From Colbert to Trump’s WSJ lawsuit, Axios’ Sara Fischer on media turmoil

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1:20 Join us at masters of scale dot com slash apply twenty six. That's mastersofscom slash apply. Twenty six. Hey everyone, Bob Safian here. Today we present a special episode focused on one of the most consequential weeks ever in the media business. From Stephen Colbert's cancellation by CBS to Donald Trump's lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal to the clawing back of a billion dollars from PBS and NPR.

1:54 My guest is Axios reporter Sarah Fisher, who cuts through the conspiracy theories to unpack what's really going on. So let's get to it. I'm Bob Safian, and this Із рапід респанс.

2:12 I'm Bob Safe and I'm here with Sarah Fisher, media correspondent at Axios and analyst for CNN. Sarah, thanks for being here. Thank you for having me. So I gotta say that the headlines in media have been kind of mind boggling over the past week. I mean, we have CBS canceling Stephen Colbert show. Trump suing the Wall Street Journal. Congress clawing back funding for PBS and NPR. Like it it it makes your head spin, plus Substack raising money at a billion dollar valuation and Superman killing it at the box office and Emmy nominations and Netflix earnings. The the news cycle's so intense.

2:48 For someone who's covering all this, like how are you doing? How how how is it juggling all this? Yeah, it's not too bad. This is my job. This is what I'm paid to do. You know, this would be like saying to a surgeon Oh my gosh, you had to do You know. three heart chance plants and then you had to do a total

3:05 Uh blood transfusion and then you had a see patients for checkups they'd tell you like that's what I signed up for. So that's how I feel about it too. And It's actually better to be very busy and to have a lively news cycle than to be sort of

3:19 Like twiddling your thumbs and looking for something to cover. All right. Well, I so I'd say let's start with the most important or consequential uh but it's hard for me to even pick what that is. So let's start with the most recent uh bombshell, which was which is President Trump suing the Wall Street Journal for$10 billion over an article. That said That back in Two thousand three Trump Sent.

3:45 Birthday note to Jeffrey Epstein. Body is the term I think used to describe it, right? W with an illustration of a naked woman. We haven't seen this note. The Wall Street Journal didn't publish the actual thing, but it it comes as Magaworld is screaming for the release of anything related to Epstein. Trump's suit also targets Rupert Murdoch personally, the media mogul behind the Wall Street Journal and News Corp th this suit it it

4:09 Is there any merit to it? Like does it matter if there's merit? So legal experts say that it's sort of a flimsy case, but To your point. You don't have to have a strong case to do damage. Anytime you sue a media company, you cost some Lots of time, energy, resources, reputational drama.

4:29 And so the lawsuits that Donald Trump has waged against media companies have been pretty effective. Uh the one thing that's interesting about this particular case. is that I don't think Donald Trump would sue. If he Was very concerned about what would come up in discovery. If this went to trial.

4:49 And so that changes the dynamic of this lawsuit. It makes it different. From his lawsuits with CBS and ABC. He settled both of those for sixteen and fifteen million dollars respectively. He has something to lose here. If something comes up in discovery and he still chose to sue

5:08 Anyway, and so even though legal experts think he has weak case That piques my interest because I don't think Donald Trump is wading into lawsuits where More could come up around his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein if that's something he's been so aggressively trying to Burry according to you know, Democrats and now some folks in the MAGA community.

5:30 Yeah, I mean there there are these conspiracy theories on all sides in some ways when it when it comes to Epstein. But uh what what you're saying is'cause in some ways because Trump is a public figure. Right, like the l the legal burden he has to surpass to be able to prove damages. is high even if The report from the journal isn't the actual

5:55 Thing? Yeah, and you have to also prove Not just the damages, but that They published this with Malintent.

6:03 With actual malice is the legal term. And that's also a difficult thing to improve. to prove in court. So I think that Donald Trump is is facing a tough legal argument, but I also think He wouldn't have waged a lawsuit if he was had s if he felt like he really had something to hide. And so that's what makes this one particularly complicated. I will say in terms of the Wall Street Journal.

