Will 'Survivor' survive the new Paramount?

This week, we reached a milestone on both Reels (100K followers!) and YouTube (over 300K subscribers!). Thank you all so, so much for your continued support. We’re just getting started.

We’re doing our best to provide the facts each and every day in a format that hopefully informs you and elicits a chuckle or two. Unfortunately, many of our fact-based videos on Trump’s "anti-war” stance are aging like a fine wine:

📧 What I’m reading: Your emails

👕 What I’m wearing: Our new merch!

🫓 What I’m eating: Paisa MX

📺 What I’m watching: The Survivor 50 premiere

🧠 What I’m tinkin’ about: State media

I wanted to quickly acknowledge two things:

This is to say that I hope you won’t stop emailing me with your thoughts, feedback and corrections. Even when we don’t respond, we see them. And they inspire our videos and newsletters. It’s why I saved a whole section for Survivor in this edition: I heard from many people who wanted to hear my thoughts on the premiere. Stay tuned …

Our new merch! We’re starting off simple. Longtime fans may remember our excellent offerings at The Washington Post Universe. We got weird with that merch pretty quickly. So this time around we’re starting off with one rule: would people wear this in public? I think (and hope) the answer with our shirt is a resounding “yes.”

This shirt features the spelled out logo many of you prefer over our shortened logo. It’s a nice, comfy shirt, too. And we’re selling these through our good friends at DFTBA.

Our other item is something I’ve wanted for a very long time: a branded coffee mug. I am a coffee addict and I’ve spent the last week supporting this addiction with my very own LNI mug. If you see me holding this mug in a future video, comment with a ☕️ emoji.

Designed once again by the very-talented Sarah Hashemi, this mug repeats our slogan five times across the mug: “News for humans, by humans.”

So if you like what we do, and how we don’t use AI to do it, get one of these!

Since moving to Kansas City, my wife and I have been searching far and wide for a Colombian restaurant. Sure, there’s a Venezuelan restaurant in Crown Center that sells arepas and empanadas, but it’s not the same. It’s like comparing KC BBQ to Texas BBQ (it’s a mortal sin).

Then, out of nowhere, we found Paisa MX this last week. It recently re-opened, offering both Colombian and Mexican food. While fusion food is delightful, we worried before going it would be just that - not straight-up Colombian food.

Thankfully, that was not the case. One side of the menu is Colombian food, the other side is Mexican. And they did not disappoint, not at all. I’m almost afraid to say it but … it may be better than Aroma Cafe in Springfield, Virginia.

I realize as I type that I’m alienating most of my readers, who have likely been to neither restaurants, and probably don’t know Colombian food that well. If you do, however, find yourself at Paisa MX in North Kansas City, get their traditional Colombian hot dogs, bandeja paisa (a traditional meal with all the Colombian food groups), or salchipapas (basically, really good french fries). And take some empandas, buñelos and pandebonos to go. It doesn’t get much more authentic than this, especially in the middle of the midwest. I hope Paisa MX thrives for decades to come.

I think my friend Josh said it best recently:

"I didn’t realize until watching this premiere that I had been falling out of love with Survivor.”

For many of us longtime, loyal Survivor fans who have been struggling to defend the baffling same-ness of the “new era” game structure, the Survivor 50 premiere was a jolt of life. It reunites some of the best of the best (except for the confusing return of antisemitic player Stephenie LaGrossa).

Three of my all-time favorite players - Christian, Emily and Devens - form a day one alliance?

The incredible Dee, Tiffany and Kamilla are teaming up to cause chaos?

Colby is not a bitter a-hole like he was for the entirety of season 20, but a thoughtful, gracious 50-something year old man?

White Lotus creator Mike White came back with his trademark silver tongue, now accompanied by a brand new ripped six pack?

It all just feels so familiar, yet fresh. Hell, even Ozzy, who many of us felt had nothing new to provide, had an incredible first episode.

This is exactly what the show needed. The old school players are a little softer and less cut throat than they used to be. Meanwhile, the new school players are finally dropping the fake, harmonious “we’re all just here to have fun” persona (thank you Jenna Lewis, for making fun of this on your way out).

Best of all, the self-imposed diversity initiative that CBS adopted in 2020 still holds here, if barely. Exactly half of the cast includes people of color. As always, Survivor represents actual America, in all its diversity and faults (is that why Steph was cast? Oh well). Perhaps I am being a little too optimistic, but I think this show might just be a glimmer of hope inside of the Paramount takeover by Trump’s friends, Larry and David Ellison. Which brings me to …

I don’t know what’s going to happen with Paramount, CBS, its shows and everything under the Warner Bros Discovery umbrella. After talking about Iran on Monday, I’ll make a video on it, of course. But for now, allow me to share my musings.

First and foremost, these media companies are businesses. We would be foolish to assume that David Ellison won’t give Bari Weiss, or another conservative, full control of CNN if the Warner Bros deal closes. He told the president he would make “sweeping changes” to CNN. Pretending otherwise is ridiculous. There’s two thoughts that help me sleep at night. First …

No one I know watches CNN.

I really do not mean this disrespectfully. I have used CNN.com sources in my reporting. All of my interactions on CNN and with its reporters have been wonderful. I’m also quite happy to come on a show. But unless I’m at the gym or the airport, I’m not watching CNN. The last time I watched it with sound, JD Vance was still calling Trump “Hitler.” I don’t know anyone under a certain age that is watching it every day. You might think you watch it, but it’s probably just clips on social media.

In my view, it’s not because CNN got worse. I think it’s programming is really quite good. I recognize my glowing praise and willingness to be on CNN, while also calling it obsolete, might sound counterintuitive, but I’m just being completely honest about cable TV. We just don’t have cable at home anymore. Cable subscriptions keep halving year after year. And when CNN+ was re-launched last fall, barely anyone not located in D.C. or NYC noticed. If we’re being honest, CNN should really just stream 24 hours on YouTube instead. Online video, including what we do at LNI, has already begun filling the cable TV gap. Here’s the other thought:

Paramount can’t survive on conservative-only programming.

Even the very conservative NFL, with its very conservative board and owners, knows this. They didn’t even blink at the Turning Point halftime show counter-programming. And they were right to ignore the backlash. Bad Bunny brought in more viewers than ever before, thanks to social media.

Survivor, with its diverse cast and progressive host, continues to out-perform most other reality TV shows (but shout-out to the good people of Traitors). I don’t know a single soul that watches FBI, CIA or any of the other copaganda shows on CBS. Sure, some people do, and that’s totally fine, but they’re part of an aging market.

David Ellison just asked his daddy for a ton of money. He’s got to make it work. And he’ll have a tough time doing that with Trump-styled state media.

And yeah, just like that Iran video, we more or less predicted this several months ago too:

Fine. Then make sure to sign up for quarterly members-only town hall. You can ask me anything you want here. My extended family often makes appearances too. They never miss a chance to make fun of me. Become a member and sign up today (it comes with free stickers too!)

In case my four previous links didn’t entice you, here’s a preview photo of our DFTBA store, which also functions as a link: