Why media literacy is more important than ever

Hello, everyone. My name is Todd Royal. My co-host, Tom Harris, he is in Spain. We should all be very jealous right now. I've traveled to Spain.

I talked to him. He's having the time of his life. So it's just me. today. It's Todd Royal.

No, Tom Harris. And today we've got a really cool special segment. Here's what we got going on. We're going to talk about media. And here's what the public doesn't often grasp about media and effective communications that it's multifaceted.

Here's all the things. that involves agenda setting, bias and objectivity, gatekeeping, media literacy. That's social media as well. We're in a digital age. You have to simplify complex issues.

There's commercial pressure. There's ethics and accountability. There's cultural and societal context. There's public discourse with media and the role of democracy. And this all too important yet rarely understood production value of what is being presented.

Understanding all of these factors can help the public engage more critically with media and navigate the complexities of effective communication in our modern world. To discuss all of this, we've invited media consultant producer Christian Peterson to be our guest on the program. Christian has wide experience in all forms of media, including television, film and digital storytelling. He was a Panetta Policy Fellow on Capitol Hill. He then went to work as a staffer for numerous congressional offices.

He worked as a political strategist. He currently works as a producer in Los Angeles. He's a California State University San Marcos graduate with a double major in political science and mass communications. He also has a Master of Public Policy from Pepperdine University School of Public Policy in Malibu, California. And with all of that, I would like to welcome Christian Peterson to the Well, thank you, Todd, for having me on and sure, making me sound like I'm qualified to be here and talk about something.

Well, listen, we're going to get into this because people know on the show. Previously, I've been an actor, been in the arts for, gosh, over 30 years. And when I just saw the Republican National Convention, that was the most scripted, produced. It's the best convention I've ever seen. So when I think about all this, one of the things that you and I have talked about previously, and let's just tell everyone, Christian's also my best friend from graduate school.

I've known Christian for years. I know. I know. And we get into these conversations often. So here's my first one for you.

My first question. All right. Why do you think AOC, the illustrious Alexandria Ocea Cortez, congressman from New York, why do you think she's the best political media presence since JFK? I would probably tell you she could be even better than Obama. What do you think?

Well, OK, first of all, that's a little bit of a loaded question. You're setting me up for failure because I do have some understanding of who your audience is and how they're politically oriented. So I feel like you are just throwing me into the fire. So, first of all, thank you. I really appreciate that.

Listen, I'm throwing myself into the fire with this one. I even have a picture of her. You should know there's going to be a big picture of her on a cut out. Before we can get into why I think she is incredible at what she does, and while she is my absolute favorite politician in American politics right now, let's take a step back. Right.

Big picture, we need to talk communications before we can talk how politicians fail to communicate properly. So I think two of the ideas that you study and you, I'm sure, are familiar with in your audience may if they study communications. The first thing is we need to be talking about the communication model. The communication model says there is a sender. There is a receiver.

A message is encoded and decoded. And the message itself is dependent upon the medium that the message is sent in. We need to understand these things, because it's not what our ideas are. It's how are we communicating it and packaging it to make sure that it is received by the audience as closely to the message that we intend to send them. And the other piece of that, and you mentioned it a little bit, is what I think is one of the most important theories of communication came about in the.

1960s and 70s. And it's the agenda setting theory of communication. And the idea is media in general, mass media specifically, does not tell people what to think. It simply tells them the issues that are important that they should be thinking about. So we need to start with that as a base for this conversation.

So my theory is this. I think AOC is incredible at what she does, because she packages her message in a way that people understand what she means. Now, some people fault her for quote, unquote, talking down or she sounds uninformed. But what she does is she is meeting people in her audience at the level that they are. She is not talking to people under the assumption that they have a complex understanding of these really robust public policy issues.

She is explaining them to them in the way that the average person on the street can pick up an issue and participate in the conversation with her. On top of it, she does it in a very unstructured, natural communication style, which I think puts people at ease. And it also comes off as very genuine. So like, let's talk about her favorite talking point, right? The Green New Deal, which this is an energy podcast.

We all know I've written these boring books. Tom has written more. Tom's forgotten more about energy. I feel like that. I'm going to know.