6:26 This is a newspaper and That is very, very serious about its journalism. And that's not just on the newsroom side. It's lately published a lot of editorials that have been critical of the Trump administration, including the Trump administration's targeting of the media industry. And so I take it seriously if Emma Tucker, their editor in chief, and the journal decided to publish this uh story and move it forward. They would not have done that if they didn't think that they had

6:53 ample reason to. So this is going to be a Very, very, very interesting case to watch. But again. very different sort of precedents that are being set. very different approach than what we've seen in the past.

7:06 Remember Donald Trump, this is the first media company that he's actually sued as president. He's in a counter lawsuit currently with the associated press around blocking its reporters. And he sued those other two media companies before he was elected. He's done plenty of media and defamation lawsuits and has been involved in those lawsuits in the past, but this is the first one as a sitting president.

7:29 Mm. The But beyond the legal implications, right? Trump has been very aggressive about uh, you know Charging the certain uh outlets are fake news, right? It's not just lawsuits. And and this sort of puts

7:46 Uh the Wall Street Journal firmly in that camp, I guess. Donald Trump does not care who you are or who owns you. If it's politically convenient for him to call you fake news, he will do so. And if it's politically convenient for him to rely on your authority to prove a point. He will do so, and The best example being

8:04 While he was engaged in a lawsuit at CBS On truth social he was promoting Positive polls. Conducted by CDS about him. And if there's a story by the AP

8:15 that suits his position on something. You will promote it too. Same thing here. If the Wall Street Journal were to report something that was bad about Democrats, he'd Blast that out on Truth Social. Donald Trump is an equal opportunist when it comes to how he targets the media. And so

8:32 It doesn't really matter who you are. If it benefits him to bash you or benefits him to support you, he will do that. And and I I'm curious for for someone like you who's Who's covering this stuff? Does this Impact.

8:46 at all how you think about or approach your own work or do you do you do you worry that people aren't gonna trust your reporting or the president's gonna go after you just like I'm just gonna do my thing'cause I don't I don't know what's Whether how he's gonna react to different things. Well, I go into this knowing that trust in institutions, including the media, has declined dramatically over the past few years. And so it's not a Sarah Fisher trust problem, it is a media trust problem. And that forces me to be more diligent, more transparent about showing my work. It's not just according to a source. It's according to a source that works at this company, that's in this level of a position, that had knowledge of this situation because they were in the room. You have to explain yourself more in an era where there is less trust.

9:30 And then in terms of being concerned about lawsuits I was always and I have always been concerned about lawsuits because anytime you get something wrong, you are susceptible to a lawsuit. I do think that this administration is more apt to sue, and so a lot of news companies are taking extra precautions and extra measures, hiring more lawyers, making sure their journalists are going through more legal trainings. But in terms of does it, you know Force me to think about my journalism in a different way. Nope. I do the same thing for the most part. I just try to be more transparent about my work and a little bit more careful about running things through legal. Yeah, I I uh I had a a mentor early on in my journalism career who who said to me, you know, the legal standard for what you can be sued for is sort of here, right? The truth

10:12 is a higher standard and as long as what you're what you're running and you're printing and you're talking about is true. You know, you're protected. Right. And that is what we're trying to do. We're trying to get to the truth. Yes, and as long as uh it's going back to the actual malice, I think a big thing here is Yes, you always need to be

10:31 Getting to the truth or the closest variation to the truth that you can get to in the time and resources that you have. But you also need to be putting in a good faith effort to do right by everybody that you're citing and that you're quoting and that you're writing about. Going to them for comment. You know, one thing I had a lot of empathy for in the White House is that Caroline Leavitt, their press secretary, said

10:51 Some days, and by the way, it's not just her, it's every White House press secretary, it's every press secretary and communications official. She says some days people come to me after they publish the story for Kant or they come to me five minutes before. You know, as journalists, sometimes we have a lot of restrictions that we're working through. But that I heard that and that made me really think like I how can I do a better job? To be doing Uh more thoughtful job to be Get into that.

