Ed Elson

This is from MattMC121.

Matt says, Kyla and Ed, you're both great at connecting the dots of everything that's happening in the world in a nuanced and unique way.

Thank you.

That's very kind.

With so much noise in today's media, how do you navigate through it?

What is your process for arriving at a point where you can give a new perspective?

That's a great question.

Kyla, what do you think?

I feel like the other thing that you nail, which probably helps with understanding things, is just like, how would I explain... As you say, how would I explain this in three minutes to someone who has zero context?

And I feel like that's a really good way to understand the issues deeply.

I mean, this is what people say, if you want to learn, teach, which I feel like is kind of what you...

do and that's probably a really i mean i feel like people could take that in their own lives for me same as kyla i try to read everything so read all the papers try to understand both sides of the argument if possible that is always going to be helpful i think another point that i would say that i think has really helped me is the fact that my job is to say stuff

And it's not just to read stuff.

It's like I literally have to, by the nature of this job, I literally have to have a viewpoint and I have to articulate that viewpoint out loud, which by its very nature forces me to be a smarter person.

Like tomorrow, as an example, I'm going to be on MSNBC.

I have no idea right now what we're going to talk about.

They'll tell me in the morning.

And then by the time I appear on camera later in the day, I need to have an understanding of what we're going to talk about.

I need to have an opinion.

I need to have a position.