now becoming something else because now there's radio shows on Twitter. There's you know,
different programs on there, like it's almost like it's a TV video platform.
Everything Now Twitter is right communication of all sorts. The only thing he
doesn't have is his own version of PayPal on there, I think yet,
But I don't know what groc is. Do you know what groc is?
I'm not sure it's some new thing on and ever since Musk took it over
and started monetizing the blue check marks and stuff. Sure, he's still got
a financial model in his hands and it is massive, but seems like people
are not really getting their information from there either, according to these things.
I'll tell you what else is weird is something that survived for the longest time
is the Drudge Report, which he never updated his website, like it looked
the same from nineteen ninety six or whatever till like, you know, two
years ago when I was looking at it, it still looked the same.
You know, the Drudge Report. Oh sure, I yeh, that's still
go to it. Yeah, But now, from twenty twenty to twenty twenty
four, this weird shift happened. Do you think it had anything to do,
by the way, with the change in society because of the lockdown and
now you know, people doing things more remotely and the rise of the food
delivery and all that kind of stuff. Do you think that that had anything
to do with it? Because during that time period, all of these social
media sites where people were seemingly turning for all of their news and information lost
tons of traffic. I don't know where that traffic went, do you.
Well, So Google and Facebook and Twitter forget about Twitter, it's got its
own problems, but they're simply setting less traffic to news websites period. So
Facebook, for example, after the Trumpell action, you know, there's this
whole mania for about two or three years about fake news and all these stories
about all these websites that sprout up that found a way that they could get
all this traffic right from Facebook, you know, by writing articles that got
people's attention, and there are people making a living doing that, and there's
a huge backlash. The Democrats in Washington really in Facebook racked to that by
kicking a lot of these websites off and so forth. But they also about
a year and a half ago basically said we're just gonna start downgrading news in
general in the Facebook feed, and then really starting a year ago, they
accelerated that process to now they're hardly setting in traffic at all to news websites.
And if you have a Facebook account, if you load it up,
I mean, this is at least what I'm seeing. And I should be
seeing news sites and news stories because will I read them. Know, I'm
a consumer of news, but I don't see that in my Facebook feed at
all. And what they said they were going to do, and I believe
it's what they're doing, because it seems to be what I'm seeing is engineer
the Facebook feed so that it's more algorithmic driven to show you content that sort
of like the way TikTok works. It may not be things not people you're
following or pages that you're following, but stuff that they think you'll react to
or will keep you on the site, you know, as long as possible
or turning as much as possible. So it's become really algorithmic driven. And
I'm sure there's people that are just creating content for that algorithm. Now,
what I noticed, and I've heard others comment on that say the same thing.
So I don't think it's just happening to me. I'll ask you when
I say this. But what I notice, and I'm looking at loading it
up now, is I'm seeing less content on Facebook from people that are my
my so you know, your friends list, or that are pages that I
even follow. Like, for instance, I'm scrolling down. The first thing
is something about star Trek from a page I don't believe, I follow something
some strange page, another star Trek thing, then something called another page I
don't follow, heavy and classic rock. Now here's a local advertisement. Finally
a picture from someone that's in my face, you know, Facebook friend.
And now I'm going through again another These are pages I'm not following, right,
No, I get it all. It's just none of these people,
and it's all the stuff I'm seeing. None of it's about news. It's
all cultural stuff like movies. Yeah, it's like mi Amazon. It's like
my Amazon feed used to be Okay, since you like this, then you'll
probably like this. Uh, And that's pretty much what they're doing on there.
I would guarantee you. If I open up Facebook, I'm gonna get
some Star Trek. I'll probably get some other stuff about TV shows that are
similar to TV shows that I that I watch or whatever, but not necessarily
from the pages I follow or the people I follow, And in fact,
unless somebody sends me a direct message, my attention is not being pulled to
say like you like it used to be, or even JP satilly you puts
out Yeah, I don't see JP stuff, and I'm sure he's posting every
day. I'm seeing something right now. I don't follow this. I mean
literally, it's a picture of a stake in the pages called homemade cooking.
But you know so now, will you looking up groceries or cooking or anything
on Amazon or on Google recently? Well, because that's what I'm discovering,
is that it's more about your connectivity to like your search engines and the stuff
you're interested in, like that, like food. If you're interested in food
for one day, they turn around and they start feeding you stuff about food.
