(0:00) Welcome to the BLTNT podcast. I’m your host, Matt Loria, serving up real stories of business, (0:05) life, technology, and transformations. You’ll hear from interesting people about big changes (0:09) from career shifts to life-altering decisions and the innovations that help make it all happen.

(0:14) It’s about sharing those light bulb moments, pivot points, challenges overcome, and the journeys (0:19) that inspire us to think differently. If you’re on the lookout for insights to propel you forward, (0:23) stories that resonate, or just a bit of inspiration on your next BLTNT move,(0:27) you’re in the right place. Let’s dig in.

Welcome to this episode of the BLTNT podcast. I’m your (0:41) host, Matt Loria, and I’m sitting here with my buddy and media personality, Guy Gordon. (0:49) You’re interviewing an interviewer now.

I got to tell you, this is the most self-conscious (0:54) episode I will be doing. I can guarantee that for the year. Let me tell you, when I’ve done that, (0:59) it’s been one of the most nerve-wracking, but I’m also not used to being a guest.

Yeah, good. (1:04) So, you know, there’s mutual anxiety here. Okay, good.

Yeah, this is like, (1:08) every word I say, I’m thinking, what would he say? What should I be saying? So, (1:13) well, thanks. And thanks for, you know, not judging me too bad, too harshly when we’re doing (1:18) this. We can always edit it.

Yeah, I’m an avid listener and fan, so let’s start there. By the (1:26) way, can I just say as a TV guy or a recovering TV guy, you got a great studio here. You folks (1:32) should know that he’s done it up right here.

The lighting’s good. You got, you know, simple, (1:37) but really nice setups. Thank you.

I owe that all to Jack. You got Jack, too. And honorable mention (1:44) to Matt Opoficious, who put together the actual tech side of it.

But Jackie runs all this stuff, (1:50) knows everything. I don’t know how to turn one thing on in this room. Yeah, well, that’s, (1:54) you know, this is one thing that AI can’t fix, right? They’ll never replace the Jackies.

That’s (2:02) true. Plus, we know that as we were talking the other day, we’re going to pick on Jackie (2:06) a little bit while we’re here today. We’re going to have some fun at Jackie in a loving, (2:11) kind.

Nurturing, learning, teaching, mentoring sort of. And it’s kind of an exploration of the (2:17) generation gap. It is.

Which is always fun. Well, she’s teaching me something every day, (2:21) so today I’m going to hopefully give some back to her. Yeah, as two guys that don’t have TikTok (2:26) accounts.

You don’t understand what we’re talking about here in a minute. (2:32) So it’s kind of interesting. We were talking just a couple minutes ago, and we decided we’d (2:36) better turn these cameras on.

Is that guy and I were having a conversation just the other day, (2:43) and I had my AI note taker on. First of all, I didn’t even know that there was such a thing. (2:48) Yeah, yeah.

We have one called Fireflies, and that sits in on the Teams meeting as an extra (2:55) person essentially listening and taking notes so that I don’t have to be writing. Now, I still (2:59) have my sticky notes where I get about 6,000 sticky notes, and then Jackie comes to my office and(3:07) goes, oh, this place needs to be cleaned up. I wonder when that will replace a court reporter.

(3:10) Yeah. My sticky notes? Well, no, the note taker. Oh, I think it’s got to be close already.

(3:18) But at the beginning of our conversation, we’re sitting there talking about (3:22) about boats. And so when I got the notes for your thing, it says from his early beginnings (3:28) as a marine surveyor, which that didn’t really happen. So that is fake news right there.

We (3:35) cannot fully rely on AI just yet. So I think we certainly learned that. Well, it’s about input, (3:40) right? Yeah.

It’s still about the input. The input was misleading. So let’s talk about your early (3:48) beginnings.

Back when you were a boy, where did you grow up? Walk us up to where we are today in (3:55) terms of the Guy Gordon progression. Well, first of all, I’m an only child, (3:59) which we’ll explain a lot. Okay.

Okay. Get my doctor notes. But I grew up in Grand Rapids.

(4:09) We talk a lot about privilege now. The best privilege that anybody can have is two great(4:15) parents. Yeah, you bet.

And sometimes I think we get punished for that. Sure. (4:21) Two wonderful parents, conservative Republican home in Grand Rapids, which made us, you know.

(4:27) The anomaly in the neighborhood? No. You never saw a Democrat yard sign in my neighborhood. It was (4:36) crazy.

They don’t allow us from the east side of the state. They don’t allow us over there. So I (4:44) used to have a, you know, kind of a mindset that if we dropped a quarter on the ground, (4:48) it would roll all the way to Coleman Young’s pocket.

I mean, because all the revenue sharing (4:54) flowed to Detroit. None of our culture institutions got anything. So it was great upbringing.

Grand (4:59) Rapids went to Central Michigan University with the intent of being an oil and gas guy. My dad (5:06) was in the oil and gas business. And I thought, I mean, we loved working together.

I worked for him (5:12) in the summers as an oil and gas landman. And if you’ve watched the Billy Bob Thornton thing, (5:16) no, he did not do any deals with narco leaders. Okay.

Yeah. So when they landed the plane in (5:23) your field, you didn’t have to bring them a bag of cash or anything like that? Our biggest problem (5:28) was if, you know, some guy had an oil spill on the well site, you know, and then we get cited (5:32) with the DNR for having some hazmat problem. Where were your properties? Where were your wells? (5:39) Death folks lot in the Waco County, but he also had interests up in Otsego County, (5:42) which would be the Gaylord area.

But here’s my, let me show you. So all through here, (5:48) just think of a crescent moon. That was where the coral reefs were 150 million years ago, (5:54) which led to the oil and gas that we had in Michigan.

In the late seventies, things were (5:59) going pretty good. And same thing in the early eighties. So I thought I’d go into business with (6:02) dad.

I was a geology major up at CMU. Mount Pleasant is the oil capital of Michigan. So it (6:07) seemed like a good place to network too.

And then I happened to have a guy living next door to me (6:13) and I’d always kind of harbored this interest in broadcasting maybe. And he said, you know, (6:18) we got a little 10 watt station down in the basement and it’s a great way to meet girls. (6:23) And so I thought, well, you know, I’ll try that.

And I happen to know the gal that worked in what (6:28) they call traffic. So she kind of ran the ads and things like that. She said, yeah, I’ll make sure (6:32) you kind of get bumped up the list.

And that’s how it all started. And I never took a journalism (6:36) class. I was an econ major, business degree.

Ditched the geology major when I realized that (6:43) I was going to have to take more chemistry and it hated me. And I hated it back. So I can talk a (6:49) lot about rocks with my grandkids, but the geology thing just, you know.

I do have a story of, we’re (6:56) in the same line in chemistry. I actually had to make a deal with brother Xavier at De La Salle (7:02) High School in Warren. I went to him, I said, brother, I’m going to fail with a sophomore, (7:09) junior year.

I can’t remember what it was. And he says, well, let’s talk about that. (7:14) What’s there to talk about? Like, what can I do? I got to get my grade up.

I’m in like a D minor or (7:18) something like that. And he says, well, you’re not going to fail. And I said, well, thanks for (7:22) the confidence, but I don’t have it.

He says, no, you’re not going to fail. I said, why not? He (7:26) says, because we’re going to make an agreement right here. What’s the agreement? He says, (7:31) you’re going to agree that you’re going to never take on a profession that requires chemistry (7:36) as part of the profession.

And I’m going to agree to pass you through. (7:40) And then he won’t come back to haunt me at some point saying, how the heck did you pass this guy? (7:45) He didn’t have an errors and omissions policy on that. So he needed to make sure that I had (7:50) my agreement to not get into the business.

So that’s how I ended up in business. (7:54) Well, that’s how I, and again, I started in business, it ended up being, and it was really (8:00) a good thing. I mean, my business degree has never gone to waste.

My econ major has never gone to (8:04) waste. I mean, from the moment that I got into TV news, which was another happy accident, (8:11) you know, I was a business reporter. I was the go-to guy, you know, and the timing was pretty (8:16) good.

We were just coming out of the Carter years. We had stagflation. We had people, (8:21) you know, we, the stock market was a mess.

We were going through a lot of, you know, (8:28) monetary policy and fiscal policy was a big topic and we were, you know, business was struggling. (8:34) So what years was that? (8:35) I started, I came into the business in 1980. (8:38) Okay.

(8:39) I served as a summer intern. God, you know, it doesn’t seem like it was that long ago,(8:44) but I was a summer intern for the NBC affiliate in Grand Rapids. And I took it as a favor to the head (8:49) of the broadcast department who was a sneaky, sneaky guy.

Cause I was still thinking about (8:54) going into business with my dad and he, or going buying radio stations was the other thing I was (9:01) thinking about doing and be doing ownership and management. He goes, you know what? You really (9:05) ought to take this internship. Cause he says, you know, the newsroom is a big, big cost center of (9:09) any broadcast operation and you really need to understand it.

And you’re kind of good at it. (9:13) And I think you’ll like it. (9:14) Did you talk like this at that time? (9:17) No.

Well, yeah, I’ve been a DJ for four years. And I mean, when I was 18 years old, (9:23) I got my first job as a fill-in DJ up in big Rapids. And so I, you know, I’ve been doing the (9:28) rock and roll DJ thing for a couple of years.

And then I started on a game, a TV game show (9:33) at college and then, uh, and then did some TV news there because they had that. We were one (9:39) of the few schools in the nation with its own 30 minute newscast every night. So you had the, (9:44) you know, the added benefit of deadline pressure and things like that.

Um, but the great thing was (9:49) when I tried this, um, internship, the, the, the second day there, a tornado hit Kalamazoo. (9:56) And I mean, it was devastating. It hit, went right through downtown Kalamazoo.

Wow. Took out (10:01) part of the department store, blew out every window in the big bank building that was in downtown (10:06) Kalamazoo. And now this is, I’ve, you talk about an adrenaline rush, a breaking news story like (10:14) that for a young kid that’s never experienced anything like that and watching a really well (10:18) oiled newsroom and how they handle it.