Do you think with AOC, because with the Green New Deal, I tend to think I find her to be very attractive. I don't believe a word. she says. She's this attractive woman. It almost feels like, as you and I've said, she's the kind of person you go, wow, I want to go on a date with her.

Wow, I want to. I want to be with her. I want to. She's cool, man. And so when you tell me to, the world can be run on the wind and the sun and plug in a vehicle and we're all going to die at an inferno if we don't do all this.

Do you think that's kind of what it is with her, this likability, along with it's just the message she's saying is so easy?

Well, I'm not an energy expert, so I'm not qualified to come on the show and talk about the fine details of the Green New Deal, but the point is this. It's she explains it in a way where people understand what this massive piece of policy is. She's also branded it in a way where it's easily digestible and understandable. It's a Green New Deal. And I think the final piece of her puzzle is this.

And this is something that, Todd, I think the right is a colossal failure at when it comes to communicating policy. The left tends to present policy in ways that are well packaged and branded in big ideas. But, more importantly, they are presented as a solution. And I think, especially when we get to energy policy, the right tends to talk about it in terms of our idea. is not that right.

We don't want a Green New Deal, but no one has come out and been able to explain what the alternative is. And they haven't been able to brand it in anything that rings as successful and as true and as meaningful as something like the Green New Deal. That's so good. That's so true. Honestly, I've never even thought of it that way, but you're exactly right.

There's no fossil fuel New Deal. There's no, the nuclear age. There's nothing we have on the right. We have nothing like that. You're exactly, you're, you're right.

And if and if and if if the energy folks on the right came out and said this is called, you know, the plan for American prosperity or or the new global age, I guarantee you perception would change overnight because people would start saying, oh, OK, this is hopeful. This is optimistic. There's a clear plan here. It's not framed as just this complete. You know, barrier to the left's ideas.

I mean, that's so good. So I mentioned here earlier in the opening about the Republican National Convention and obviously everything with Donald Trump and the assassination attempts that took on this larger than life. But what I saw was something that was produced. I'll give you an example. We all know that Donald Trump Jr.

left his very attractive wife and his three children. I don't know why, but he's divorced his wife and his new girlfriend, fiance's Kimberly Guilford, the former wife of Gavin Newsom. He cheated on her. They got a divorce. She then became a darling on Fox News.

She's a very attractive woman, but also very controversial. Do you think the reason this Republican National Convention works so well is that you saw the Kimberly Guilfoyles of the world and even her directly, but she wasn't put in the spotlight. She wasn't put up on stage, where people went, oh, who is that? Oh, he left his wife and three small children. Oh, oh, yuck.

As opposed to this, thing was manufactured. It was hopeful. It was. we care about crime and people. We're open to gay, straight, religious, black, white, Hispanic.

This is the grand old party, the big old tent. Do you think this thing went so well? because they're actually listening to somebody like you? I don't.

I mean, I think we'll know that it went well, depending on the results of the election. That's how we can make the decision how successful this was. Now, I'm is a candidate who understands media and he understands branding in the same way that Barack Obama did or Ronald Reagan did. Really successful politicians have a grasp for these things. And it's clear that Trump understands these things better than most, especially people on the right.

And I mean, I think even going back as early as 2016,, this was evident with Trump, with his decision to brand his campaign under the slogan Make America Great Again. Right. This is a branding choice. It doesn't matter who you are. It doesn't matter where you're from in America.

It doesn't want your background, your, your perspective, your race, your creed. You have an idea intrinsically about what it means to make America great. And I would argue that the Hillary campaign in 2016, with stronger together, is not as clear a vision for America. Again, Barack Obama worked because Barack Obama was promising hope and change. Now, whether you agreed with the message of hope and change.

in the same way, people didn't necessarily agree that we need to make America great again, it was very clear and it was very intentional to the public. And we've seen Trump really kind of refocus on branding this campaign, which I think was something he kind of shifted away from in the 2020 presidential election. OK. Do you then see because, gosh, you've got about a thousand questions now swirling in my head. So, if you take an AOC, like you said, the Green New Deal, Barack Obama, hope and change, Donald Trump, make America great again, or MAGA.

Do you think that's why these folks are getting to the top? Sure, they're good politicians, but it's just an easy message to understand. Hey, I want hope and change. Hey, I want a Green New Deal. You know what?