11:14 closest approximation of the truth. How can I go to people and give them more time to explain themselves, maybe explain their side of the story? I think more consciously about that now. So you mentioned earlier the the uh Trump's claims against sixty minutes and CBS, which were settled with CBS parent paramount agreeing to pay out sixteen million dollars. That leads us to the second piece of big news in the last week, which is CBS announcing that they're canceling the late show with Stephen Colbert, who has been in Outspoken. critic of Trump's. You and I are recording this

11:46 Monday afternoon, who knows what Colbert will do on the show tonight. Uh CBS claimed financial reasons for the cancellation, but there are a lot of other theories zooming around. Can can you break this down for our audience? What what does your reporting show about what's Really going on. If I had to guess, I think that this show was losing money because most late night shows lose money. And

12:12 CDS is facing a ton of financial pressure, as are most traditional television networks in the streaming era. And eventually they would have had to either reduce the number of nights reduce the number of staff, claw the show back, or shutter the show altogether. But what you have right now is this perfect storm where you have the opportunity to shutter the show. But make it look as though you did it to appease the Trump administration politically. And I think that's sort of what happened here. Now I think it would have been want it to look that way. They want it to look that way to the administration. I don't know, but I I don't know, but I think they would be wise to frame it that way, right? Because you know that you're not gonna get your deal approved by the FCC.

12:52 Unless you Not only settle with Donald Trump But Make an effort to show them that you're doing what's, you know, best for public service programming. The new CEO of the company that's buying

13:04 CBS, so the CEO of the company that's buying CES, David Ellison, CEO of Sky Dance Media, met with the chair of the SDC on July fifteenth. So two days before they canceled the Colbert show, Paramount did. And that was basically what their lawyers said in a filing. They said Look, we try to explain to the FCC that we want to get uh the approval of the transfer of broadcast licenses

13:27 Uh approved very, very quickly and that in return we can promise we'll do good public service. And so I think that this is a way that they can sort of prove to them that they're serious about that effort. And do it in a way that's not so uh aggressive in what they have to pull because they likely were already mulling changes to their late shows anyway. If you think about the past two years,

13:51 Yeah, Trevor Noah left, James Gordon left, full frontal with Samantha B has been pulled. NBC has reportedly pondered moving uh Seth Myers, although his contract's been renewed through twenty twenty eight. I mean The era of late night is tough. So I think that

14:06 CBS is probably thinking about doing something anyway. And it was a politically convenient time to announce. Now The challenge with that. Is it comes

14:15 And a massive reputational Okay. For the network. You know, this is what the CBS sixty minute settlement did. It it hurt the network's reputation, and that's what the n this is doing for the network as well. But I think that the new owners and the current owners they don't care because what other choice do they have? If this deal doesn't go through.

14:35 No other deal would get approved in the Trump administration. And by the time Donald Trump is out of office. You're looking at this company losing significant market value to the point where they might even have to gut C V S news anyway. So I can see why they thought that this was the lesser of all evils, unfortunately. Hm. And and the the choice, I mean, they've said the Colbert show is still gonna run until May of next year. Like Why not just shut it down now if it's losing money?

15:03 Because they probably already sold a lot of ads in the upfront and they have commitments, they have commercial commitments, they have people whose under one year long contracts, they have vendors that they're already paying out. So there's a lot of reasons you don't just shut it immediately. But I think this also speaks to The fact that it's a message that's being sent. You know, the fact that they announce this being shuddered.

15:26 Two days after that meeting, even though they don't plan to cancel the show for a while, it's because They want to make sure That the announcement comes. So that they can get a deal approved. I mean, there's just th and I don't think anyone would deny that that's what the optics are here, even if CBS says, you know. This is a financial decision. Like they have enough plausible deniability to be able to say it's a financial decision, even though there's uh in my opinion, probably more to it.