It was, it was the worst kind of crack cocaine for my brain. (10:25) And that was at the time I came home from that and was living with my mom and dad while I was (10:31) doing the internship. And I said, I think I want to do a career change thing here.

(10:36) And did you ever feel like you were working ever since? Or were you one of those guys that says, (10:40) Hey, I’m doing my best. (10:41) I was working because I mean, there’s a, there’s deadline stress and pressure and there’s, (10:46) you know, ratings that they, you know, you’ve got to worry about, but no, you know, and this, (10:52) the best job I ever had was the last job I had. I mean, I’ve always wanted to do the morning thing (10:57) at WJR.

It’s a wonderful, you know, it’s hugely demanding in terms of the breadth of the topics (11:03) that you cover, but if you’re a curious person, it’s the best place to be. And so, I mean, (11:09) my career arc has just been really, really fun. And, uh, but it was, it was all for the first 14 (11:15) years, I was a business reporter and reporting on the economy.

And that doesn’t mean that if there (11:20) wasn’t a big breaking news story that I wasn’t in the middle of it, but yeah, business was your (11:24) business was kind of like, if there was a business story, I would get assigned. (11:28) That’s a rarity in the, in the media biz too, correct?(11:32) That I was a unicorn. In fact, that, I mean, that I had a business degree with an econ major (11:38) and you won’t find many of those in any newsroom.

(11:43) Did you find that the, the, did the guests respond differently to you throughout your(11:47) career because of that? Because did they feel like you could relate to them in a different way (11:52) than maybe somebody else could? (11:53) Well, you know, it’s interesting because of the kind of town that, um, Detroit is a lot (11:58) of the reporters came from union households. So they weren’t necessarily tuned into business and (12:04) management. They didn’t necessarily appreciate the, the struggles of, of, of someone trying (12:09) to make a payroll.

And I mean, even worse than that, we had a Detroit city council. (12:13) You had nine people on that council. You know, you talk about how Detroit got into the mess (12:16) it got into and it went bankrupt.

You look at the, the, the, uh, the backgrounds and the bios (12:22) of the people on the Detroit city council and the people that were mayor, none of them ever had (12:25) to make a payroll. They were wonderful civil rights leaders, label labor leaders, social (12:31) workers, college professors, wonderful people, but all of them from a left-leaning social (12:39) public sector background. (12:42) And like you said, I mean, and you know, that, that hits a business owner.

Every business owner (12:46) knows that when you, when you talk, when you say had to make a pay, had to make a payroll, (12:50) right? That’s, that’s the, that’s the only stress that we all really have at the end of the day is (12:56) you can’t mess that up. And skepticism and to some degree resentment, if you were a very (13:01) profitable business, you know, um, wealth and success weren’t necessarily appreciated. (13:08) So I, to your point, I mean, when I ask questions about the cost of the inputs, for instance, (13:16) whether I’m talking to a farmer or whether I’m talking to someone that’s an auto supplier, (13:20) and again, whether it’s the cost of steel or the cost of labor, at least that I’m expressing, (13:26) you know, concern and an interest for what they have to deal with.

Well, I’m not coming in there (13:30) with a notion and the mindset of, well, all management’s bad and it’s us against them. (13:35) Right. (13:36) And you know, uh, it’s, it’s all about the wage and the benefits and little regard for whether (13:41) or not that’s going to put the guy out of business.

(13:43) How much of that did you learn, um, around the kitchen table watching dad versus, uh,(13:47) versus, uh, in college, what would you say the mixture is? (13:49) Well, that’s part of the indulgement of having, being an only child is that you get treated like (13:54) an adult a lot sooner. And so a lot of topics were brought to the dinner table from the time I was (13:59) probably 10 or 11. And we always watched, um, we always had dinner with the news on and we talked (14:05) about stuff.

And, um, you know, my dad was an econ major at Cornell. And so as we were going through(14:13) all these, these things, you know, with huge deficits and talk of windfall, profits, taxes,(14:19) or price wage and price controls under the Nixon administration, a lot of people forget that that (14:24) happened as we’re talking about price controls now. Um, yeah.

Uh, all that, that was, that was (14:31) the beginning of my bachelor degree was at my dad’s dinner table. And my mom was the good teacher (14:37) too. And what was, what was your mom? Like mom is still with us.

She’s not with us. Yeah. I, (14:42) so I call her on the way over here and she’s 90, 90.

I’m going into a luncheon with a lot of (14:48) ladies. You can probably hear them behind me. I’ll call you around three.

We, that’s great. We (14:53) lost my dad four years ago today. I’m sorry.

Oh, so I called her just to say, Hey, bittersweet day. (14:58) I know, but, um, love you and thinking about you. And, but I mean, she is the Energizer great (15:05) grandmother, which scares the heck out of me because you know, it’s, it’s the old thing.

(15:10) If I knew I was going to live that long, I would have taken better care of myself. I got to start (15:14) getting serious about that. Well, the last couple of times I’ve seen you, you’ve been(15:19) dressed in handyman attire.

So you you’ve been, you’ve been sweating, been getting a little dirty (15:23) lately. So, um, this, this retirement phase is, uh, is doing something to you that I looked like (15:29) Gomer yesterday. I looked like Gomer pile before he went into the Marine Corps.

Right. It looked (15:33) like goober. You looked active.

Let’s say that. Yeah. So, um, are you, are you, do you feel like (15:40) you’re, you’re out and staying busy? I mean, are you staying active for, for, uh, uh, someone of (15:46) your, of your age? It’s someone of my age.

It’s something I’m like, well, yeah, the whole idea. (15:52) So I don’t, I don’t use the word retirement. Good.

When people say, congratulations on your (15:56) retirement, say I’m not retired. I’m on hiatus. Okay.

Kind of like if I was a TV show, I’m waiting (16:02) for the next season to begin. Cause I’m eventually going to ask you, you know, what, what did you (16:06) find in that arc of your career? So in terms of this part, this T yeah, this is an incomplete (16:11) right. You’re in transformation.

Yeah. I’m still, I’m still in the early stages. I’m going to ask (16:15) you what, you know, what’s the peak of your career and the only right answer.

I know you’re (16:18) not supposed to lead the, uh, lead the guests, but I’m going to lead the guests to the best is yet (16:23) to come. So, so that’s the only answer that we’ll accept. Well, I hope the best is yet to come.

I (16:27) mean, it’s all going to be different for sure. Right. Because I’m not, I don’t see myself being (16:31) part of a regularly scheduled broadcast again.

I’ve kind of, you know, I’ve had several peaks (16:36) and they’ve all been good. I don’t, you know, doing this makes a lot of sense in the future, (16:43) but I just, you know, what kind of content do I want to be involved in finding the sweet spot (16:48) with that. And the thing is, is that there’s so much national content now it’s the localized (16:55) content that matters.

And you’re doing that here with the kind of people you’re talking with. (17:01) And that’s kind of what I have to figure out. I love the more localized piece because (17:05) you know, when, when I’m commiserating with somebody or when I see someone commiserating, (17:10) you know, it’s, it’s, um, it’s that, that adage of, um, uh, like in the, in the process of a sale, (17:16) okay.

And in sales training, they’ll tell you, don’t, don’t spend too much time with somebody (17:20) that can only tell you no, right. You’re going to be talking to the person who can say yes or no,(17:25) but not just the, not just the gatekeepers. You learn a lot from those people too.

(17:28) Most certainly about their needs. And you bet. I mean, there’s the, there’s a, there’s an old (17:34) book called the, um, the new strategic selling, which, uh, which, which definitely teaches you (17:38) that, that there’s a lot of different stakeholders in every decision and there’s always a hidden (17:43) decision maker, but the same thing in our business, which was, you know, get the sound bite (17:46) and leave.

Well, but you may be not the next story you do could be coming out of your, that person’s(17:53) mouth. If you just give a little bit longer to talk, talk about a ticket, let them go on a tangent. (17:58) You bet.

Um, where I’m, where I’m going with that though is, is the, um, um, well, I kind of lost (18:05) my spot of where I was going. The biggest aha moment of this whole thing that I, you know, (18:11) because I think I came here in the first week and sat with you in the first week to 10 days after I(18:16) got the news from, what are you going to do? Yeah. And it was because you said, because you said (18:22) I said, Hey, come see this.

Yeah. But the thing that’s been amazing, (18:27) I didn’t realize how hard I was working because if you love what you’re doing, (18:33) you know, it doesn’t, if it doesn’t seem like work, but I realized I hadn’t actually sat and (18:37) watched a TV show or hadn’t done anything in the evening when my laptop wasn’t on my lap (18:44) and open to something and thinking and thinking. And with this one part of my brain, at least (18:50) thinking about the show the next day.

And I mean, if I was to tally it up, (18:56) I was easily working 50 hours a week or more. And the other part is, which is even worse (19:01) was that when I was, you know, in things with the family, there was still this buzzing in my head. (19:09) So you just don’t realize that’s been the shock to me was, okay, I don’t have to do that anymore.

(19:15) I’m just going to leave the laptop over here. Yeah. And it’s like, then if I feel it’s weird,(19:21) I feel like I ought to be multitasking.

Right. So how do you withdraw from that? (19:25) You know, you’re coming off the smack here now. So you’re going to have the shakes for a while.

(19:29) Probably. Yeah. Yeah.

It’s it’s pink elephant time for me. (19:34) So I remember what I was going to say about the local news. This is where I was, went out and (19:37) found my little, little tangent about, uh, about the type of people in the commiserating (19:42) to me is like when we’re, when we’re talking about things that are beyond our control, (19:46) it really feels like a waste of time.

Okay. But when you talk about localized things and you (19:51) learn from local history and you talk about local politics, you talk about local, um, uh, (19:57) community engagement and things that we can do to make the world a better place, (20:00) we can do it right here. And that’s actually a big impact that we can make.