If you're looking for a TV show or you look up something you know
to try and find out when they're going to put out you know, something
new or whatever, you'll get that even if you look it up off of
that site, it comes back around into the algorithm. But like you said,
it's mostly cultural stuff and it's not the local stuff anymore. There was
a time too that Facebook was very localized, right where they would show you,
Okay, you're interested in food, here's a local restaurant. I suspect
and I heard someone else say this. I mean that they're theorizing that.
What's probably happening is that real people, you know, are not posting as
much on there as they used to at all, and so Facebook is filling
the gap with all this other stuff. And and but at the same it's
probably actually discouraged, you know, because you know, it's probably even driving
fewer people to comment. But they look at it like, yeah, I'm
sure it works at keeping people looking at the stuff or entertained. But only
but only for the big corporate stuff. Because look, as an independent producer
of content, right, every time I release a podcast, uh, the
post goes on Facebook automatically from one of my sites, and then uh,
you know, then other things feed onto Facebook and tell people I put out
a new podcast, I'm doing a live show. Whatever. Nobody sees it
it looks like to me, it goes out there, and people used to
engage with it. And I used to see traffic come to the website from
Facebook. No more, it's gone. Facebook traffic is gone. I mean
I can get I can see them. I have a Facebook page for Wall
Street Window. Eleven thousand followers, right, eleven thousand likes. Okay,
Now, every time you post a new article on Wall Street Window, doesn't
it post to Facebook automatically for you? No, I don't have it.
You don't have that set up. Okay, sorry, but okay, but
I posted one today, you know, eleven thousand followers, right, one
hundred and twenty two people saw it. Yeah, that's insane. How is
it You have eleven thousand people say I'm interested in this, I want to
follow this, and you've only got one hundred engaged. I mean even phone
callers do better than that. When you've got a radio station, I mean,
and they tell you, you know, one out of one hundred calls
there basically, right, So that's crazy though, one hundred people out of
eleven thousand. Yeah. Yet, no, you see there's something odd there
where your stuff is not being put under people's noses. So even if they're
following your page, even if they're a fan of your page. Because you're
not the larger corporate entity, you're not getting put into those feeds. So
when you go on to the feed or the news story, because you notice
how they have the thing where it's like you can put this on your regular
feed or your news feed or whatever. You know, I think nobody else
is seeing it when you put it on the news feed because even though you
know, theoretically that should pop up for people that are your friends, for
people that follow you, because some people that are you know, not your
friends, do follow you on Facebook, right, they should see that.
It should just come up in their feed somewhere. But if it does,
it must come up way down in their feed, because I don't think anybody's
seeing these anymore on Facebook. I mean it's almost, yeah, you see
nothing I'm posting, right, And like I said, at least a few
times a week, right, a radio show posts. On top of that,
I do go there say something else, I put out another thing,
Hey, you know, donate to the network, whatever. And I'm starting
to feel like I shouldn't bother because I don't think anybody's seeing it really unless
they very purposely, go to my little radio show group on purpose, go
and visit that. And here's the thing. When they land on the Facebook
site, they're encouraged to go to these other places, like you said,
Star Trek or whatever. If you start clicking on that, you'll probably go
through a maze and you'll be you know, Okay, what's the new show.
Hey, there's some news regarding this, there's a new DVD release,
whatever, And an hour later you've been on Star Trek. Now you know
what I mean. You'll never like even bother to go look at another interest
or see what your friends are doing. Unless you decide to message me directly,
you're probably not gonna hear from me, you know. And you and
I we follow each other, you know. If you say something on there
and I see it, I read it. It used to be anyway I
would go, I'd comment on it. You and I used to both comment
on JP stilly stuff because it was really brilliant, like little mini articles.
Right, but when was the last time JP popped up on your page?
It's been a long time. Let me see time. Yeah, he posted
something six hours ago to two posts three posts today. Okay, but did
it come up today. I didn't see a single one to It didn't come
up in your feet. No. See, and this is a guy that
you and I would definitely like to read, we like to follow, we
like to hear what he has to say, right, I mean, you
know, I'm not just kissing up to JP here, but I'm just saying
he's a guy that we would look at, right, I mean, let's
see what his new article is outside of him. Mean, you and I
both read the Rundown right when he publishes a new article a lot of times
if it's even remotely interesting a topic wise, you and I go read it
on a lot of different websites when we know it's happening. But are we
getting informed that he's publishing an article. I don't think so anymore, because
unless I see it in my email, I don't know he's publishing anymore.