15:49 Yeah, I mean I I had someone speculating to me that part of the financial decision was that Colbert has been outspoken enough about the president that advertisers maybe are becoming more cautious about advertising their brands next to Colbert's content, as if Trump might hold that against them. Yeah, you know, like that's a little bit of a flimsier argument because then you would say that about all news. And all

16:16 comedy. It's all the same problem, this brand safety issue. And yes, advertisers are pulling back, but they're pulling back across the board. It's I I don't think Colbert is like uniquely being targeted by that problem. But the pullback that you're mentioning, I mean there is a pull pullback in ad spending for Q2 acr across the board. Is some of that because advertisers are more Uneasy about being associated with Anything that might be viewed as problematic by the Trump administration or

16:44 Is it is it broader? Yeah, it's way broader. I mean the tariffs have really killed the ad market because any time there's uncertainty you can't market your products. You know, if you don't if you're an auto company and you don't know what your production is gonna look like, what how many cars are gonna be on your lots, You can't Spend marketing. around the cars on the lot. So the ad slowdown is much broader.

17:03 than what's happening in the news space, but I do think over the past few years The conversation around brand safety. Around news content, around comedy. It's shifted. There are advertisers that used to love to advertise around news because it had a high ROI return on investment. You have some of the most engaged, affluent people who consume news content. So the the ads are very effective.

17:26 But yes, advertisers have yanked a lot of their ads for news content because of the controversy. And it's not just Mainstream outlets. You know, it's also, you know, you've seen Uh I mean mention outlets that are considered more

17:39 Uh Established. You see this with Box News, which is also established, but it's more conservative. There have been a lot of boycott around its content because advertisers have thought that it's not brand safe. So it's not just like The CDSs and the NBCs of the world, everyone's dealing with this problem. I ironically, Fox, when they had those big boycotts a few years ago around Tucker Carlson show.

17:59 I was like, man, this is tough for Fox. Like they're gonna have to really lean into their pay TV subscription revenues. Now, because Donald Trump consumes the content, their ad revenues are sky high. So it's kind of funny how things bounce around. Sarah's assessment of the weakening business of late night shows like Colbert's is undeniable. YouTube clips alone aren't enough to support a network TV show. Yet her why now explanation? Downright disturbing. A cynical signal to the Trump administration to help gain FTC approval for a deal. So what else is lurking beneath the surface in the latest media convulsions, from defunding PBS and NPR to this year's Emmy nominations? We'll talk about that and more after the break. Stay with us.

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19:19 Every week I sit down with the pioneers shaping our future. and we take you behind the scenes of the AI that's transforming our lives. Find pioneers of AI wherever you tune in. Hey listeners, Bob here. If you listen to Rapid Response on Masters of Scale, you may be missing half the show. Because every Friday we release a second rapid response exclusively in the Rapid Response feed. The guests and topics are just as compelling and timely from Ford CEO to NASA's administrator to the lessons from The Devil Wears Prada.

19:58 It takes about 10 seconds to find, just search rapid response wherever you listen to podcasts and hit follow to make sure you never miss an episode. I hope to see you there. Before the break, Axios reporter Sarah Fisher explained what's at stake in Donald Trump's lawsuit against the Wall Street Journal and why CBS announced the cancellation of Stephen Colbert's late night show. Now we talk about cutting funding for PBS and NPR. Why media platforms like Substack and Reddit are booming, and what this year's Emmy nominations say about HBO, Netflix, and Peacock. Let's jump back in.

20:39 Let's talk about Public media. The vote in Congress to claw back uh over a billion dollars in funds. We we've had the CEOs of both NPR and PBS on the show, and they said the pain would mostly hit local stations. You've reported on the stakes. Is that right that like the big shows and big stations won't be as hampered. Ken Burns documentaries are still gonna be funded and made. But it's local news and programming that's gonna be

21:07 Thinned out. Yeah, so if you take a look at NPR National. Only about one percent of its funding. comes from federal government funding. And PBS, it's about 15%.