(20:04) And so I think it’s really interesting this, this discussion of, you know, localized news,(20:09) localized involvement and the stories that you’ve been like, cause I know in your head,(20:14) you know, one of the, one of the options that you’ve been talking about for yourself is(20:18) really creating some, some, some interesting content around historical things that have(20:25) happened here, but in more recent history, not like, not, not, not so long ago, like stuff that (20:32) you lived through and reported through, uh, as well. I mean, that’s the thing about you is that (20:37) you’ve got a lot of, you still have a lot of runway in terms of there’s stuff that you saw (20:41) that you can teach, that you can teach me. And, and, and even more importantly, teach, (20:45) you know, Jackie and her generation, you know, of, of what you saw, because those lessons learned are (20:51) invaluable of, there’s nothing new under the sun in so many different respects.

(20:56) This episode of the BLTNT podcast is sponsored by Oxium, business IT and cybersecurity designed (21:02) to outsmart chaos. Empowered by Juniper Networks, automate your network with Juniper Networks and (21:07) the Mist AI platform, the world’s first AI driven wired and wireless network. (21:13) Yeah.

And Detroit, especially because, you know, we, we were the arsenal of democracy. We’re still(21:18) the center of business. We used to be the Paris of the Midwest, you know, and, and, you know, (21:22) we have 2 million people down to 600,000 ish.

And so, yeah, we’ve seen a lot of peaks and valleys (21:30) we have learned a lot. I just spent a great evening with Jerry Rosen, former judge, (21:35) chief judge of the district court who dropped everything in 2013, become the chief mediator (21:40) for the Detroit bankruptcy. And he wrote a book about, he’s the guy that you’ve heard the term (21:44) grand bargain.

He was the architect of the grand bargain with a lot of other people, but the germ (21:50) of the idea came from, from Jerry Rosen. And so, I mean, you could almost do a podcast, a segmented (21:57) podcast on you and break his book down into some of these chapters.(22:03) Yeah.

Well, we’ve talked about Kevin Dietz and what Kevin Dietz did with the white boy, (22:07) Rick story. That, that I thought was so cool of a local media person who was there for the story,(22:13) right. And his predecessor was too, you know, to pull it together.

(22:18) Yeah, Chris Hansen was, so Chris and I started on the same day at channel seven. (22:21) Okay. (22:22) And we were the same age.

And then we, we were running buddies when we got off work too. (22:27) You know, and it’s still a good friend. And, but yeah, there are stories like that to tell, (22:35) and it’s finding the right one that isn’t too weedy or nerdy, you know, it’s finding one that (22:40) has some popular appeal.

And white boy, Rick was, you know, people are heavily into true crime (22:44) right now. There’s this wonderful story about a guy named Kensu, who is a serving a life sentence (22:52) for murder in the state. And maybe it’s already been done, but I got to go back and look at it.

(22:57) Bill Proctor used to be a reporter at channel seven. He’s now got a private investigation firm (23:02) and he is a big part of the innocence project. And it’s kind of running his own exoneration and (23:09) conviction integrity type operation.

And Bill’s in his seventies now, and he’s more active than (23:18) he’s ever been. And he’s, he’s just a really interesting guy. Those would be interesting (23:23) stories to tell that these, the stories of the wrongfully convicted and more importantly, (23:27) how the freaking prosecution got so off the rails that they, you know, that they got put blinders (23:33) on and went after this guy, Kensu.

I’m going to mix up the details of the story, but he was, (23:40) he was convicted of a murder down here when he was in the UP. And I mean, they’ve got something (23:46) in the neighborhood of a dozen witnesses that put him up there. Wow.

But they ignored all of (23:51) that evidence and they, they keep refusing to, to reopen this, this case and Dana Nestle just did (23:58) it again. And it’s a, it’s a travesty of just travesty. And I mean, Nolan Finley, who’s the (24:03) editorial page editor of the Detroit news, most conservative guys I know, is on this bandwagon.

(24:09) He’s a tough law and order guy, but he’s saying this is one of the greatest miscarriages of justice (24:14) he’s ever seen. Those would be kind of interesting stories to tell. Yeah.

Yeah. That’s what I say. (24:19) I think the best is yet to come.

I’m, I’m really interested to see where the evolution goes (24:24) with you on this. Let’s talk a little bit. We talked a little bit about your upbringing, (24:30) but I’d love to know, I’d love people to know a little about the family, you know, what, (24:35) what does guy look like at home? I mean, besides in his handyman outfit and you don’t have an only (24:41) fans page with you in that handyman outfit, do you? No, no.

Okay. I only recently discovered (24:45) what the heck that is. I mean, you can probably make some, make some good.

Yeah. Something in (24:52) something in shirtless and overall good luck. Yeah.

The I’ve, I’ve have a wife of 40 years. (25:02) Her dad is an auto dealer. Her brothers are both auto dealers.

We lost her dad in 21. (25:09) But you know, as an only child, I walked into a situation where I had a wife and three siblings (25:14) and that’s really been fun and a lot of nieces and nephews. And so I, my family, you know, (25:19) went from a unit of three to, you know, 20 plus pretty quickly.

That’s great. And that’s really (25:26) been a joy. I got three kids.

Um, all of them, uh, none of them currently incarcerated. Um, it’s, (25:32) it’s, uh, and all of them, yeah, all of them gainfully employed and more, more importantly, (25:37) really happy in where they are. And yeah, there’s, there, there is nothing more important (25:44) than everybody’s happy.

Everybody’s healthy. Um, dad’s a little speed bumps, you know? Well, (25:49) it was interesting when, when the, the, the news from Jr came down and I explained to the kids (25:55) that I was coming off the air. Um, both my boys said, we have been secretly hoping this would (26:03) happen.

Really? What, why would you root against me? Cause it wasn’t about that. It was about, (26:08) we saw how hard you were working at your age. And even though we know you’re in great shape, (26:13) we just didn’t think it was healthy.

Plus the level of frustration you had with the politics (26:18) and, and just the, the performative politics on both sides and how outrageous some of this (26:24) behavior has become. And just finding old fashioned, honest brokers is, it’s hard to (26:30) find now. You bet.

Um, because everybody is working in agenda and they have to for survival. (26:36) Yeah. Working in clicks.

Yeah. Yeah. And there’s very little of working across the aisle.

It’s (26:42) Paul, the late Paul Mitchell was a Congressman from, uh, just North and East of here. Um, uh, (26:50) passed away a couple of years ago, but great guy. And he was so frustrated that he goes, you know, (26:54) I, I work in teams, I work, you know, and, and yet I, I can’t do that.

I’m, it’s frowned upon (27:00) to look, you know, work across the aisle in a lot of cases. And he goes, that’s not what I came here (27:05) to do. I came here to serve my district.

Yeah. Um, so they saw me getting frustrated about things (27:10) like that. And I think they were also hearing from their mother too.

Um, but so they were, (27:16) they said, yeah, it’s time for a new thing. Good. And that was probably good for me to hear too.

(27:20) Good. There’s still, there’s still my bigger, biggest fans. And you know, there’s, there’s(27:25) few things that you want to do, but you know, the big one is you want your kids and your,(27:29) your spouse.

And if you still have a mom and dad to be proud of you, you bet. And you know, (27:34) and coming out, I know that they’re very happy with my career and the job that I did. And that(27:40) means a lot.

That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, I mean, you’re, and you’re, you’re still (27:44) a celebrity around here.

Uh, cause you walked in and there, the whisper starts going around from (27:48) everybody that was over 40. We were in Costco yesterday and, um, but by and T we’ve got this (27:54) really him. Is that what they’re saying? Well, we got, we were buying from this and we got this (27:57) guy, this guy’s probably in his mid thirties and we got done.

I said, Hey, thanks for your time. (28:02) And she goes, you know, you’ve got a really, really great voice. And he goes, he says, were (28:07) you in that business? And I said, well, yeah, for about 40 years.

And, uh, and you know, I (28:15) remind him and he was one of these guys that watched me over his cornflakes when he got ready (28:20) for school in the morning when I was anchoring the morning news with Rhonda and, uh, which was, (28:24) you know, 20 years ago. And so I said, yeah, that’s why it kind of, you know, rings a bell, (28:30) but it also means I have to be, I still have to behave in public. You probably should to that.

(28:36) I can’t miss being no swear words on your t-shirts. Okay. No, that was never my thing(28:42) being loud with my opinions is, you know, after a couple, a couple of snorts is (28:49) still a very distinct possibility.

(28:52) Oh, um, I remember when, uh, when I was younger, um, our little, uh, family rumbling about you (28:59) was, uh, we, we always, as you know, as everybody who I know knows that I ski at nubs knob a lot (29:05) and, um, you used to ski there a bit still do. And, uh, I remember, well, well, okay. (29:10) But back in the day, we used to do the NASTAR races.

And I remember your name was, uh, was a (29:15) head of mine one day when I was signing in, you know, for the little ski race I had registered, (29:20) but probably in the rankings afterwards, I was well below. I was never really that fast, (29:24) but, uh, but yeah, I was like, mom, dad, like guy Gordon’s here. Like we were all excited that (29:29) you were there.

So, so you’re, you’re, you’re right. You rank high in our, (29:32) I’m up there now with my grandkids and that is absolutely the best. That’s so cool.

That’s (29:38) and this is, this is the big question with retirement. Once you’ve got all the time in(29:41) the world to play all the golf, tennis, and skiing up that you want, are you going to end(29:46) up in a hospital or are you going to be healthy enough that you are actually going to enjoy it? (29:51) You know, can you sustain that level of activity? So far so good. Good, good deal.

Um, and, uh, (29:57) what do you, what do you like to do with the grandkids? Are you still out on the, (30:00) out on the boat with them? What are you doing with them? I love to make up games and things. (30:05) And so like we play this kooky game called go away and don’t come back. And they just giggle like (30:11) silly people where I got them on the swing.

I said, okay, I’m going to swing you that way, (30:15) but I don’t want you to swing back. And it’s the, they never win, do they? It’s nothing. No, (30:20) no, no.

And they never, but I get very agitated. Oh, you don’t understand the rules. And you know,(30:26) and it’s, so those are the kinds of goofy things that we do, but lots of bike riding.

Um, (30:34) and it’s just pops. You want to play a game. That’s great.

And so, you know, I got seven of (30:40) them. I was just going to ask how many, so seven and one of them has a birthday today. Happy (30:44) birthday, Charlotte.

She’s six. All right. My oldest granddaughter.

And, uh, but she’s out (30:49) in San Diego with her brother and with my oldest boy. And then we see them a lot up North at our (30:56) hangout up at, you know, in the little Traverse Bay area. Yeah.

Great. Um, so, um, did we talk (31:06) a little bit about faith, uh, grounding some of your core values or did we, did we not? (31:12) I mean, it’s, um, in fact, it was one of those things that we were working on for the morning (31:18) show before I left was trying to make faith a bigger part of what we talk about in the news (31:23) business. And in, in talk radio, we don’t talk a lot about our faith unless there’s a new Pope, (31:29) um, you know, or there’s a scandal, you know, it’s such an important part of everybody’s, (31:35) of the lives of most people.

That’s one of those things that you look at when it’s kind (31:38) of disturbing is that, um, in fact, I was just, I just happened to look at some Gallup research, (31:45) uh, that shows, you know, uh, the level of people that are engaged in collective worship (31:50) has really fallen off. And, um, we were having some good discussions with a priest from Christ (31:57) Church Cranbrook about how they’ve successfully, especially in an old church was still, um, (32:03) they don’t have a rock band, you know, you know, how you can freshen up the experience. (32:09) So yeah, it was a big part.

I was doing the, the, the morning radio thing. Um, I didn’t (32:15) get to church on Sundays. Okay.

Well, this, we can, we, this can act as a confessional as well. (32:22) My son, that I need to go back and do the Saturday five o’clock, um, uh, worship a (32:29) little bit more often now go double for a while until you cut it back up. Yeah.

Oh, I, I, you’re (32:33) right. I should, I should, I should double down and I’m Episcopalian, but they still do the guilt (32:37) thing pretty well. Um, but yeah, I was a lay Eucharistic minister and, and was involved in (32:44) that.

And that was, yeah, that’s, it’s, it’s an important thing. And I think it’s important (32:48) to, to understand where a lot of your listeners and viewers are and understand the importance of(32:55) it. And you hear things there in that, in your church community that you, you can have honest (32:59) discussions that don’t get politicized, but I think can be really healthy.

Yeah. I would agree (33:05) with that. Um, it’s kind of one of those, uh, in a way it’s, it’s, it’s a safe space in a way, (33:11) I mean, certainly can go the other way, right.

Where if you don’t, well, church politics, (33:14) church politics can be just as bad. Um, but, but yeah, I mean, it’s, it’s somewhere that you can (33:20) express, um, you know, express a common belief or express a, you know, a concern with, uh, (33:27) with the belief system as well. Yeah.

I was, I had some great memories. Um, the most recent, (33:33) um, papal, um, you know, vote. I was, I had three assignments in Rome, um, one for Pope (33:43) John Paul II’s funeral.

Okay. And, uh, the other two for consistories for local archbishops that (33:49) became Cardinals. I was there when, uh, both Shaka and Cardinal Maida were made.

Oh, wow. Okay. (33:56) Which, and so I’ve covered the Catholic church a lot.

I followed Pope John Paul II, uh, from the (34:02) landed in Miami in 1987, all the way around the country. And it’s, um, it was, I mean, that was (34:10) the best assignment ever because you concluded, you know, you would talk about the various things (34:16) within the church and some of the politics of the church, some of the challenges of, (34:20) of the church, but you were also delivering a pretty hopeful message to a TV news audience. (34:26) But every night we ended up with these big masses and you saw, you saw people coming in.

(34:32) And I mean, it was a sea of humanity and it was 1987 and the economy had just gotten back on (34:36) its feet pretty much. Um, Reagan was still in office. Optimism was still pretty high, (34:41) but you still had a lot of people with a lot of, you could see the weight of the world when they (34:45) were coming in and what they, and the transformation that took place in that hour and a half with this (34:52) divine man.

He wasn’t infallible, but he was divine in many ways in, in a, in a broad sense. (35:00) And to watch them come out with just refreshed and rejuvenated and the hopeful message, (35:09) especially delivered the way that this Pope delivered. I, one of the funnier moments of, (35:15) of my career was, um, they put all the media with one of the, one of the last masses before we came (35:20) to Detroit.

And I was already trying to keep up with this man who was younger than me now. Uh, but(35:27) he had been shot once. And, but he would get up at six in the morning and start his events.

And then (35:31) would you would, would go to bed at 10 or you get on the papal press plane and you would fly out (35:36) for your next assignment with him. He buried the press corps. We were all, he could not work at all.

(35:43) He was, he was amazing. And he did have this inner energy that I could, that, that I would say was (35:49) divine. But one of the great masses was at, um, Dodger stadium.

And I’m in the press booth, which (35:58) is where they put the press people. And I’m standing there with Vin Scully. Now Vin is about (36:04) this big, but raised in the Catholic church, you know, in his heart, in Irish, died in the war, (36:11) Irish Catholic kid.

Right. And the Pope is set up in center field and I so badly wanted to tap (36:19) Mr. Scully on the shoulder and say, could you, could you please just kind of give like a (36:25) big introduction, you know, now in center field, you know, the heir to Peter, uh, the father of (36:34) the, you know, let’s, let’s hear it now for you. Great catch from the Holy father and now playing(36:39) center.

Did he indulge you with that? No, I didn’t ask him. I just, but to hear his voice, but to also (36:45) watch this guy in tears at the end, you know, this, this, this guy who was, you know, an amazing(36:54) voice for all of us and for our youth, but how deeply he was touched by that, by that moment. (37:01) And he has, he’d seen, he’d covered Olympics, he’d covered everything, but his soul and his, (37:08) his, you know, was not ready for, for that.

Yeah. I always say, I always say like we, (37:13) we catch faith from others too. You know, when you watch somebody so (37:18) deeply convicted, it does something to you as the witness watching that happen.

(37:22) Well, I think to your point and in your interview with Dan Weingartz, I thought, (37:27) it’s very telling. I think a person of faith, they make great leaders because if they truly (37:33) practice faith, they’re an aspirational person. I’ve, you know, newsrooms are pretty hard places(37:43) and the language is pretty salty.

And one of the best newsroom leaders that I ever saw was a guy (37:49) named Al Upchurch and everybody worked hard for, for Al and you never wanted to disappoint him, (37:55) not because he was tough, but because he was so morally upright. (38:00) Just convinced. (38:01) Yeah.

Such a, just, you know, just such a wonderful human being. You just didn’t want (38:08) to disappoint him. Disappointing him would just be awful.

Yeah. I had a guy like that in Grand (38:13) Rapids who we, we, we gathered together to remember him two years ago because he passed away in his (38:19) nineties. But then the number of people that he gave a start to in this business was incredible.

(38:25) You never wanted to disappoint Jack because it was like disappointing your dad. Yeah.(38:29) And so the, I, you know, the idea of being a person of faith and sharing that with others,(38:34) I think also elevates you as a leader.

It gives you high ground from a moral standpoint. (38:40) And the old line about the fish starts stinking from the head, (38:44) that moral high ground, that honesty, you want that to trickle down. (38:49) And, and so I think that’s, you know, really important.

And I wish we kind of looked for that (38:55) more. Yeah. I think, I mean, I think if you were to ask me what the through line is of all of the, (39:00) all of the leaders that I ultimately end up respecting or want to emulate, you will not find, (39:08) you don’t find one without, without that, that faithfulness.

Right. And that, and that, and a, (39:14) a true belief in deep core values and a true belief in, in wanting to do better. And then (39:20) the people that follow them, they follow the same suit.

I mean, like, like you said, with Dan, (39:24) and Dan Weingartz was in here, you actually were in the studio with me watching that go down, (39:29) which was kind of fun. And yeah, I mean, Dan, it’s like, you just, who would want to disappoint (39:35) that guy? I mean, I don’t want to, I, we just talked yesterday and he’s, he’s invited me to, (39:41) to be part of a golf outing with him in, in a separate foursome, thank goodness. Cause he’s, (39:46) he’s a really good golfer.

But, but yeah, I mean, I never want to disappoint that guy. (39:51) Yeah. And I think that’s, yeah, that is, that is.

Cause he holds himself to a standard and, (39:56) you know, into a higher standard and a higher power. And, and yeah, I mean, like I can’t find, (40:02) I typically can’t find somebody that I look up to that, that, that doesn’t have that, (40:06) that element to them. Right.

I’m not saying it’s impossible, but it just seems to be the (40:11) through line. Yeah. And I think it also, but I do think moral leadership, you get a moral (40:18) workforce and that was one of the great lessons of my, my father-in-law is he said, you know, (40:26) if I was to, you know, not pay for a part that I wanted to go in my car at my own dealership, (40:35) that sends a pretty tough message.

Yeah. If I’m cruising in at 11 AM, (40:42) now I’m the boss. I can do that, but that doesn’t mean that I should.

(40:46) And so he was always an eight 30 guy, you know, he got there before his sales team.(40:52) He wanted them to see him in his office working. And those are the, you know, that’s those, (40:59) those are good leadership principles.

On the other side of it is my dad was self-employed. (41:02) He came home at four every day to play catch with me. That’s great.

You know, and that, (41:08) that’s another kind of leadership. You bet. You bet.

Right. Cause you’re building up. He was (41:12) building a father while he was nurturing a child.

Yeah. Oh, that’s great. You know, (41:20) that’s like the, like the good, I, people have probably heard me say this before too.

It’s like (41:25) the good clean living is kind of never the wrong way. And I mean, when you think about the, (41:30) you know, think about what, what your dad or what your wife’s father, you know, could have, (41:36) could have been and could have acted like, right. Have a bit of privilege, right.

Have that (41:41) ownership, what they could be doing. Right. You know, there could be a lot of never take petty (41:46) cash out of the till.

Yeah. You know, it could be a lot of things that they’re doing that. Right.

(41:51) And, and even far worse than that, you know, I’m talking like when you think back to like the days (41:55) of, of, you know, you hear people talk about Kmart corporation and all, how all the, you know, (41:59) all the purchasing agents, you know, had a Rolex’s and spent a lot of time at strip bars. Right. (42:05) It’s like, well, guess what’s not around anymore.