I want to make America great again. Do you think it's the mess that they're or the old Ronald Reagan thing mourning in America? The sun is rising over America. You're a city on a hill. Do you think that's where, like a Donald Trump and Barack Obama and AOC are?

in many ways? They're the same person and using media and marketing. What do you think? My my question, my my thesis there? Well, I think I think you're on to something.

I think there are a couple of things that we do need to consider and separate. The first thing is there is incredible branding with their messaging, which is really effective. But the other thing is, all of those people you just identified. And I mean, your first example was one of the best of it ever. JFK.

Right. Yeah. These are politicians that understand how to communicate with large amounts of people. They know how to break down complex ideas and explain it in a way that everyone has some understanding of it. And I think that that's the problem, right?

That's a macro problem we have with government and policy in general. These things are complex. I mean, there's reasons why we have bureaucrats who are experts on one specific law and spend their entire career on one thing because government and policy is complicated. And for the regular person who has all the responsibilities and burdens of life and can only dedicate a little bit of time to their day, they want someone who can take complex and make it digestible. They want it to be explainable and understandable.

And all of those politicians who you just identified are incredible communicators. Case in point, when we look back to the 2012 election. Mitt Romney's failure was the fact that he could not communicate as effectively as Barack Obama could. It's really that simple. Yeah.

And do you find it crazy, as I do? Do you remember that debate where Mitt Romney said, oh, the next great thing that we're going to have to worry about is Russia? Yeah. And then Obama said, oh, you have a cook. And Obama said, yeah, we also don't bite with muskets anymore.

It was very dismissive. But the point was, Obama seemed genuine. He was witty. He was clear. He just took control of the conversation.

And that's what the good ones do. And then let me, okay, so obviously this is, as I said, this is a podcast about energy.

And you and I have talked about this many times, and that's why I want to ask you about this, to talk with our audience about. When you hear me talk about energy, and again, as I just said, this is my best friend from graduate school. We talk often.

When you listen to me, talk, what do you think? Because many times anybody else that's close in my life, the moment they hear me talk about energy, they roll their eyes, they yawn, and they just go, oh, God, please don't talk about the electrical grid.

Again, you're trying to throw me to the wolves here, because I know you're listening to this podcast. I am, but they're good. They're good wolves. They'll probably run into this. There's 50,000 wolves that are good wolves.

Of all the policy subjects out there, energy just might be the boringest. And it's not that it's boring. It's that it's so fricking complex. If you're not an engineer, if you're not a chemist, you're really going to have a hard time following some of these words that you throw out. I still have no idea what a kilowatt hour is, and it shows up on my bill once a month.

And I'm like, is it a measurement of time? Is it a measurement? What is it? I don't understand it. And that's the problem.

This is a complicated subject, but it's also a subject that people don't truly experience energy on a daily basis. Their understanding is, as long as I go to a gas pump and there's gasoline there, as long as I flip the switch and the electricity comes on, that's the only way that it affects my life. All these things that you talk about with Tom regarding the storage, the generation, the transmission, the geopolitics, that's all so far before it affects anybody's life. How are we supposed to take that highly theoretical concept and make it relatable to the regular person? Part of it is, what's the narrative around energy?

I think the energy community, if we can call them community, has been really, really bad at creating a meaningful narrative around energy. They totally have. This gives me a great segue, then, with you, because some of my personal heroes in this podcast space, which we're actually going to talk about podcasts as well, how they should sound, look, feel, but some of my big personal heroes for the audience, I think they've heard me say this, Joe Rogan, Adam Carolla, and Howard Stern. Now, maybe a lot of the audience doesn't listen to them, but Joe Rogan in particular, now, in my opinion, has absolutely revolutionized how this is done. This long-form interview, just trying to have a discussion, you're laughing, it has good production value, which I want to ask you about.

Why do you think that, Joe Rogan, .

. Let's just stick with him. If you want to talk about Adam Carolla and Howard Stern, you can, but what does Joe Rogan do so well, and what does he understand about the media that the rest of us just aren't grasping?