21:19 Because the vast majority of budget That one point one billion dollars over two years that's being cut. It goes to these hyper local stations and a lot of it is in rural areas. Where these stations have very little access to reader donations because the household incomes in those areas are much lower.

21:36 So those are the stations that are gonna be impacted. Some of those rural stations, by the way. They rely on government funding for like up to fifty percent of their budget. So it's expected that we're gonna see a lot of those role stations close and What's sad about this is The whole point of this reputationally was to hit NPR and PBS.

21:55 NPR and PPS nationally are not the ones that are gonna be impacted. It's your mom and pop small public media station that is You know. Mm. Airing your board meetings and your municipal board meetings and your school lunch hearings and all that kind of stuff, those are the ones that are gonna be impacted.

22:11 And a lot of those uh rural stations are in republican districts. So it's gonna be funny the way that this has played out because it's not gonna have the impact, the intended impact. uh that this these cuts were sort of broadcast to have. Hm.

22:25 But but politically I guess it works with The base. No, it it really doesn't. Like that's the thing. Polling suggests But people value their public media and that people don't want this funding cut. I think what is a very real thing though.

22:41 is people do not like the national programming all the time. You know, there's one complaint that you hear from syndicators of MPR programming, which is like Why are we so focused on LGBTQ storylines? It doesn't impact me in Royal I rural Iowa as much. So I do think there's a lot of people who think that the programming needs to be changed. But the vast majority of people don't necessarily want

23:02 these public media outlets to be completely gutted. I do think it helps Donald Trump with this like broader political narrative of like I'm going after like you know, the progressive mainstream media, but People don't necessarily view their local hometown radio station as that.

23:19 They they just view it as you know, K U K Q E R, whatever the anachronym is. They don't view it as NPR. Hm. I mean I i it's interesting that you know the these smaller stations people may have a more um emotional connection to and they trust the more. I guess it it it brings me back to this idea about sort of the ways that both trust and the media business are kind of

23:45 fracturing and becoming more Adamized? Like I'm I'm I'm th I'm thinking of um the reporting you did on Substack, you know, raising uh a hundred million dollar investment now of a unicorn valued at over a billion dollars. Like Does substack's rise indicate that There's a kind of content that consumers are hungry for that's changing, that's either more narrow or from a particular kind of source.

24:13 Or or is Substack more about business model of media overall. The money is actually moving much faster. than the consumer behavior. And that's unusual. Typically the consumer behavior moves much faster than the investment.

24:28 In this case, if you take a look very consistently, Pew, Gallup, the polls those polls will show you The number one most trusted media is always local. It's always especially local broadcasts is huge. And by the way, the number one media in terms of weekly penetration in the United States that has more reach than to any other Americans is terrestrial radio.

24:48 So that is where right now the bulk of trust and reach is. But what I think you're h seeing happening is investors are eyeing a trend. Which is that more people Are moving trust from institutions to individuals that they have a relationship with or that they can relate to.

25:05 And so investors want to put their money behind those individuals. Increasingly, Substack has become the platform for a ton of those individuals, but that's very much at the national level. I mean, Substack has a ton of writers. Podcasters, cartoonists even video people on its platform. But it's not been the lucrative place for local journalists to go. it's a great place for former cable stars to go. And so unfortunately

25:30 I don't think this investment in Substack can be addressing this fallout of local news and that's where all the trust is. Where I do think you're gonna see more and more people Turn to trust.

25:42 In local. is on tech platforms where they can join groups and develop community. That's where a lot of misinformation is shared, but that's where it's going. So if you think about Facebook groups. or next door

25:55 These are apps where people are going. They're developing relationships with people in their community. There's a lot of trust there. And so the news that those people share is something that people are starting to trust more than even like Local broadcasts. Unfortunately You know this. Every day people share misinformation all the time. So it's it it creates a situation where I'm not very hopeful for locals, sadly. Yeah, no, and and you know, Reddit is like the example of sort of a a your local community is virtual. Like the confines of it are virtual, not not geographic, but you're still in, you know, a bit of a bubble and there's all kinds of

26:31 things good and bad that that roll through that platform. And Reddit is crushing it right now for a lot of reasons. But I do think one of them is that People trust. conversations with uh you know with actual people. reviews by actual people, pictures from actual people.