I mean, do you, Well I get the emails. No, you
get the emails, but you don't see it on your Facebook. Well you're
not using Twitter anymore, right, You're you're not even using Twitter anymore?
Right? No, so, but you still go to Facebook. I know
you do that, and yeah, yeah I do twice a day. How
was that going for your local stuff, because for a while there you were
following like the local councils and stuff on there is any of that in your
feed? Well that's an example of all this too. So I still do
that, but I don't see it doesn't appear in my feed. I have
to go to these pages. Right, it looked for myselves. But that's
what I was saying about my radio show. Unless you're going to the you
know, the coalition of a factors group on Facebook, you're not seeing my
radio shows getting published. You're not seeing I mean, I got people literally
every once in a while sending me a mess SAIDs going, do you still
do a show? And meanwhile they're following me, they're in the group,
they're they're they they follow the page I have and they don't know that I'm
still doing a show. I mean, it's it's bizarre. So anyway,
if you're an independent content creator, that's where you're at. But again,
if you're a larger corporate entity, I'm sure you know McDonald's is still getting
their ads done and grub Hub is getting advertising on there, and I'm sure
you know, like you said, the big the big companies. I mean,
uh, do you have an ad for what do you call it?
Paramount plus? I mean, you know, yeah, you're probably getting all
that stuff still, but are you getting any of the independent content people?
Probably not? Right, Well, I'm saying it's not just independent content people,
but the national news outlets too aren't getting well ultimately, yeah, but
ultimately that's what I'm getting to. Look, you don't have the independent content
creators. No, you don't have the local news coming up. It's not
being fed to you at all, is it? Okay? What about the
big stories? So are you seeing stuff about the conflict in the Middle East?
Are you seeing stuff about politics? I mean, because I know you
follow politics a bit, are you seeing stuff about that in your feed?
Nope? No? So what is there? You know what I mean?
Like, well, I'm going through it now. And a picture of I
mean, this is the kind of crap I'm saying. I mean, I
don't know why this is even I don't It's bags of water in a refrigerator,
okay, And it says it's a screen you know, it's one of
these themes, I guess. And it says tired of boiling water every time
you make pasta boil a few gallons at the beginning of the week and freeze
it for later. What is this? Okay, I haven't seen that one,
Mike. I don't know what's on your feed with the boiling water and
all. But okay, I mean, why is that even on there?
I don't know, you know, I don't even know. I guess it's
a joke. I don't know. How are you going to use your boiled
water if it's bagged and frozen? What you got to reboil it again,
don't you? I mean, okay, this is where we're at, boiling
bags of frozen bags of boiled water. Okay, sure, why not?
But Mike, what does this mean for the delivery of news then? Right?
I mean forget about the quality of the content once again? As I
said, I mean, we could sit and talk about that all day.
What is actually in the news? The news headlines? It's pretty depressing.
What are they doing? They're jamin us with twenty twenty four. They're jamming
us with the Trump trial in the broadcast mediums, which, by the way,
you know, did you take note that a guy set himself on fire
outside of the Trump trial? Did you see that last week? So?
I didn't see it. I saw the headline and then uh, actually someone
sent me his manifesto. Did you see that? Yeah? Yeah, of
course I'm on his substack, so because he has a substack. See that's
the other question. I have read the manifesto. Yeah, yeah, no,
I read that too. But okay, what I was wondering though,
is did you see that fed to you during that time? Because broadcast news
didn't really cover it. I just saw, I mean saw, I saw
the headline somewhere. I don't remember where. I don't really want I don't
watch the television, no, but you see my But you see. My
point is that something like that happened. You figure that that would have been
shoved right under your nose on these feeds, and it was not. Uh
the guy died, you know, and we talked about it on the Friday
call show. Yeah, he passed away like on Saturday, I think,
but we talked about it on the Friday show because I read the manifesto and
really couldn't figure out what his point was, you know, I mean I
get his points, I understand, and frankly, most of it is stuff
that I say, Uh, you know, both parties are bull crap and
everything else. But but nobody can can explain to me adequately why it is
he decided to do this outside of Trump's trial. What was the actual point
he was making? I mean, you know, I couldn't figure that out.
Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying I agree with this, but
he was making he I don't believe this is happening, but he I mean,
I've got my own problems with crypto and bitcoin. Yeah, but he
was claiming basically that that crypto market is a conspiracy. Uh uh, what
would you call Ponzi scheme? The phrase he used created a bout Peter Teel
and a few other people to create a fascist order. Once it once,
they pump and dump it. Oh No, I get that. No,
I get that. And I also get that he's saying that, you know,
both sides of the you know, the political fence, are on the
same team. I get that he was saying that if you read the whole
manifesto he talks about, you know that here's the worldwide conspiracy that's going on.
There's the financial grip that they have on us, all of us,
et cetera. And I got all that, But what I didn't get is
truly, like, what was the point he was making with this display,
you know, I think, yeah, for him to kill himself and and
and not have a clear point you can easily see what it is and forcing
us to guess, I think it's a sign he was mentally ill. Well
maybe, but but I would also I told someone, when you study these
topics in general, uh, if you try to figure out like there's some
some things I agreed with what he was saying too, and some things I
thought he was wrong, but he certainly thought he was correct and everything he
was saying. And if you try to take these deep politics, look all
that topics and think you can figure it all out exactly who the players are
and exactly what they're doing, you're gonna go crazy. You're almost guaranteed some
mental You're guaranteed to get crazy. And you and and you can we can
think or maybe some people have done that, and I mean we can think
of examples. Uh, maybe that what's his name, Michael Rupert maybe did
that, or that Danny Carson was his name, Castellario, Maybe that happened
to him. I mean probably would think of people that that that. Maybe
maybe there's people in the Kennedy case, Well we've seen him exactly seen and
known people that if they get deeply enough into you know, the the weeds
on these things long enough, it's almost to guarantee that something happens to them
emotionally or mentally, because it just it breaks you down after a while.
I'd suggest that what a way to metaphor for it is they're trying to figure
out who all the people on the inside are and what they're doing. Well,
here's the thing about that. Let's talk about the people on the inside.
And if they do that, try that. Well, first of all,
they know not to do that. Yeah, if you're saying the mafia
or some organized crime group, you know, you're not supposed to run around
and ask what is going on all the time with this person that person.
You're not supposed to ask, you know, every little detail supposed to know.
You're not supposed to do it and not wanted to know everything. And
that's really the people on the inside, I would suggest, no, that's
how they're supposed to do to handle the world that they're in. And those
on the inside who try to figure it all out also go insane, and
that's probably what happened, for example, to James Angleton as one one,
you know, one famous example, when he started, you know, imagining
conspiracies everywhere and this kind of stuff. Eventually you become delusional. So you're
you're figuring that this guy just became delusional and somehow it made sense in his
head to go light himself on fire, even though on the outside he couldn't
even fully explain what the hell that was. Yeah, that's what I think.
Okay, fair enough, But what I'm saying is that that wasn't even
something that came up in people's speeds. You'd figure a couple of years ago
that would have been the viral story, wouldn't it. You know, that
would have been everywhere. And indeed it was like, you know, not
that big a deal. Now this is very much changed. Is all I'm
saying is that what did you What did y'all make of that? When you're
talking Friday, I haven't thought about that. Well, that was it.
I didn't know what to make of it, except that it was like,
it was very strange to me that it wasn't the biggest headline, that nobody
made the effort to figure out why the hell had happened. It was just
sort of like, well, this kind of happened anyway, moving on,
you know, it's it's yeah, yeah, actually I did try to read
a mainstream story about it after I read the manifesto, and it just labeled
him as a conspiracy nut. Right, didn't even bother to tell you what
he wrote it all, Yeah, right, nothing exactly, just he's just
a conspiracy theorist. See. But that's the thing is these very homogenized kind
of like what you get out of Wikipedia now is about the level of information
you get out of the world Wikipedia, you know, and it may be
right, it may not be right, it might be off a little bit.
The only thing Wikipedia is good for is they pretty quickly adjust. When
somebody dies, they pretty quickly put their date of death on their entry at
Wikipedia. That's about it. Other than that, it's a mess. And
that's the information stream that's out there now. People search it themselves with phrases
and half baked phrases usually, and they just use Google to go get their
information. So nobody wants the local paper anymore. Nobody's using Facebook anymore.