I think part of it, it's funny you point out, because Adam Carolla and Joe Rogan both come from a stand-up comedian background. To be a good stand-up comedian, you have to be a good communicator, a great storyteller, but, more importantly, you have to have a good understanding of the audience around you, and read off that audience, and feed off them, and tailor your performance to that specific audience. They're taking this skill set into podcasting, which they're good communicators, but they know how to communicate things in a way, like the effective politicians, that everyone can understand it. I think the reason why people gravitate to Joe Rogan as a source of information is the way he transmits a message is the best of anybody, because he can talk with anyone, astrophysicist, nuclear physicist, and say, okay, well, for all of us who don't have a bunch of letters after our name, what does this really mean? I think a lot of times, media people have come at it from a perspective of, I don't want to say, arrogance,

but journalists, especially in the television kind of space, these are subject matter experts in a lot of ways. They are well immersed in a particular topic, and we really see that on the energy side of things, right? These people are the smartest minds in the world about something, but that doesn't mean they're a great communicator of the subject.

You and I have talked about how there's so many people on the energy side that I have such great admiration for. The one example I give is Michael Schellenberger, and for those who don't know, Michael Schellenberger, he's a genius. He was Time Magazine's environmentalist of the year 18 years ago. Truly a man who walks out and lives what he says. I mean, this is a guy who's traveled the world trying to save the rainforest, to advocating for nuclear power.

I mean, the guy really does live. He lives it out, and he has a lot to be admired over. Remind me, when was this? About a year or two ago, he ran for governor of California. Do you remember that?

Oh, it was during the recall. Yeah. Okay, during the recall. Gavin Newsom. Now, Gavin Newsom is a highly skilled politician.

Governor of California, had been what the mayor of San Francisco, and he'd also been lieutenant governor. He's backed by some of the wealthiest people in San Francisco. What's one of the big families who backs him? Well, he's related to Nancy Pelosi. Yeah, but then there's also, yeah, that helps to be related to the former Speaker of the House, but I want to say, like the DuPont family, and if someone hears me, I just know there's a big, like that word.

sky on it. He's backed by big people. So, Shellenberger runs for governor, and doesn't he get, Christian, like 1% or 2% of the vote? It was something like that. Okay.

What, then, is a guy like him doing incorrectly? And just so, if Mr. Shellenberger hears this, you are one of my personal heroes. I am not criticizing you whatsoever. I'm lamenting, and this is actually one of the big reasons I wanted to have you on here, because I want you to talk about this.

I lament that I am not hearing about Governor Michael Shellenberger opening up nuclear power plants up and down the California coastline. He's also done work on homelessness. Anybody who wants to see Michael Shellenberger's work on homelessness, it's some of the best around. He gives solutions. Him and Ed Ring do that.

What happened? I think Shellenberger's problem is the same. It laments me. I'm sorry. I'm lamenting.

I'm doing everything you're not supposed to do, but it hurts. I truly, I remember feeling sad. I almost felt like I wanted to cry when I saw he only got 1% to 3% of the vote. Why didn't Californians vote for this guy? He's everything that you would want in a public official.

Well, I think politicians, really, really smart people, and I'm going to use really, really smart people, because I've done podcast work with people who have more letters behind their name than they know what to do with. Sometimes academics, PhDs, these highly specialized people are not skilled communicators. They spend their time learning a subject. They spend their time doing research. They spend their time innovating.

They don't spend time communicating. And I think the problem is what we need to be encouraging some of these folks to do.

is to go to acting classes, to practice improv. More importantly, they should just get a voice coach. I mean, good politicians, I mean, Barack Obama, God bless him, had the best cadence when he spoke out of anyone I have heard in decades. I would agree with you. I had not heard cadence like that since Reagan and or JFK.

I mean, Obama's cadence was, it's still unbelievable. Like you still hear him speak and you go, I don't believe a word you're saying, but, man, I want to follow everything you're doing right. And the problem is, and a lot of that is a learned skill. Very famously, before Margaret Thatcher became prime minister, she actually went to a voice coach and she said, I come off as this very shrill British woman. I need people to think that I'm strong.

And through with a voice coach, she actually lowered her voice a couple octaves. So it became deeper and she spoke slower. and we need to be getting people comfortable with the idea that your voice is like any other tool or instrument you have. And in the same way, you can exercise it and you can improve it. And you go to the gym to build up your bicep.

Why are you not going to a voice coach to improve your voice? If you are trying to make a career speaking about subjects.

Oh, that's so good. What?

