I'm sorry

It takes a big person to admit when they were wrong, and I am that big, clean-shaven person.

When I shaved my beard, I did not comprehend the impact it would have on you, our loyal Local News International followers. When you commented, asking if I was trying to look like the late actor John Ritter or “Ron Swanson without his mustache,” I felt the pain and confusion.

We are a small company (support small businesses!) with ambitious goals. I’m so sorry to Micah, Lauren, Chris and Sarah for the distraction I have caused. I just wanted to tell the news. I didn’t want to be the bald-faced center of it.

I hope you will come to the town hall on Wednesday at 8 p.m. ET which will be a time of listening and learning, as I take your questions (you will be able to send in questions when you sign up ahead of time!). The town hall is only available to paid LOCAL and INTERNATIONAL tier LNI members. Remember that your money goes towards the food that will be used to generate me a new beard. If you’re already a qualifying member, register here!

Okay, jokes aside, thanks for playing along. And for those in the comment section that thought my Friday video was entirely serious, I’m so sorry. I’m just having fun here and also really enjoying satirizing the apology video format. Also, credit to Harry’s for coming along for the ride. As @toasty4000000 put it:

Sincerely, they’ve been great partners and we’re excited to keep working with them.

In my view, there’s a lot of post-pandemic culture that we don’t satirize enough. It’s not just the apology videos (which are so PR-managed, it’s laughable), it’s media itself. Here’s three examples.

We probably shouldn’t make a blanket statement about all public apologies. I’m sure some are truly sincere. But in most cases, they don’t move the needle in public opinion. It’s a gradual process, that needs actual action, and time.

Time moves the needle in public opinion. Just look at the Taylor Swift public opinion pendulum, which recently moved swiftly back in the negative.

Public apologies fail to accomplish much, especially if they’re happening in the middle of a heated moment. A public apology just exists so the perpetrator feels like they’re doing something to make it better.

For Friday’s video, I pulled from a lot of Notes-app-screenshot apologies from over the years, but mostly I borrowed from the Ashton Kutcher/Mila Kunis apology, down to the wrinkly white shirt, five o’clock shadow and obvious script reading.

From the guest and host both wearing headphones in-person, to the highly produced on-camera shows that we still call “podcasts,” there’s a lot to mine from here.

This is why my new long-form weekly series next year will be largely focused on using the podcast format, while also making fun of it. As Conan O’Brien has said multiple times, and I’m paraphrasing here, he left his late night show, then his podcast took off. And now it’s released on video, and sometimes there’s a live audience and live band. So now, he just has a late night show again that everyone calls a “podcast.”

I’m excited to launch our “podcast” in the new year. And yes, at last, this means paying LNI members will get the episodes early, as well as additional bonus content. I hope you’ll ask about it at the town hall and also tell me what you want to see in our “podcast,” which is actually a fully produced video series.

In the olden days (like, ten years ago), when a reporter got earth-shattering information on a public figure, they raced to their editor to get it published as soon as possible. Some would even tweet NEWS COMING to build real-time drama. Now, those scoops are often held for book releases. Even the great Bob Woodward has been accused of waiting months to publish vital information about President Trump, just to sell a book.

It happened again this week, as the drama between Ryan Lizza and Olivia Nuzzi continues to unfold. If you’re not familiar with one, or both, or the two as a couple, boy you are lucky! And I’m so sorry, but now you must know, so I can make a point.

Here’s a quick summary:

Lizza and Nuzzi are both reporters with rather dramatic backgrounds and histories. Lizza famously took the phone call from Anthony Scaramucci that was filled with more curse words than the Campbell’s VP that got fired last week.

In 2017, at the Washington Post, we made a reenactment of it, using the exact script. I played Lizza and the incredible actor Brian Huskey played the Mooch.

Olivia Nuzzi is known for writing a number of impressive profiles on political figures over the years. Nuzzi and Lizza dated off and on, and were even engaged, until last year when it was revealed she was having, at the very least, an emotional affair with then-presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Today, Kennedy is leading the charge on taking away vital vaccines from American society without any fact-based evidence. He’s a real charmer.

No but seriously, he did charm Nuzzi, who writes about it in her new book, American Canto. Like a freshmen English major in their first writing workshop class, she only refers to him as ‘The Politician” (I’m an English major, so I’m allowed to make this joke).

Getting to the point, after excerpts from Nuzzi’s book were released, Ryan Lizza began writing his own blogs about their fallout. Supposedly, he is writing a total of eight articles for his Substack. He’s on the third one now (on Bluesky, I jokingly alluded to this by breaking the video up into two parts.)

I’ll save you the time and money on paying to read the latest from Lizza. Here’s what happened: He described how Nuzzi essentially worked for the Kennedy campaign to catch-and-kill potentially negative stories, to varying degrees of success. In the process, she learned quite a bit about Trump. The article ended with a cliffhanger that seemed to imply Trump’s assassination was staged.

This is the aspect that deserves more scrutiny in modern media, or satire, at the very least. It’s what got Jake Tapper in trouble with the release of his Biden book, Original Sin, earlier this year. Hell, it’s even part of the reason the new Wicked movie isn’t that good.

In order to make more money, publishers and studios are intentionally withholding vital information from people, just to sell more books, subscriptions and tickets.

If Lizza really has a massive story about Trump’s campaign and a faked assassination (I don’t believe he does, for what it’s worth), then that should be revealed to people immediately. Breaking up vital information into parts to drive Substack subscriptions doesn’t serve anyone but the author’s wallet.

Even from an artistic point-of-view, it's a problem. My Wicked reference wasn’t just in jest. Ever since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and 2, filmmakers have been halving perfectly good wholes just to get good returns at the box office. It’s not a long-term vision for a better, complete film. It’s a short-term vision to make more money.

My preference is to not stand on a pedestal. I’d rather make fun of this through my work, while also just telling you what’s happening in the news. I’ll keep doing that in my shorts, and especially in this long-form series.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed Part 1 of my 37 part series on why separating media into pieces is bad an unethical.