People are just griping about their opinions on any social media platform, whatever it
is, whether it's to own the libs or to make their big point or
to try and you know, be an influencer somewhere. That's all they do,
and that's it. It's about your opinion and your world and you don't
have to be connected or informed about it anymore. And it seems to be
the general sort of persuasion. And yet there are people like you and me
who are going, I'd like to be informed and know what's happening in the
world. But where are we to turn at this point? Right? You
know, you can pay a lot of subscriptions and maybe they'll let you access
more than three articles a month or an article a month, you know,
like, like I said, New York Times even does this now where it's
like, you know, oh no, you've already seen an article this month.
Come back you know later, or subscribe pay us a couple dollars a
month. It's amazing to me that even with their advertising revenue, they're still
going after the subscription model. Anyway, It's a very weird time in the
information stream, is all I'm saying. So with the oversaturation and then with
the twisting of information via the algorithms, I mean, how are people going
to become informed about things when they want it? You know, think about
this selection process that's coming up, and Okay, Trump's court cases blah blah
blah blah. But outside of that, are people going to be informed about?
You know? Where are people going to do that? Now? Remember
the old days where you might read about what is the candidate's position, what's
going on there? Unless you're going to go to the candidate's websites and read
their platforms for yourself and hope there's a platform on there, where are you
going to learn about that? Even if you wanted to make an educated decision
about who to vote for, who to support, who's on your side and
who's not. Mike, I mean, is any of this gonna be helpful
or healthy going forward? What do you think? It doesn't seem like it's
gonna get much better, does it. No, it seems like it's degrading
and getting worse by the means. So Mike, I know you got to
get going pretty soon, and I'll let you go, that's for sure.
But before you do, how do you want to tie a bow on this?
I mean, the information stream is raging. Social media had its effect,
but seems to be uh, you know, doing something else. Nowadays,
the broadcast news is not informing people. Local news is not informing people.
Print media is is you know, dead? Uh, where are we
at here? What are we gonna do to be informed going forward outside of
going to Wall Street, Window dot com and being informed over there. But
I mean, where are we going to be informed about anything we care about?
What do you think? Well? I mean, I think people are
gonna have to subscribe to things like JP Satilli's news vandal. You know,
they're gonna have to subscribe to sources that they trust to sift through some of
the mess. So we spend an hour a day, you know, looking
at various news websites themselves, which you know or both or something. Yeah,
but the majority of people, A thinkin they're going to sit there and
just take whatever their phone gives them. You know, that's true, and
that's going to be that And I guess they want it all delivered, They
want it all delivered on demand, So you know, make sure you subscribe
to the right stuff. I guess. Huh, Well, unfortunately, you
know that's what people are going to do, and they're going to go and
look for sources that just tell them stories that they want to believe in.
Right, Whether they're true or not, because they just well, ultimately,
that's the greatest problem is that nobody is looking to be informed. All they're
looking for is what verification of their preconception. They want the echo chamber.
They want somebody to tell them the opinion they already have defeed it back to
them once again. Which is how some of these places have stayed in business
now for the past ten years, I think is just by telling people what
they want to hear over and over again. It doesn't matter if it's really
happening or if it's actual news. It doesn't matter if you being informed about
what's going on in the world around you objectively. Uh, They're just going
to feedback to you the things that you want to hear. And that's it.
That's that's the business model. You want to be successful. Find a
group of people that have a shared opinion and feed them that opinion back to
them. I mean, doesn't that seem to be the way of the future
or am I wrong? That's what we're witnessing. But it's also what the
algorithms are doing, you know, yeah, and rewarding and and what's bizarre
is we may be at a point like it just use Facebook as this Facebook
feed as example, where the people are creating using let's say AI tools or
something to create content for the algorithms, and then other people are creating doing
the same thing and reaction to that content. So it's now becoming a cycle
of strangeness. It is gonna get worse and worse. It's just the recording
of the echo, and then the recording of the recording of the echo,
and that's all there is to it. And again, it all starts with
your opinion and the thing, the preconceived notion that you want fed to you
in the first place, and the algorithm is waiting to serve you, and
that's all there is to it. Anyways, Mike Swanson, Wallstreet, Window
dot com, do buy his books and do go to his website, because
you know, we're not getting served by the algorithms here. I don't know.