Oh, I just lost my thought here. So I wanted to say more about this with you, but. And so, I mean, going back to your point with Schellenberger, he's really smart. He's probably the smartest guy in any room he goes into, but I don't know how much time he's truly spent working with someone that can say, hey, you know what, we need to change your vocabulary. We need to change the cadence and rhythm at which you speak.

So people hang on to every word that you're saying. And that's just, you know, that's just retraining the way that he does what he does, so it connects with more people. This podcast typically has. people will say they're more on the right, they're more conservative, though I know we do have central left people. But what I've always said is that, since I'm in the United States, I'll call the Republican Party, which tends to be obviously the more conservative party in the United States.

We have Canadian listeners as well. They have a conservative party. What do you think, though, that the right or conservatives, whether the United States, Canada, even the right leaning folks that are in Europe, is Europe is definitely going more to the right these days. What are we, though, not understanding about, let's get into the big topic, social media? What are we not understanding about social media, which in some ways now is starting to take over media overall?

And just give a little background, like, let people know, here's some social media sites that are proliferating along with the YouTubes of the world. Well, I mean, I'm sure people are well aware, right? You know, TikTok is probably where social media is now, but Instagram is right behind it, YouTube, all these things. And there's going to be new ones that come out in a month, and we'll see if they stick around. I think the problem with the right, and we've talked a little bit about it, part of it's branding.

Yes, that's an issue. Part of it's technology. And I think part of it is the left has had much more of a kind of a pulling of artists and creatives into the conversation for a longer time, and the right really hasn't. And so because of that, I think that they're just media literate, they're communication literate, they're artistically literate in ways that I don't know that the conservatives always are. But the other thing that I noticed the left does really well, that I think the right fails on, and this goes all the way back to Aristotle, right?

Aristotle talks about when you're making an argument, you have to appeal to your ethos, your logos, and your pathos. And the right seems very comfortable, kind of leaning into the fact that this is logic, that this is reason. And that's really the only point we need to go to to try and make our case. Whereas I feel like the left, when they communicate their narrative, do a better job of trying to pull in all these other things. And I feel like sometimes the right mocks them for it, as though it's unnecessary.

Oh, they're making emotional arguments. Well, but, as Aristotle would say, you need to make an emotional argument. That's part of making a good argument. Yeah, we need to be reaching out to people in different ways, because maybe they're not receptive to the scientific argument you're trying to make about energy. But maybe the well, the Earth's gonna, gonna gonna burn up and your children aren't gonna be able to live on the planet, you know, that probably has brought a lot more people over to the left's version of energy than the right's version.

Oh, that's good. Okay, I gotta take a break here. So we're gonna come back to Christian Peterson. And I'm gonna hit him up with Vladimir Putin. I got a great question to start us off about with Vladimir Putin.

So this is the other side of the story. Todd Royal. Remember, Tom Harris, he's on, he's vacationing in Spain. We hope you're having a great time, Tom. We'll be right back.

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Hey everybody, it's Todd Royal. I'm back with my guest, Christian Peterson. Tom Harris, he is living the good life, probably taking flamingo dancing lessons and drinking wonderful red wine while sitting on the beaches of Valencia. somewhere. He's in Spain.

I talked about. in all seriousness, here, let's get back to something. I'm going to hit you with a big doozy. Obviously, we know what's going on around the world, Russia invading Ukraine.

I'm going to throw Vladimir Putin in here about somebody I feel like he understands, which you're just saying. I want to get back to your argument about emotions. Because what I do see on people of the right, and I'm a man of the right, that's how I vote. I do see that it has to be all facts. There's no empathy, there's no understanding, there's no care and concern.

When I see Vladimir Putin now talking,

and I'm not, please hear me, folks, and you too, Christian, I'm not endorsing what he did, but he'll say, if he was right here, he'd go, and you can find this in public speeches all over the place. Ukraine was part of Russia. historically. We were invaded twice in the last over 200 years. I want a buffer, and you NATO, meaning you, United States, keep getting right next to us.

Last time people were right next to us, they goose stepped their way into here, gave a Nazi salute and killed about 20 million of us. I feel like he is getting at emotions, and they'll have these big parades. They'll talk about war heroes. I've heard him talk about his own family. It's always mother Russia, mother Russia.

Am I crazy in saying that? I feel like.