Right. It’s like that stuff just does not, (42:10) does not breed the, the legacy organizations, right. It doesn’t breed the, (42:14) the longterm, you know, commitment and the, the fish is rotten from the head down.

(42:21) Yeah, no. And thank God that, that it is interesting. Not only did the three martini (42:26) lunch go away, but, um, my son was talking about that the other day that he was talking to guys(42:31) who said, oh yeah, you know, you would take a prospective client out and, you know, if they (42:35) happen to show an interest in a, in a set of new irons, you bought those irons on the site.

(42:42) It’s like, uh, now there’s rules about it’s a little bit, a little bit better playing field, (42:48) but then there’s other areas, right? Like, I mean, I mean, the, the media playing field (42:52) has changed pretty dramatically, uh, you know, in a different direction, right. To where there’s so(42:58) much, there’s so much media out there. There’s so much content, you know, that you can’t, (43:03) you can’t sift through it.

So while some things seem to have gone, there is, but there isn’t, (43:07) I mean, the community newspapers are, are, are all gone. You can’t make any money on them. (43:14) Um, Birmingham, thank goodness.

Uh, Dave dude, North has, you know, what they call (43:18) downtown magazine, which, you know, they’re still covering the city commission there and, (43:23) and, uh, the mayor’s office, which is great. That’s not how their news deserts at the local (43:29) level, right. To where you’re only finding it.

If you go to a city council meeting. (43:34) Yeah. Or if somebody happens to go to the face goes on Facebook because they went to the, you (43:38) know, and then makes it, it’s kind of citizen journalism where they went back and they said, (43:42) well, I, you know, they’re spending this money and I don’t understand, you know, what the (43:46) justification is and we need to look deeper into this.

But the fact is, is there’s not a hell of (43:50) a lot of oversight right now of local governments, unless you have some of those good government, (43:55) local gadflies and we used to call them gadflies and they would show up and they’d speak at every (44:01) commission meeting. You can go, Oh dear God, but those people actually need to play a larger role (44:06) now because you don’t have someone there taking notes and you don’t have the media oversight that (44:11) you used to have. And at the local level, that’s, that’s really important.

These news deserts are (44:14) a big concern. We’re still a two newspaper town in Detroit, which I mean, that’s insane. (44:22) And it’s because of the joint operating agreement that they launched, (44:26) but they’re not as deep.

They’re not as rich when you go to pick it up. A lot of it is because the (44:30) classifieds aren’t there anymore, but yeah, it’s a lot lighter in terms of content. And (44:35) I was, I was a new Detroit newsboy.

So, I mean, I had to carry those papers. (44:39) And Sunday was, you know, Sunday’s probably why you’re as big and strong as you are now, right? (44:43) Well, we drove around my parents van for that for Sundays. (44:46) Yeah.

I mean, it’s, you know, there, there has been a decline. I remember when, (44:52) you know, I was at channel seven and was the heyday of Bill Bonds is we’d have 35 shares, (44:57) you know, um, which meant at the time that 35% of the TVs that were on were watching channel seven (45:04) news. And it was in, even if Billy wasn’t anchoring, if it was Richard six o’clock and(45:10) rich indoors, then, you know, they were getting the same kind of numbers.

(45:14) Now they’re struggling for twelves and thirteens and, and, uh, you know, the pie shrunk in the (45:21) best news town in America. I mean, probably I would say even with Chicago, but in the best (45:27) news town in America, um, people were turning away from the news and the pie now has shrunk (45:32) to your point because they’re watching, uh, you know, maybe they’re, they’re, they’re, you know, (45:39) we had leakage from cable, maybe they’re watching CNN, maybe they’re still consuming those, (45:44) but chances are they aren’t. And some of that is on us.

Um, we, we, in some ways either became (45:51) irrelevant or too negative, or, um, we did too much ambulance chasing and not enough (45:58) deep digging. And, and, uh, maybe we’re trying to get by for a while there on the cheap. (46:02) Mm.

And, uh, you know, we, we’ve, we’ve watched that pie shrink in this town by almost 50%. (46:11) And, and, you know, when the consultants would come in, the only advice they were going to give (46:16) us was how to steal viewers from, and this is when I was at channel seven, how to steal viewers from (46:20) channel four is they were on the rise at the time. Okay.

You know, and I was the, I was the (46:26) poop in the punch bowl, you know, raising my hand saying, well, we’ll wait a minute. (46:31) The majority of we can get viewers from them, but it’s not going to make up for the viewers (46:36) that we’ve lost in the last five years to the pillow or to the, to, you know, to whatever is (46:42) on between 11 and 1130 at night. Why aren’t we looking at that? Right.

Why aren’t we treating, (46:48) looking at the real problem, which is people no longer want to buy our product. Yeah. How do we (46:52) forget about trying to steal customers away from the other guys? They’re doing a pretty good job.

(46:56) We need to do a good job too, but that doesn’t explain why, you know, if, if Coke ever, you know, (47:03) every soft drink sales dropped that low in general, they’d all be saying, well, what the heck (47:07) happened? Yeah. We weren’t doing that. Well, and what the, I mean, and I mean, to the, to the (47:12) credit of like a Coke, I mean, Coke, Coke started to realize that people didn’t want sugary drinks (47:18) as much as they used to.

Right. And so Coca-Cola owns ice tea companies and energy drink companies (47:25) and no vitamin waters or things like it’s all that. Yeah.

They’ve diversified. And it was just (47:30) seems like media is, is really struggled to, you know, it’s almost like it feels like, and I could (47:36) be, I could be wrong about this, but it feels like that it, it missed the boat early on when (47:42) the shift was starting to happen. You know, when, when the tech talks and Instagrams and things (47:47) like that, and just alternative media sources, let’s just call it started to pop up.

They didn’t (47:53) know how to pivot and, and jump to those things, but it’s like any other industry. So it’s, it’s (47:58) not like I want to, I’m not in any way, really like damning them and say, oh, that was so stupid (48:02) that you didn’t do this. I don’t even know if it’s always feasible that somebody can do that.

(48:07) Right. When a technology kind of takes over, you know, the technology wave, you almost can’t stop (48:13) it. I’ve been hearing a lot lately about the knock when an employee knocks on your office (48:18) door and says, got a minute.

And you immediately know it’s some sort of it incident, but oxium (48:23) can help whether you’re having a problem, need consulting and upgrade or a managed it approach. (48:28) They focus on preventing cyber attacks and proactive solutions that deliver results. (48:33) My friend, Matt Lauria and everyone at oxium are ready to help before or after you get the knock (48:40) visit oxium.com and let oxium it help you outsmart chaos.

But content is still king. (48:47) And, you know, we used to get into big arguments about the fact that, (48:51) you know, let’s say the whole recent minimum wage argument up in Lansing, which thank goodness came (48:58) to a head and was concluded about six months ago. You know, whether or not we’re going to do away (49:05) with the tipped wage, things like that.

Those are issues that are really affect a lot of people. (49:10) But back in my day, if you tried to convince the assignment desk that we needed to go up and (49:13) spend time up there, there came a time that, well, we don’t want to go to Lansing. It’s too costly.

(49:20) You’re going to be out of pocket. We’d rather follow the breaking news. We’re going to have (49:24) to pay overtime to the crew because you’re going to get back after, you know, they’re going to (49:27) be on the clock too long.

There were a million excuses. Bottom line was they didn’t think it (49:32) was very sexy. Well, the fact was that’s pocketbook.

That’s super sexy people. And (49:39) there were other, I could point to other issues at the time that we could have covered a lot better, (49:42) but it just, it wasn’t perceived to be compelling enough. (49:51) Yeah.

That makes sense. And I think we lost our way that way. (49:54) It’s, it’s also interesting when you think about just how people’s time is so taken up.

I mean, (50:00) you talked about the fact that your dad, your dad was able to, and this is a, this is a luxury, (50:05) right? It’s still, it’s a, it’s a big luxury today. If you can get off at four and go play (50:09) catch with your kid. But nowadays it seems like that, you know, with the cost of living, just the, (50:17) the busyness of life and the, whether it’s all the sports that the kids are playing different (50:22) than it was before, the busyness is not allowing for enough time for people to even, to even have (50:30) the same amount of time to consume news, to, to even learn about news.

So when you talk about (50:36) these, the gadflies, right. And you go, there’s a really valuable spot for them. Heck yeah.

(50:41) There’s, I mean, people right now, to me, stand out if they want to have the time to invest in (50:47) learning about what’s going on, especially locally, right. And then to, and then to be (50:54) strong enough to voice their opinion, whatever opinion that might be. The, the average of the (51:00) rest of us don’t have time to do that.

So it’s almost like that, that technology and the time and (51:06) all the, you know, the, the, the different intersections of that on the Venn diagram, (51:10) you know, start to say, okay, well, well, this is why we have to pick up our news in (51:15) bits and bytes, but it’s also why the evolution of the Facebook, the local Facebook group might (51:21) be the place that somebody is getting more of their info. Now, unfortunately that can be (51:27) highly polluted, right? I’m, I’m, I’m on all sorts of different forums like that. And the best, (51:32) the best example of that is the Traverse City forum.

All it is, is complaints of, of, of silly (51:39) things. And it’s just infighting and it’s like, oh, wow, this is, you know, the, the, the devil (51:45) or Russia or somebody is watching this and having a field day of the infighting and saying that, (51:51) you know, we’ve got these people so much, so wasting their time that they’re not getting ahead (51:56) in life. That’s for sure.

So I guess my, my question to you, I don’t even know what the (52:00) direct question is, but I would say just like if I’m talking to my AI chat bot, I can say, so, (52:05) so I’ve dumped all this on you. What do you think about all that? (52:09) We’re, we’re in a really interesting place right now. And first of all, I think that a lot of (52:13) people no longer, you know, sit up for local news at 11 o’clock because they’re not watching the (52:20) networks anymore.