I mean, your books still pop up. If I go to Amazon
and look up another book, your books still pop up and tell me that
I'd be interested in your book, even though I've told Amazon already I have
your books, but they at least try and sell me your books. But
anyway, you know, it is the thing, and we'll be talking about
the Lancer conference coming up this year too, because I hear tell that Mike
might go and might present there. Maybe I'm gonna be there, I'll be
the MC and all that. But anyway, we'll get into that in future
shows. And next week I'm gonna be talking to Carmin Savastano about an article
he's written recently. So Mike, I thank you for doing this with me
once again, and uh, we'll probably get back to it in about two
weeks. Okay, sounds good. You have go excellent Wallstreet Window dot com
be in the no go to Wallstreet, Window dot com, Why the Vietnam
War and also the War State books by Mike Swanson. Yes, I recommend
all that check it out on nochelli dot com. Check it out on Wall
Street Window dot com, Revelation through Conversation, Walls, Window dot dot Gold,
Silver, the stock Market, Wallstreet, Window dott Perhaps you're invested deeply,
Perhaps you're not in deep enough. You're thinking about getting started Wall Street,
Windows dot com, do dot Com. Michael Swanson, the brilliant author
of the War State, understood these trends professionally for many years, and now
he gives you the benefit of his knowledge Wall Street stream window, dott go
there, now go there, now go there now could he was expressed my
caller stools there anyone else who happens to get on the air O Jelley dot
com who not necessarily replied debews little Jelly dot com or jumko' chilly, and
we are not responsible. We're getting stupidity which might need students. Thank you.
This is James Corbet at quarter report dot com and you're listening to the
Ocelly affected o'hlly dot com. Go ahead, caller, I'm inter in the
truth about the Davey assassination. Right Well, what do you want to know?
Dy Baker's wild claim oswal girlfriends he knew Ruby and Barry hands to weapons.
Really, I imagine I could claim I have four wheels. It doesn't
make me a wagon. But okay, on the Bildy and trying to prevent
the murder of John Kennedy, come on now, has a real effort on
the DAFA assassination relaying. Go to Amazon dot com enter Judith Baker in her
own words. You'll get the results for a digital copy of a book where
Walt Brown utilizes her own words and the known evidence in the case. To
get at well a different perspective, Let's say you can get Judithbary Baker in
her own words from the author himself, signed if you request it by contacting
doctor Brown at k I A s JFK at aol dot com. It's a
fun book and it actually dissects the many, many fantastic claims Judith Ary Baker
in her own words dot com Radio Network. In Denial The Secret Wars with
Air Strikes and Tanks by Larry Hancock. Secret wars became a staple of US
covert operations and are still happening today. Larry Hancock's book In Denial rips the
cover off many of them, using new files. It exposes things about the
Bay of Pigs that no one has ever written about before. It shows why
it really failed and why the United States did not earn from it. It
also shows why other countries today are doing secret operations with more success. This
is the book that puts what some want to deny into the light. In
Denial, Secret Wars with Air Strikes and Tanks Larry Hancock. For more information,
go to Larry hyphen Handcock dot com. Pick up your copy of In
Denial at Amazon dot com in digital or physical foh Chili dot com. The
War State by Michael Swanson explains the great national transformation that took place and put
the Kennedy presidency in the context of the times and reveals never before published information
about the Cuban missile crisis. President Kennedy would not have been assassinated if he
had been president two hundred years ago. His assassination took place in the context
of the Cold War and the rise of the national security state. Before World
War II, the United States was a continental republic. In the decade that
fought, it became an imperial superpower. Generals such as Curtis LeMay not only
wanted to invade Cuba, but knew that there were short range missiles on the
island armed with nuclear warheads that they could not destroy because they were on mobile
launchers. Their invasion could have led to a Third World War, and they
wanted to go to war anyway. The War State by Michael Swanson reveals why
and we'll show you what President Kennedy was up against. For more information,
the Warstate dot com. Do you like history, real history that you were
never taught in schools? Why the Vietnam War Nuclear Bombs in nation Building in
Southeast Asia by author Mike Swanson, with new documentation never seen before that'll open
your eyes to events that led up to this. Why the Vietnam War Nuclear
Bombs in Nation Building in Southeast Asia nineteen forty five through nineteen sixty one.
Get your copy today at Amazon dot com. Why the Vietnam War by author
Mike Swanson. Going to Chuck O'Kelley, you're shock for Shelley. You know
what, sharkra Shelley, you are about doing. Margin upon the Rick Rusa.
The eyes of the world out upon you. The