Vladimir Putin understands media the same way. some of the folks I've just talked about, they know how to deal with media?

I'm not real, well, obviously I don't speak Russian. Of course, everything we get from Vladimir Putin is secondhand and translated, but I think he has a good identity, a good understanding of the image he's trying to project, and he embodies that. He tries to become a strong, competent, sure leader who is trying to protect Russia. He's embodied that, and that's what he tries to communicate. He also has a narrative that he, since when did he first become president, 2000??

Oh, God, what is that? It was after Yeltsin, 2000,. sure. He has been consistent about the narrative that he has projected, not just domestically within Russia, but globally as well. Again,

he knows what role he's trying to play. He knows the message that he's trying to push, and he has maintained consistency with that. I think that that's really important.

Okay, then I do want to go back to Trump. Mm-hmm.

Obviously, Trump's had a long history of media. Gosh, the man's been famous since the 80s, so we're talking about what, 40, at least 40 years of fame, from his books to his businesses. He was on Oprah Winfrey at one point, obviously a celebrity apprentice, on and on and on. But yet, you'll listen to him speak, and there's a crudeness to it. Mm-hmm.

There's even a childishness, but there's an intelligence behind it. But somehow, I feel like I can understand what the guy is saying. Yeah, yeah. What do you think? Donald Trump, this guy who, in 2016, comes out of, quote, unquote, political nowhere and beats the likes of everyone now, from Chris Christie to Marco Rubio, to Jeb Bush, to Hillary Clinton, to Barack, he's beat them all.

So what does this guy understand? that you see that the rest of us aren't understanding?

Well, let's think about it this way. As a politician, he understands the role that he wants to be in. Vladimir Putin is positioning himself as a strongman. Donald Trump is trying to position himself in a way that he speaks regular working American language. And again, Barack Obama did not position himself as a regular working man.

That wasn't who he was. Ronald Reagan didn't really have this communication strategy where he was talking like common people. And that's because they're all different. And so they realize what their strengths are and what their weaknesses are. Again, one of the criticisms that people always throw towards AOC is when she gets on, she is on her phone, she's broadcasting from her car, she says, hey, guys, this.

And they say, well, she doesn't seem professional. She doesn't seem scripted and refined. But I would argue she's coming from a point of authenticity. In the same way, Trump does not come off as a refined politician. He does not seem scripted.

I mean, his RNC speech was pretty much him laying at a podium talking to, you know, 30,000 of his closest friends. That's who he is. He's not going to be the pristine politician. And because of that, his communication strategy works well, with who he is and the base that he's trying to reach. The Republican base Donald Trump connected with in 2016 was not the Republican base Mitt Romney connected with four years before.

They were speaking different languages. They had different vocabularies. They were totally different Republicans. Did you see that thing that Trump did last night? Oh, gosh, he must have been an hour into it.

He was talking about the North Koreans. And he was kind of ranting and doing his kind of riffing on North Korea and saying now they're back to being menaces and they're wanting to shoot things off and they won't do it with me. And he goes, you know, I think, just say, you know, I think, I think he misses me. He goes, I think Kim Jong Un misses me. I mean, I went over there.

We were, we became friends. You pick up the telephone, you make a phone call. I think he missed. I think he misses me. And I went, wow, that connects with people.

That's so easy to go.

All of a sudden, it made it feel like, oh, that's my friend, and I'm going to tell my friend, hey, will you stop shooting missiles at the Japanese and the South Koreans and we stop listening to the Chinese, and just can you and I talk a little bit and be buddies and I'll buy you some McDonald's to eat. We'll just, and I like you and we'll hang out. Is that what that sounds like? When I did you hear him say that last night? Yeah, he was talking about how there were no wars, right, because he would just call the phone and tell people to stop.

Um, I mean, again, Trump is not trying to be. Every other Republican that we've seen. Yeah. And, and that's part of the reason why there's this massive MAGA base that has taken over the traditional Republican Party, because he's finding voters and connecting with them in a way that other. Republican candidates were not able to, not at all.

I'm going to switch us off here a little bit, because we've talked to. you know, we've talked about media and people on the right, whether AOC and now Trump and all these politicians. There's something I mentioned earlier that. I talk about, what is called production.