They’re streaming something. So a lot of the eyeballs that we used to have, (52:24) that we used to be able to say, Hey, coming up, we’re going to do this. You’ve lost that.

And so (52:31) there’s a, there are fewer ways to get people into the tent. Some of it is once they got into (52:36) the tent, we disappointed them through bias, through bad choices about content that maybe (52:43) we weren’t as intuitive about what they needed as we should have been. I think, I think channel (52:49) four has done a really good job of re centering themselves.

Oh, I would agree. (52:55) And I have to confess, I don’t watch channel seven as, as much as I should probably, (53:00) because I should sample around. But I, and, and to, to his credit, Ruparaj has kind of (53:06) changed the dynamic at channel two.

You know, they got rid of free for all, which I think it (53:11) was called, you know, it was, it was kind of a, it was a free for all where you just have guys (53:16) shouting at each other and he’s having a more meaningful conversation now for big topics, (53:22) which is a, you know, flies in the face of, well, no, we want heat. We want controversy. We want, (53:28) no, he’s gone with the steak and not the sizzle.

And I think it’s a really smart choice on his (53:32) part. And I, he’s invited me to come out and I just haven’t been able to do it yet. But (53:37) I bumped into him in Northern Michigan a couple of months ago.

And yeah, I mean, (53:41) I gave him that compliment that I think that the work that he’s been doing has been (53:45) pulse. He calls it pulse. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. You know, I just, it’s very thoughtful, (53:50) right.

And, and I feel like he can hold a conversation across the span of whether it’s (53:58) some individual or a business or a business leader or whatever. I think he’s done a good (54:01) job of that. And then there’s the other problem.

And it’s, it is that people have become very (54:07) siloed in their, their news consumption. And because Trump was such a polarizing figure and (54:15) Biden was too, you’ve got people now that just, they’re going to drift towards, (54:20) if they do consume news and a lot of them have just quit consuming, or they’re getting it from (54:26) on Twitter from, you know, the Charlie Kirks or the Ben Shapiro’s or people like that. (54:31) They go with people that are their chosen thought leaders that think like they do.

And that’s fine. (54:38) You’re kind of ignoring your local news content that way. You’re missing out on some stuff, (54:43) but you’re also really not getting a very well-rounded and also they are going to focus (54:49) on things.

Tucker’s the same way. They’re in the outrage business. They want to sell outrage to you,(54:56) get you upset about things because that’s how they make sure that they get clicks.

(55:02) And to a certain extent, it’s a, it is a little bit like drugs. You know, you kind of have to(55:08) escalate to keep things going. Now, I always thought one of Rush’s geniuses was he could, (55:15) he didn’t have to escalate.

He didn’t have to become outrageous. He always found stuff and (55:21) he found a way to tell this story and to entertain you with it, but also to inform you in ways that, (55:26) you know, he didn’t have to, he didn’t feel like he had to outdo anybody in the outrage department. (55:32) And he did a pretty good job of keeping it all in perspective.

And he had, in spite, you know, (55:38) he always kind of played this very, this oversized ego, but he wasn’t, he was very (55:42) self-deprecating, but you know, we’re not, you know, necessarily, you know, I got up this morning, (55:52) I listened to morning Joe. Now I scream at Mika, you know, all the time and I know what I’m going (55:57) to get there, but I want to hear what they have to say. And then I’m going to, at the same time, (56:03) I’m reading the wall street journal editorial page and I’m reading the national review to me that the (56:07) two conservative Bibles that I trust the most.

And so I got a pretty good take on both sides. (56:16) There’s a group out there reason magazine, but they now have reason.com, which is a (56:22) hardcore libertarian Cato Institute publication. Really, really good stuff.

Really helps, you know, (56:29) a totally different take on things. And I think we tend to get polarized on whether it’s pro-Trump, (56:35) anti-Trump, and you’re a rhino, you’re a closet lib, and I’ve been called all of it, (56:42) just for asking questions about from a classic Republican principle standup, (56:48) is this the right direction that Trump is going in? And when Biden was in there, it was saying (56:54) from a Republican or conservative principle standpoint, how do we work against that? (57:00) You know, when they were trying to force feed a massive minimum wage (57:05) hike in this state and governor Whitmer was part and parcel of that standing up and saying, (57:11) we really need this or is it time to let the free market do its magic here? And (57:17) I think sometimes we’ve drifted into political loyalty more than print loyalty to principle. (57:25) And I think it’s time to kind of have a reset, especially with tariffs.

I was a Milton Friedman (57:31) guy that tariffs are a tax, they’re bad. That’s not the way to true prosperity. (57:39) You have to protect in the most egregious examples when someone’s treating you unfairly (57:43) and dumping product here, but there are methods and there are infrastructures for that.

(57:49) And to have it, and also, you know, business intervention. We just said that, you know,(57:53) the president come out the other day and told Walmart eat the tariffs. Oh, wait a minute.

Are (57:58) those the tears that you said wouldn’t cost consumers or wouldn’t raise prices for retailers? (58:03) You know, so why were you lying then? Are you lying now? And you’re actually going to tell (58:11) business leaders, you’re going to intervene and tell them what they have to do instead of (58:16) serving their shareholders and serving their customers. They’re serving you now. (58:20) We need to ask hard questions as Republicans.

Are we still the party of business? (58:24) Are we still the party of get the business out of the way and don’t, you know, brow beat them (58:29) from the bully pulpit. You let business do what’s in the best interest for them. And you know what, (58:33) that’s the best thing for the economy.

That’s the market economy right there. Yeah. I mean, (58:37) consumers and is consumer still King in this country where you have multiple choices and low (58:44) prices.

Um, and, and again, letting the free market work, are you going to intervene on that? (58:52) I think these, there’s a real interesting time here in the Republican party about who we’re (58:56) going to be in the future. Sure. Sure.

I think if I’m taking what you said though, um, overall, (59:03) like if, if I was to say, okay, back out of this and just say, what’s the advice that comes out of (59:07) this as a guy who lived in the media for, for the last long stretch. Right. And still, you know, (59:14) I mean, you’re still looked at like somebody that people would want to come to for some level of (59:19) advice I would imagine.

Um, I think your advice that’s coming out of this and correct me if I’m (59:26) wrong is seek your information from the local level to the national level and seek your information (59:33) from the left and the right and everything in between it’s old school and then form your (59:38) opinion, form your opinion and decide what, what lines up with your principles, uh, you know,(59:45) based on what you’ve, what you’ve pulled together as opposed to, I think what your biggest point is, (59:50) is just don’t silo the information that you’re getting. If you’re, if you’re advising somebody, (59:54) that would be your advice. Yeah.

And I mean, I, and I honestly try to stay away from the cables (59:59) because they become just extensions of political parties to me. I mean, I, I think Fox news is (1:00:06) Republican Pravda and I think MSNBC is Democrat Pravda. Right.

It’s, it’s, it almost feels like (1:00:12) party sponsored media. Um, and you know, uh, and yet, you know, Fox was asking the right (1:00:20) questions about Joe Biden’s cognitive capabilities and none of the others were. Right.

And I mean, (1:00:26) and that’s why people no longer trust the media. They, you know, you’re telling me not to believe (1:00:31) my lying eyes when I see the walk, I see the stare, I see the befuddlement and you’re not (1:00:38) going to, you’re not going to raise the question about whether or not he’s fit to be president. (1:00:43) Jake Tapper was on selling his book this morning on MSNBC and I wanted to throw a shoe at the TV (1:00:48) when the wall street journal, which is kind of, I think the best publication out there (1:00:52) asked questions about his cognitive behavior in 2023.

Jake Tapper basically hiked his leg on them (1:00:59) on his newscast and now he’s written a book looking behind the great failure of how, you know, what (1:01:07) the original spin was. You’re the biggest, you know, Jake, I love you, but you’re the, you’re (1:01:11) the biggest hypocrite in the world. You sat there and it disparaged the journal for asking the (1:01:16) question.

Yeah. Why weren’t you asking the question? Yeah. You know, and so all I’m saying (1:01:22) is we’ve come to define ourselves.

Are you a Trump support? Are you a former against him? (1:01:26) Are you a Republican or a Democrat? Maybe focus on when it comes to the market, what are my (1:01:32) principles when it comes to civil liberties? What are my principles? Do you believe in due process? (1:01:40) Whether the person’s an illegal or not, do you think that under the constitution, (1:01:44) they have the same rights as you and I? And do we want to preserve that if you diminish their rights,(1:01:49) doesn’t it diminish yours a little bit? Ask questions about principles and then find the(1:01:55) people that align yourself with your principles. And don’t be afraid to say to a Trump or a Biden, (1:02:03) you’re not in alignment with my principles. I’m going to let you know about it.

I’m going to let (1:02:06) my Congressman know about it. Right now, if I was a Republican, I’d be looking at this salt (1:02:13) thing that, you know, it looks like they’re going to raise the cap for state and local tax (1:02:19) deductions, which means that you and I are going to pay for a guy to get a deduction in New York and (1:02:25) New Jersey, and he’s going to get a big deduction because he lives in a high tax state. Where’s (1:02:29) the fairness in that? But politically, they need to keep those swing districts happy.

So instead (1:02:35) of, and one of the best things that came out of Trump’s first tax bill was he capped the state (1:02:40) local tax deductions so that you and I weren’t subsidizing the irresponsible fiscal behavior of (1:02:46) states like New Jersey and New York. Now they’re talking about raising it for political purposes. (1:02:55) Start asking those questions.

Is that in alignment with your principles? And it’s (1:02:59) not wrong to call the White House and say, hey, over here in Michigan, our taxes are pretty high, (1:03:04) but they’re not as high as a lot of these other states. And you just gave a big tax break to (1:03:09) them. I’ll be damned if I’m going to subsidize that.

You know, and I think what’s interesting (1:03:16) is that the, where do you, you know, what you’ve done is you’ve said, hey, here’s four different (1:03:22) news outlets that would give you a broader view of all of that and a deeper view of. And good (1:03:27) opinion. And opinion where they’re not afraid to criticize, you know, the Wall Street Journal (1:03:34) certainly was never easy on Biden.

