Derek Thompson

The New York Times has thrived, not only because it has hired and held on to journalistic stars, but also because it has become so much more than just a newspaper.

It has become, as you said, a lifestyle brand.

My guess is that most of the subscriptions to the New York Times in the last, say, five years, maybe in particular during the Biden years, sure, maybe some of them were about the journalism, but I would guess the plurality or majority were for cooking,

and for games, and for the stuff that existed around the journalism.

Why not just copy the New York Times?

In a way, it's almost like... I think that's hard.

It's like if you're an NBA team in 2014, 2015, and the Rockets and the Warriors are winning 60 games a year by chucking up a bunch of threes.

Why not just at least try to...

Like, get some people on your team who can chuck up threes.

That seems to me to be sort of like the duh equivalent of trying to do a little bit more to hire a chef star, hire some engineers who build games, and build that kind of lifestyle presence around your media property.

I want to make sure that I name check the conservative critique of the Washington Post here, which is that the financial disaster of the Post in the last few years flows directly from the journalistic malpractice of the Post becoming too liberal.

When I read that critique, my view is that it misses...

the degree to which modern news organizations tend to thrive when they have a discernible identity.

Sometimes that identity is a person.

Bill Simmons, Joe Rogan, Candace Owens.

They all have first names.

That's how you know that they have identifiable personalities.

But you look at also organizations like Fox News, which is openly biased, has a very discernible identity.

My feeling about the conservative critique is that it misses that whether or not media should be overtly liberal or conservative or libertarian, I think it actually helps in an abundant media environment to be known for what you produce.

And I feel like the Post lost an identity rather than losing...