Tell people. when I talk about that and I've said it before in other podcasts, and, you know, my career and the entertainment industry, it's one of my own criticisms about podcasts. Is that the production value is not good. yet when you go, look at something like MSNBC. Who doesn't get very good ratings at all, but yet they're still around and they do get enough ratings and they get diehard people, and someone like Rachel Maddow is one of the most famous people in journalism.

I think it's because they have production value. What explain to the audience? what, because you and I've talked about this, but tell everybody what I mean, and even you expand it. What, what is production value? Production value is where and how are you spending your money?

And that is probably still very big and we'll unpack that real quickly. So you brought up how you're not a fan of podcasts. Well, part of the reason why is so many podcasts. you go on and you hear someone's mom in the kitchen behind them, or you hear an echo from the room that they're in, or, or, you know, when you see the video, it's someone broadcasting from their bed, and that's not quality production value. Now, Joe Rogan, who is the most successful podcaster on the planet has incredible production value.

And part of the reason why is, is all those, those ancillary things, the set that you're on, the quality of the camera that you're using, how's the lighting? Is it good? Is it bad? Is it favorable? What's the mood that the lighting set?

What's the quality of your microphone? All of those affect your ability to transmit your message. And if you're still confused, I would say, go and flip on Fox news, CNN, MSNBC, and compare it to something like Newsmax or One American News. The difference is one of them, those first three examples have production value and the last two don't. And it's very obvious when you watch it.

Okay. Then let me push back, because people go, you know what, Christian, that's a load of garbage. Why not just go somewhere, pick up a mic, turn on zoom, and just get your message out. I mean, come on. Why do you need millions of dollars, which they are spending, versus get your computer, get a mic from Radio Shack or, better yet, go on Amazon or anywhere else and just get a mic, man.

Who cares? What's your comeback to that? My comeback would be, have you ever seen a Nike commercial? I have, and I love your... Have you ever bought a pair of Nikes?

I have an 11 year old son who I think I'm subsidizing the company right now. So yes. Okay. Okay. We buy a lot of Nikes these days.

One of the

you've seen on television. Have you bought any of those? No. And the difference is, as I said, production value matters, because in a world where we are...

You allows us to buy time from an audience and a consumer and convince them to stick with us a little longer. through clarity and quality. We convince them that we are worthy of their attention, at opposed to all the other things in their life competing for it. The other reason why production value matters is production value relates to trust. Really?

Explain that. Well, again, I think the infomercial thing works really, really well. If Nike comes out and says that they're selling me a new shoe, that's going to make me run faster and jump higher. I'm more likely to buy it than when Todd Royal shoots that same commercial in his backyard with his son for the new Todd Royal sneakers. And I see it on late night television and it's, the sounds bad and it's overexposed.

And you tell me I'm going to make you run faster and jump higher. I'm not going to buy it. I'm sorry, Todd. I just, I'm not going to buy your shoes and I'm not going to buy your message. I want to give people an example of what something will cost.

Because I don't think people understand, take a typical soundstage. Typical soundstage, California, Dallas, Montreal.

That's going to be for the cameras, for the sound equipment, for all the people to be there.

What do you want to say? If I get a full crew of people, meaning all the different people that need to be there to make that Nike commercial look that way, what do you think that's going to be? About a million dollars a day? Easily. I mean, it's, it's, it's tough for us to make those types of messages.

I know. But easily. And the problem is this, production is always more expensive than people imagine it being.

because quality equipment, quality people, takes time and it takes money. And unfortunately, there's really no way around it. And when we look at people who are like, Hey, I'll just make a podcast and I'll get 200 listeners. And I say, awesome. I'm glad you're out there trying to convince 200 people and bring them around to your perspective.

At the same time, we know, if you spent a little bit more time investing in the equipment, if you spent time investing in the knowledge to know how to correctly create content and communicate it effectively, your audience is going to go from 200 people to 2000 people, or 20,000 people very quickly. And when you, so, I would rather spend more to increase the number to, to, to increase the size of the audience receiving the message. And when you mean by content, let's say for the audience, you're talking about, it's the, like we said, it's the cameras, it's the sound machines, it's the microphones, it's the editor. It's people who then mix the sound. It's people who do what's called color correction.