They’re not easy on Trump either, but it’s always based on (1:03:40) sound economic principles. Now you may say as an, if you’re anti-institutionalist, they’re saying, (1:03:45) well, all of our economic principles, we’ve been, all those people were wrong. Look at, (1:03:49) we don’t have a manufacturing sector anymore, which is not true.

If you look at, if you look (1:03:53) at manufacturing per capita, but we’re about as high as we’ve ever been. We just do it with (1:03:58) fewer people. We’re pretty doggone productive.

And that’s another question we ask as we go through (1:04:03) all this tariff stuff. Do we want to bring all these jobs back? And are they going to look (1:04:06) like the jobs that we think we’re getting? We’re nostalgic for the old days when dad went off to (1:04:12) the plant. There was a, an automation exposition at Huntington place, Kobo for us old folks, (1:04:22) right? And John McElroy told me about this the other day, who, you know, is an automotive (1:04:26) reporter and great journalist.

He said, they had an AI robot. They’re a humanoid robot (1:04:33) that can, you tell it what you want it to do. Hey, well, these two pieces together and it’ll do it.

(1:04:42) So imagine we’re supposedly bringing back these manufacturing jobs. What kind of a plant are (1:04:49) you bringing them back to man? Right. And will it be manned at all? Yeah.

Well, we, the dark plant (1:04:54) used all, all automated robots. If you have humanoid robots that can weld that piece (1:05:01) and the only input you need to give them can be verbal because they’re that good. (1:05:05) He said, this is kind of a watershed moment we’re in.

And so before we up into our economy (1:05:11) in pursuit of bringing these jobs back, we first have to say, well, how do we lose them in the (1:05:14) first place? Was it 80% through automation and productivity, maybe 10% in trade. So are we only (1:05:22) expecting to get 10% of those jobs back? And if we do, are we screwing phones, you know, putting (1:05:27) screws at iPhones? Do we really want that was doing that? Yeah. If you, I mean, there was Axios (1:05:32) did a poll.

They said, you know, should we bring back these manufacturing jobs? And 85% of people(1:05:38) said, yes. And they said, do you want one? And I think it was like between five and 8% said yes. (1:05:45) And if you then asked, would you want that for your child? I think it would get even lower.

(1:05:51) Yeah. I think, um, you know, when we’re, when we’re looking at platitudes and we’re looking at, (1:05:56) um, the, a soundbite, right. If we’re just judging by a soundbite and I think that’s the, (1:06:01) that’s the difference of, you know, whether this is leadership or media in the age of the (1:06:07) algorithm, right.

It’s serving that up in a soundbite. Do you want, do you want manufacturing (1:06:12) jobs back here? Of course I do. Right.

And then you start to dig in, dig two layers deeper. So I, (1:06:18) my advice to people is ask the cop questions and you don’t have to be an expert in anything to use (1:06:24) the Socratic method. You know, you can be like a little child, right.

And there’s, I forget, (1:06:29) Louis CK or one of the guys did though. Why, why, why? Right. And the kid finally gets him to break (1:06:36) down to questioning his existence on earth.

Right. Because he’s, I don’t know, I don’t know if any of (1:06:41) it matters. Right.

I don’t know if you remember that, that one, I’ll send you the link to it, (1:06:44) but, um, um, you just have to get Socratic. I think that’s the net net of it is ask three extra (1:06:52) questions. Don’t just answer the surface question, go a couple layers deeper.

That’s what the cops (1:06:58) do. It still works today. Right.

Well, also break out of your partisan self-definition break out of (1:07:06) your, uh, your, you know, allegiance to one particular person, get back to principles and ask (1:07:17) if the policy is in line with the principle. Sure. I did the same thing with, with kind of (1:07:22) like my view of faith, right.

As, as I’ve gone on a, on a faith journey of, of your own Catholic, (1:07:28) but I also went and experienced other Christian churches, you know, Christian, uh, denominations. (1:07:35) And, you know, it, it kind of brought me back to that whole principled piece, right. And starting(1:07:42) to realize also that people are people everywhere, right.

And people will pervert the whole system, (1:07:47) no matter which, no matter which, which, uh, uh, structure appears to be the most sound people will, (1:07:56) people will mess it up. Right. And I think that that’s what we’re dealing with in the, uh, in (1:08:01) the media.

And when the reward is the click, right. So I go back to like, I appreciate everything (1:08:06) you’re saying and the, and the, uh, the opinions, uh, of them, but I think that we’re just, we have(1:08:11) to realize that we’re in the age of the algorithm, right. We’re in the age of technology.

And unless (1:08:17) you go deeper and ask the questions, the, the, the algorithm is going to serve you up what you (1:08:24) want to hear at the time you want to hear. They’re going to help, they’re going to roll out the red (1:08:28) carpet to the silo. To the silo.

Yeah. Right. Or to the good or service that they want you to buy (1:08:33) next.

Right. And so, you know, as a Marine surveyor, I can tell you that it’s going to be (1:08:38) wrong. Yeah.

But that’s because as a Marine surveyor, you ask the deeper questions and you (1:08:44) say, Hey, let me, let me put a scope on that engine. Right. Yeah.

It sounds okay. Well, (1:08:50) let’s zoom out a little bit and include Jackie in this, because I think there’s also a conversation (1:08:54) to be had about while we’re looking at our own personal news consumption, things as older people (1:08:59) or business people, we also need to be mindful of. I like to be considerate of upper middle age.

(1:09:05) Okay. No, no, no upper middle forties. I’m sorry.

That’s what I like to be considered. (1:09:09) Upper middle forties. Upper middle forties.

Yeah. I saw that 20 years ago. I think I vaguely (1:09:13) remember it.

So we should, we should make sure is Jackie, is it okay if we share what your (1:09:18) demographic is? Young punk. No. No.

Young, bright, up and comer. Young, bright, up and comer. (1:09:26) Um, middle to upper twenties.

Okay. Um, and we were, we were talking the other day, (1:09:31) the three of us, and you said, Jackie, where do you get your news from? (1:09:37) And she said, tick tock and Instagram and Instagram. And we, we paused for a second, (1:09:43) right? We asked a couple of questions.

She took, we talked back and forth and Jackie can shout. So (1:09:46) we can hear you through the microphones here. If you, if you want to be piped in, but, um, (1:09:52) you know, we kind of like almost got to the point where we said that, but that’s, (1:09:56) it’s an entertainment, that’s infotainment, right? It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s, (1:10:01) it’s information, but entertainment.

And so like we would, you even talked about the rush limbaugh (1:10:05) piece and you went back and said, no rush would even identify as I’m an entertainer, you know? (1:10:11) So it was a shock to me. It is, but also, but starting to talk radio, but that means that if (1:10:16) you, if you watched rush and you believed what he said about that, I’m an entertainer, (1:10:20) you better put, you better start to square root the things that he says and not take them at face (1:10:26) value. Right.

As a, as an understanding that, that sometimes he would take the position he (1:10:31) would take because it was compelling and entertaining, not necessarily because it (1:10:34) was a core belief. Exactly. And so then if, if, if that’s how you seek entertainment, (1:10:39) then great.

But if you’re really looking for the news, you got it, you have to dig deeper. (1:10:44) You have to go talk to people at the ground level. And I think that that’s where it goes back to that (1:10:49) whole, come back to some, some local, come back to talking to real people, (1:10:55) go talk to the gadflies a little bit, go talk to the, you know.

So I, I was, when we were purchased, (1:11:01) we were ABC owned and operated when I was at channel seven, when I first started there (1:11:06) and we were purchased by a wonderful company called Scripps Howard Broadcasting, which was (1:11:10) the Scripps family. And they own a Cleveland plane dealer and a couple stations down in Cleveland. So (1:11:15) I went down to Cleveland.

Now we had hardcore news people at, at X, Y, Z. And then when you (1:11:22) came into the morning editorial meeting, you know, they were grabbing the business section, (1:11:26) the free press, the front page section, the free press. I went down to this and we had an (1:11:30) editorial meeting and I just watched them. They all went for the USA today and they all went for(1:11:35) the life section.

Hmm. Okay. What kind of news people are these? First of all, you got the (1:11:41) Cleveland plane dealer sitting there.

You’re a local news station. Why aren’t you tearing the (1:11:44) A section apart? What did we miss? What can we work off of? It was the weirdest thing I’ve ever (1:11:50) seen. Interesting.

The problem with the internet is, and I believe in choice, you’ve got all of (1:11:55) these choices. Human beings don’t naturally seek out the fruits and vegetables. You got to kind (1:12:02) of force yourself into that.

Cronkite did that for us. Peter Jennings did that for us. When you (1:12:07) spent 30 minutes with them, they told you what they thought was the most important stories of the day (1:12:12) that you needed to know.

Not necessarily what you wanted to know, because if you really get (1:12:18) into what you want to know, you’re going to, you’re going to never get out of the candy aisle. (1:12:23) Right. And, and that’s kind of the problem when we have a generation of, of young people that (1:12:29) only get their news from tick tock.

But I don’t blame the young people for that at all. I think (1:12:34) that, I mean, you got to think of that as, you know, we, and even more so you had the benefit of (1:12:42) the Walter Cronkite. And my kids all grew up, here’s the difference in my family.

(1:12:47) My kids all grew up watching the news at six o’clock, but they did that because it was the (1:12:52) only way they were going to see dad for a while. Okay. Cause that’s, you know, I wasn’t at home.

(1:12:58) I wasn’t there to say, but their mother did that. And then, you know, when they were old enough (1:13:04) and then they would talk about things because that was something that we wanted them to have. (1:13:09) But it was also readily available.

Right. And, and right now, I mean, when I think of, if we (1:13:14) were to say to Jackie, like, Hey, you’re crazy for not watching the news, she’s going to say, (1:13:19) I don’t have a TV. Right.

I don’t know if she’s capable, but you have a phone, but she has, (1:13:26) you had something that, you know, that we never had that phone. She has to, it has to serve up (1:13:30) like either. She has to be following that.

She has to know to be following those news outlets in (1:13:36) order to be served that up, or it’s just not going to find her. It found us is what I’m saying (1:13:41) is like, it found us as a natural course of limited media availability. Right.

