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Jan. 4, 2018 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux

07:33

3949 Journalists Say The Stupidest Things!

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	Hey everybody, Stefan Molyneux.
	Hope you're doing well. So, something kind of interesting popped up on Twitter the other day.
	Someone posted this.
	And there's so much wrong with it, I scarcely even know where to start and which way is up.
	And the tweet was this.
	It amazes me how many YouTubers think they should be paid for doing interviews with news outlets.
	I'd say about 40% of the time I reach out to influencers, they ask about compensation.
	Like, are you crazy?
	Are you? Are you crazy?
	Are you crazy? Of course you're crazy, because that number is about 60% too low and about 100% too high of anyone who should be talking to mainstream media reporters.
	Okay, let me break it down to you.
	I bear a few, of course, battle scars from my dealings with the mainstream media, I guess about 10 years ago.
	But let me put it to you in ways that I think will be relatively enlightening.
	Number one, number one.
	When the media contacts you, you are talking to a direct competitor...
	Whose value to the world increases if you get wiped off the mental map of humanity.
	That's really, really important.
	See, if you're a YouTuber or you're sort of in the alternative media, if you're grabbing eyeballs, they're losing eyeballs.
	They can't be objective about the relationship they have with you because it's win-lose.
	It's a fulcrum. It's a seesaw.
	You can't be both going up at the same time.
	So given that, of course they're going to be negative towards you.
	It's most likely going to be a hit piece and so on.
	Boy! Why would you want to do work for free that ends up quite hostile and negative towards you?
	That seems pretty clear to me.
	Everyone knows the economics, right?
	The mainstream media is not in the business of delivering information to consumers.
	They are in the business of delivering consumers to advertisers.
	Huh, interesting that.
	So, you sit down for an interview with a reporter from the mainstream media, only one of you is getting paid, and getting paid quite well, I might add.
	Reporters have pretty good job security, if they're on the left.
	They have pensions, they have benefits, they have healthcare a lot of times, so...
	Yeah, they're getting pretty well paid for sitting down to talk with you.
	Now, why are they talking to you?
	Well, two reasons.
	Number one, you're a competitor and I'm sure they'd like to take you out.
	And number two, they're sitting down to talk with you because you will be interesting enough for their readers to come and visit their site or pick up their newspaper or their magazine or sit down and watch the TV because you're there.
	You see, your presence is designed to sell ads online.
	On their platform.
	So they're making money from you being there.
	The reporter's making money. The cameraman's making money.
	The set designer. The maker.
	Everyone's making money. Ooh!
	One exception. Who's not making coin?
	Who's not making bank? You are not being paid a penny for being there.
	How appalling! So let's just say you sit down with some newspaper and they sell $50,000 worth of ads because you're on their platform.
	The reporter's getting paid from that $50,000.
	The newsprint, the layout artist, the editor, they're all getting paid from you being there.
	But you're not getting paid for you being there.
	I think that's kind of important.
	If you're sitting down to help people sell $50,000 worth of ads, the idea that you might get paid for any of your participation, which is really the only reason that the ads are being bought, well, that just seems not outside the bounds.
	And you might expect to get just a little bit of a taste of the massive fees being served up to the mainstream media.
	And of course, you know, why talk to reporters?
	Just talk to the people directly.
	You no need the reporters.
	You don't need the intermediaries.
	You don't need the gatekeepers.
	You don't need to try and reach people through the biased filter of leftist propagandists who will survive if you do badly.
	I mean, it's a direct conflict of interest and people don't really seem to talk about it that much.
	So... All of that.
	You know, people have come on my show, if they talk about their books and so on, like they move some trees.
	They sell many, many books by coming on the show.
	They've talked to me about going on TV or newspapers or magazines.
	They don't sell anything.
	So when it comes to being effective, talking to the mainstream media just seems good.
	But here's the funny thing. This is the part I just want to leave you to mull over because this is a Even by leftist standards, this is rampantly hypocritical.
	Ah, if they didn't have double standards, well, they wouldn't have any standards at all.
	So a lot of people in the mainstream media overwhelmingly are on the left, right?
	So they're really, really concerned, you see, very concerned, that big, giant, multinational corporations are going to be exploiting the little guys, are going to be stripping wealth and value without just recompense to the poor workers, the laborers.
	Hmm. Boy, very, very concerned about the power that corporations might wield over the little guy.
	And they want you to sit down with them for free while they make money off your participation.
	Now, if you're somebody sewing together underpants in Singapore, you're still going to get a small amount of money each hour.
	But if you're working for a mainstream media corporation helping them sell ads, so to speak, Well, they're not going to pay you at all.
	These left is so concerned that big giant multinational corporations might exploit the little guys.
	Really interested in protecting the workers, you see.
	So interested that the idea that someone helping them sell ad space, who makes vastly less money on average than the average reporter and certainly way less money than the average multinational media corporation, the idea that that person might want even five bucks to participate.
	Even cab fare!
	Even bus fare! It's insane!
	How do these people function?
	It's so mad! We're really concerned.
	Multinational corporations might exploit people and pay them less than they're worth.
	Now, you come on my show, you help me sell $50,000 worth of ads, but we're not giving you a penny.
	And the idea that you even ask for a little bit of the money of the revenue you're helping this multi-billion, multinational corporation to earn, the idea that you might even want a tiny taste of that feast is shocking.
	Are you crazy?
	Getting paid for your work in helping us generate profits?
	Are you crazy? People in China get treated better.
	I mean, they call themselves leftists.
	So I've got a good approach, like perhaps a useful approach for you to take when this happens, and it probably will if you're reasonably successful.
	They're going to call you up and they're going to say, we want to interview you because basically we know that you're going to generate traffic, you're going to generate ad revenue, we're going to make a whole bunch of money off you being on our show.
	Then you can say, listen, I agree with your socialist ideals.
	I agree that big multinational corporations, big giant entities worth hundreds of billions of dollars should not exploit the little guy, should not exploit those basically infinitely poorer That there's a big power imbalance and I don't like the capitalist multinational corporate classes exploiting the little guys.
	I completely agree with your socialist message and I'm gonna help you in helping the little guys.
	I'm gonna help you avoid the horrible situation of multinational corporations exploiting the little guy.
	Here's what I'm gonna do.

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