It is to do things like if my voice right now, if I go, well,

some editors about to clean that up. If my face didn't look good today, because, I don't know, I woke up on the wrong side and had a crease in my face and somebody could take all of that out. And all of a sudden my energy message that goes, Hey, you need to use more nuclear power versus me doing some podcast where I don't have all those things. That's making a big difference. And that's what we're talking about when you talk about content.

Have I understood that correctly? Yeah, exactly. Okay. What else am I missing with production value? Because I'm going to keep, and we've only got a few minutes left, but I'm going to hammer home the whole MSNBC model, because you'll get people that go, I can't believe MSNBC.

And people on the left will say the same thing about Fox. But, like you just said, MSNBC, Fox and CNN,

those sets are colorful, they're vibrant, everybody's good looking, they dress well. And if they're not good looking, they're quirky enough to where I want to listen to them.

Is that, am I getting that correct? That the reason MSNBC moves me is because I love the colors? Am I being manipulated? that simply? I mean, it's a big part of it.

My favorite example is always lighting. Of anything you do on a set, lighting is probably the least expensive. Lights don't cost that much. And people would rather go out and spend thousands and thousands of dollars on a good camera, where I'm like, go spend $100 and $200 on decent lighting and know how to use it. And you're going to get a lot further.

And the reason is this. How many video podcasts do you watch? Or how many videos do you watch on YouTube that have bad lighting? Where the subject just blends into the background. Or there is an obscure light off to the side and they're miscolored.

Whereas with good lighting, you're creating, you have your point lighting. And you're, we have fill lighting to soften the shadows, but create some contrast with shadows. And we're, we're separating you from the background. So you actually look like you're in a room as opposed to not a, a flat painting on a wall. You know, that's simple stuff that people don't want to either know how to do and learn, or they don't want to spend the money for.

Well, I had a situation recently. There's some energy podcasts I listened to. And these guys, it's two guys. And I don't want to, I don't want to trash who they are, but they're energy modelers. They do regressions, which is just for everyone listening.

It's just a high form of math. It's how to predict things using math. in some ways. It was the worst lighting. They literally both looked like they were at my former kids' preschool.

Like during nap, because they had these rooms, like during nap time, they could like bring the lights down, but not where it was pitch dark. So people could kind of go in and out. And, like, you, would go in there sometimes and get the children. And I had to pick my kids up early and they'd be napping. You know, I was like a little four year old.

Yeah. And they had like these dark shadows, and literally that's what it looked. I literally was watching these podcasts and all I could keep thinking was these guys, it looks like my former kids' preschool. And they're, I mean, Christian, they're genius. These guys can energy model out anything.

And I just went, oh my gosh, you guys don't understand media. You can't put this up on social media. There's horrible lighting. And also they kept kind of sounding like this as well. This muffled sound.

It just, it, drove me crazy. Have you seen, is there anybody that you watch and look out where you just shake your head and go, what are they doing? Well, I mean, I do it all the time. I'm hypercritical, right? I work in this industry.

So it's very easy for me to pick up on a show and say, oh, wow. You know, if you applied, you know, for $600, we could fix that right now. Like it's boom, boom, boom. The, you know, there's other simple things too, though. How about wardrobe?

Right. When you go on to an interview on Fox news, they're going to have a wardrobe consultant come out and say, you got to change that tie. You got to change that shirt. Those stripes are going to blend together and it's going to, it's going to mess with the camera. So let's, let's have you change your shirt into a solid color.

You know, this is too much of a contrast with your natural skin tones. How do we make you look better and sharper and clear? Because again, you're competing for seconds. Sometimes, out of someone's day, you got to make that great first impression, or no one's going to, no one's going to give you a second thought. They're not going to come back to your podcast.

They're not going to watch the next video in your YouTube playlist.

I know it's, it's, I don't know. It's just crazy to me. I could sit here and go on with you for hours. We, okay. We've run, we've run out of time.

I feel like I've scratched the surface with you, Christian. Thanks for being on here. I can't thank you enough. Uh, this is Todd Royal. It's the other side of the story.

Again, my co-host, Tom Harris, he is vacationing right now. Again, Christian, thank you very much. And we will, uh, we will be putting this up soon. And just to say to everyone, this is a great podcast. This is a great episode with Christian Peterson, and this is Todd Royal signing out from the other side of the story.