I mean, (1:13:47) I remember when we first got cable before we got cable, we had six or seven or 10 stations or (1:13:51) whatever, and then we had cable and then that became the bigger distraction. So we, we were (1:13:56) privy to the fact that we had limited distractions and, and singular or limited number of news (1:14:03) outlets that we go to is important. The distraction thing is there.

And so I think that, that when we (1:14:07) go back to, you know, and I don’t, and I’m not saying that I feel like you’re blaming anybody, (1:14:11) like you’re not saying Jackie shame on you for, for not watching the news. It’s just that the (1:14:16) only way for, for, for her to really be able to get to the news is she’s got to dig for it and (1:14:25) want for it. Right.

You only got to download one app, two apps. Okay. But she’s got to do that.

(1:14:30) She’s got to hear that from somebody. She’s not going to pick that up on, but it’s culturally (1:14:35) what we’re taught to do. Again, this was the greatest news town in America.

We had two (1:14:40) thriving newspapers, three of the best television stations in the country. And I don’t think a lot (1:14:45) of people, unless you travel for business, you don’t realize how good the new stations were in (1:14:50) the eighties and nineties here. And, and what’s, what’s frustrating is the curiosity about what’s (1:14:58) happening in your community or the understanding that you need to be an informed citizen in order (1:15:04) to perform your civic duty.

Well, when you go to the ballot box or just to be engaged in your (1:15:09) community, you know, you’re going to see a lot of things on the news that aren’t necessarily hard (1:15:15) news, but there’s still important programs, new recreation opportunities, health information, (1:15:23) consumer information, a lot of high viewer benefits stuff that can help you leave, (1:15:27) live your life better that you’re missing out on. Sure. Because you’re looking for the 92nd buzz,(1:15:34) you get off a Tik TOK video or, but I’m going with the, with the fact of the, I’m not blaming her for (1:15:39) looking for that buzz because I think that that buzz, no, but I think that’s when what’s been (1:15:44) served up most easily and read it read readily to her.

Right. So I think, but it’s also when I (1:15:50) walked in as a kid every day, there were two newspapers on the kitchen table, on the kitchen (1:15:56) table or in the living room. And the news was on.

There was a time magazine, a news week, (1:16:00) us news and world report. Um, I don’t think people ever came to my house unless my mom got it. But I (1:16:07) mean, that was the meat and potatoes were always there.

Yeah. And from six to seven o’clock our TV (1:16:15) was on because my dad wanted that diet. We’ve not instilled good, good news, nutrition and young (1:16:25) people.

We’ve not instilled in them the notion that this is something that you need, this is (1:16:30) time well spent. And you may even find it interesting and learn stuff you didn’t know. (1:16:34) Yeah.

And I think a lot of that’s because we’re distracted too. So we forget to, we forget to do (1:16:39) it. I, I think that in the business community though, I mean, boy, do I feel blessed in the (1:16:44) business community that, so we have cranes, right? Crane cranes is a great handy business.

Yeah, (1:16:51) yeah, exactly. Yeah. But cranes, you know, they’ve got the op-ed section, they’ve got forum, (1:16:55) you know, that serves it up great app that puts it right on my phone right there.

So, (1:17:00) so I can get my little buzz of, of that. But, but even just also being in business as, as you’ve, (1:17:06) as I’ve told you before, and other people know, you know, I’m in other business peer groups, (1:17:10) right? And so I’m going once a month and having a deep dive where somebody’s teaching me something (1:17:15) and I’m, I’m, I’m speaking with my peers. I’m also going out to breakfast and lunch with (1:17:21) business leaders all over the Detroit area and all over the Midwest that I get to spend time with (1:17:27) and hear their thought leadership from, you know, and, and, and they’re distilling down wherever (1:17:33) they’re sensing for pulling in all of their multiple media sources and forming opinions.

(1:17:39) I get podcasts, right? So, I mean, I feel like, you know, being in the business community,(1:17:44) I’m really blessed that I get so much news type information that also has really relevant(1:17:51) ground level detail to it. But you’re seeking it out. You’ve got a hunger for it.

And that hunger (1:17:58) was my community, right? Was, was probably a learned behavior,(1:18:04) right? I mean, yeah, well, no, but yeah, but I, I, I do worry that that, (1:18:13) you know, my kids are all news junkies. Well, yeah, well, it’s funny. It’s funny.

They still (1:18:21) get it through different things. They, they do look for articles on Reddit. They do look at (1:18:26) Twitter to kind of tell them here, this is an important story.

So I’m going to click on it (1:18:31) and it will take them to the free press or the news, you know, they’ll get there. (1:18:36) There are ways to curate it now, which are a lot easier. So you don’t have to thumb through (1:18:40) everything or the same thing, you know, if the thing is, it’s so easy now to say to the free (1:18:48) and the news, Hey, give me your headlines, give me your bulletins.

And then I can at least scroll (1:18:54) through it on my phone in between my Tic Tac videos and say, Hey, this is something what (1:19:00) there’s a, there’s a new Chrysler’s got a new auto parts hub that they’re bringing to the area. (1:19:05) Hey, that’s great. Great news.

I wonder if my friend, Phil needs a job. Maybe that’s, (1:19:11) maybe that’s something I ought to tell Phil about, you know, engage. (1:19:16) So if I’m, let me, let me, let’s, let’s distill this down into a, into a bite-sized (1:19:20) chunk that people can, can consume, right.

Is I think you’re saying, and I want to hear your (1:19:27) words to, to what I’m, what I’m about to say, you know, you, what you, you, you called the, (1:19:33) the news, right. And the news, that’s not just salacious celebrity gossip sort of stuff. (1:19:38) You call that fruits and vegetables, right.

You call the, the Tic Tacs, the reels, the things (1:19:43) that are more infotainment. You call those, you call those. I also call it meat.

I mean, it’s, (1:19:48) it’s, it’s, and it’s, you know, the, the important part of the food pyramid,(1:19:54) but you, not the part that’s going to rot your teeth and your brain. (1:19:57) Okay. So sometimes, so, so meat has some protein and some other things that are (1:20:02) good for you, but your point is, is don’t spend all your time in the candy aisle.

(1:20:07) Right, right, right. And I think that’s, if we just, for us older folks, there’s a certain,(1:20:12) there’s a certain, you know, while our younger folks are getting a buzz off Tic Tac, we also (1:20:17) cop a buzz when we keep getting validation of our own bias or our own political viewpoint. (1:20:22) That’s our candy.

(1:20:23) That’s our candy. (1:20:23) Yep. (1:20:24) You know, and so no disrespect to Fox News, they do a lot, a lot of good work.

You know, (1:20:31) if I was to tell ABC and CBS where they have screwed up, it was like, (1:20:36) you ignored the immigration issue for 20 years. (1:20:39) And now you’re, you know, angry that Fox has somehow built a credibility with people that, (1:20:45) well, it’s because you weren’t listening. (1:20:46) Yeah.

(1:20:47) You weren’t listening to, or you’re only listening to, you were listening to the wrong consultants (1:20:51) and you weren’t getting into the diners of America and you didn’t get maybe beyond Hudson, (1:20:58) you know, the Hudson river. (1:21:00) Yeah. (1:21:02) So that alarm that just went off is telling me that I have to leave for my doctor’s appointment (1:21:07) in just a few minutes.

(1:21:09) Well, good. I can’t help you with that. (1:21:12) You can’t.

Yeah. (1:21:15) So we’re going to have to wrap up, but we certainly can do another episode, but I feel like we have, (1:21:20) we have covered so much stuff. And when we got your, we got your media diet recommendations, (1:21:25) right.

Of your outlets that you believe have credibility. We’ve kind of chatted about what the, (1:21:33) what the young, what we can be doing for ourselves and for the next generation of guiding towards (1:21:41) good media habits, right. Of the fruits and vegetables of the media world and of the news (1:21:47) world.

(1:21:48) Use a wide angle lens, seek out principled sources that, that, that may be in line with(1:21:55) your principles rather than just a partisan viewpoint. There you go. (1:22:02) Be more than just pro or anti-Trump or pro and anti-Biden when it comes to trade, taxation, (1:22:08) tax fairness, immigration, you know, look at, look at all of those things, (1:22:15) look at it through different lenses.

(1:22:17) Well, and that’s, I mean, that’s your principled thinking in a political, (1:22:22) a politicized reactionary world. And I think that’s, I think that’s, I think that’s great (1:22:26) advice. (1:22:27) And also be mindful if you feel like a media outlet is just parroting back what you want to hear, (1:22:33) because chances are then there are things that they don’t want to tell you because they are (1:22:37) worried that they’re going to use you as a viewer if it’s, it’s, it’s inconvenient.

(1:22:40) And that can be criticism of the left or criticism of the right. (1:22:44) I mean, I think it goes back to the, you know, when you think about, about faith, right? There’s (1:22:48) some, some messages at your church that you don’t want to, you don’t agree with, you don’t want to,(1:22:53) you don’t want to hear, right? And so we have to, it’s, it’s on us as the, as the individual to (1:23:00) figure out how we’re going to rationalize with that. You know, it’s been fun and I think we (1:23:06) should do it again.

And I’m interested to see where the peak of your career is coming from next. (1:23:11) And well, that’s, you know, when I have something to sell, when I figure out what it all is, (1:23:15) then we’ll, we’ll help. And I’ll have you on as a guest.

(1:23:18) Great. Great. Well, thanks for being here.

Thanks for your friendship and onward and upward. (1:23:22) Appreciate it. And thanks very much for the, for, you know, giving me all the, (1:23:25) the behind the scenes stuff here on the podcast.

(1:23:28) Thanks for not, not, not, you know, going, oh, you’re not supposed to do that when you’re in (1:23:32) talking to somebody you’re not supposed to. So you’ve been a good nonjudgmental (1:23:37) guest and mentor here on this. (1:23:39) That’s, that’s, it’s easy to do because you’re doing it all right.

(1:23:42) Good. All right. Thanks.

(1:23:43) Thanks, man.