26:50 More than they do the AI chatbot right now. Or more than they do the big media institution. And that is a trend that I don't think is going to be stopping any time soon. Emmy nominations were announced recently.

27:03 Uh Apple Severance leading the charge. Do the nominations tell us anything about which streamers or studios are rising? Or is everyone really still playing second fiddle to Netflix and You know, that's where the action is. Yeah, no. Like actually if you were to take a look at the one studio that has the most

27:23 number of nominations across shows, it's HBO and HBO Max. So that's a traditional entertainment company. Um, so I think that HBO still has staying power. You typically see some of the premium cable nets like FX. Get a bunch of nominations. It all comes down to How much you're playing to awards.

27:43 versus how much you're playing to subscriber retention. They go hand in hand, but they're not always the same. I think Netflix has always said that they want to replace pay T V. Well a lot of pay T V is garbage and it is not award worthy.

27:57 But it is There's an audience for it. You're not winning Emmys. for ninety day bake off or whatever it is. But that is content that helps

28:06 lure someone from the cable subscription over to streaming. That was Netflix's model for a while. So it doesn't surprise me if they're not always the most Emmy nominated. Whereas HBO, their model has always been premium subscriptions, whether that's a premium cable subscription or a premium streaming subscription. So for them premium is the business model. That's why you're always gonna see them have a lot of Emmy nominations. And that's why, by the way, I don't rank the success of certain streamers based solely on nominations and awards because Not every streamer is here for the awards. In fact, I look at some of the investments that Paramount Plus and Peacock are making in live sports.

28:41 Sure, they're gonna get some daytime sports emis for those, but you're not gonna see them showing up at the award show in September. The value proposition for that streamer is totally different. I was thinking that uh the Emmy's uh award night show isn't until September, but ironically it's it's on CBS, right? Does that mean we should expect more speeches than usual about like freedom of speech and a free press? Or fewer. I don't know, like

29:06 In the pandemic era It really killed ratings. To have it be so politicized. And then coming out of the pandemic, it became so much less political, and that was helpful. You know, I was at the Grammy's earlier this year, and even though it's less political, I mean there was still so much You know, chapel room coming out there and talking about health care. A lot of war recipients were talking about immigration policies in light of Donald Trump.

29:29 Increasingly we're finding that viewers don't like that. They just want regular old award shows. So it wouldn't surprise me if uh CBS and that that by the way is also gonna air on Paramount plus You know, if they try to keep these speeches short and tight and keep this pretty apolitical because ultimately like that's what keeps ratings pretty high. Well, Sarah, th this has been great. Uh, thank you so much for doing it. And I hope we'll have you back on. Yes, same here. I really enjoyed it. Thank you so much. Talk to you soon.

29:57 As Sarah explains, consumers are getting tired of hearing about social and political issues alongside their entertainment. Similarly, advertisers are increasingly gun shy about the environment their brands in. And I get it, it makes logical sense given business realities and the polarized environment that we're in. But can I say, it makes me a little sad. I prefer the notion that those who have a cultural platform use it to make the world a better place, not just to sell more stuff. Regardless, I'll be intrigued to see how Steven Colbert uses his platform in the days, weeks, and months ahead. What happens when a comedic star has nothing to lose?

30:37 We're about to find out. I'm Bob Safian, thanks for listening. Rapid response is a wait what original. I'm Bob Safian. Our executive producer is Eve Tro. Our producer is Alex Morris. Associate producer is Mashumaku Tonina. Mixing and mastering

31:06 By Aaron Bastonelli. Our theme music is by Ryan Holiday. Our head of podcasts is Le Tal Malad. For more, visit rapidresponsshow.com.

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