Podcast appearances and mentions of matthew schwartz

Summer officially starts this Thursday. With Las Vegas on track to hit ⁠record-breaking heat⁠ again this year, locals face heightened health risks, including an increased threat of skin cancer. Protection from the desert sun requires more than the bare minimum sunscreen application. Dr. Matthew Schwartz from Comprehensive Cancer Centers of Nevada joins co-host Dayvid Figler to give the sunny details and dark realities of sun exposure in our city and what we should do to learn not to burn. Learn more about the sponsors of this June 17th episode: ⁠Babbel⁠ - Get up to 60% off at Babbel.com/CITYCAST Want to get in touch? Follow us @CityCastVegas on ⁠Instagram⁠, or email us at ⁠lasvegas@citycast.fm⁠. You can also call or text us at ⁠702-514-0719⁠. For more Las Vegas news, make sure to sign up for our morning newsletter,⁠ Hey Las Vegas.⁠ Looking to advertise on City Cast Las Vegas? Check out our options for podcast and newsletter ads at⁠ citycast.fm/advertise⁠. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

As artificial intelligence (AI) penetrates practically every facet of the marketing and advertising industry, marketers could be forgiven for thinking whether AI is a threat to their jobs. Matt Miller, SVP of strategy and analytics at Level Agency, says that while it's still early in the game,  there's a growing onus on CMOs and marketing teams to figure out how to make sure that  AI will enhance marketing jobs rather than replace them. Miller, whose clients include Better Mortgage, Pathstone, and Sphera, joins host Matthew Schwartz to answer some burning questions about where things go from here and if marketers' concerns are justified.

Jose Villa, president of marketing agency Sensis, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss how marketers increase their appeal with the Hispanic market, the fastest growing contributor to the U.S. economy. Villa, whose worked with such clients as Anthem, One West Bank, and Cal State LA, says that brands that are eager to boost engagement with Hispanics must deploy an integrated marketing strategy that blends social media, paid media, and earned media. Perhaps most important for brand managers to realize is that the Hispanic market is not a monolith, but a community rich in diversity.

Jamie Barnard, CEO of Compliant, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss the consumer privacy landscape following Google's decision last summer that it is no longer deprecating third-party cookies and will keep them operational within its chrome browsers next year and beyond. While marketers may consider Google's move a reprieve, Barnard stresses that forward-thinking brands are putting third-party cookies to pasture and cultivating both zero-party data, or information provided by users through feedback forms and surveys, and first-party data, or information collected directly from consumers.

Generative AI has promised to reshape the practice of law ever since ChatGPT emerged. However, it's been unclear just how large law firms are using AI. Has it changed how practitioners do their jobs on a daily basis? Are we witnessing the emergence of a revolution in how lawyers do their work? Uncommon Law's Matthew Schwartz sits in as guest host on this episode of On the Merits. He talks with John Quinn, founder and chair of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, as they discuss his firm's stance on artificial intelligence and the future of the billable hour.

Generative AI has promised to reshape the practice of law ever since ChatGPT emerged. However, it's been unclear just how large law firms are using AI. Has it changed how practitioners do their jobs on a daily basis? Are we witnessing the emergence of a revolution in how lawyers do their work? Uncommon Law's Matthew Schwartz sits in as guest host on this episode of On the Merits. He talks with John Quinn, founder and chair of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan. They discuss Quinns' firm's stance on artificial intelligence and the future of the billable hour. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690

Can you develop an “Excel Love Language?” Maggie Gross, head of strategy and brand practice leader at Deloitte Digital, says it's an increasingly effective way for CMOs and senior marketers to communicate the benefits of brand building to the C-suite. By crafting a homemade Excel Love Language, marketers can meld soft metrics, such as brand awareness and brand recall, with hard metrics demanded by the company's CFO like lead-gen revenue and new acquisitions.Gross joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss how marketers speak the “Excel Love Language” and provide some strategic thinking for how marketers change the conversation about branding.

Matthew Schwartz spent 40 years in TV news and won more than 200 awards including 4 Emmys and 4 Edward R. Murrow awards for investigative reporting. His 2020 memoir, "Confessions of an Investigative Reporter" was an Amazon #1 bestseller. He writes a weekly blog for Hudef Sports and plays pickleball 6 days a week. Matthew offers an expert and insider view of the world's fastest growing game. He shares invaluable tips about equipment, strategy, health benefits, and effective drills to quickly raise the level of your pickleball game.

Matthew Schwartz spent 40 years in TV news and won more than 200 awards including 4 Emmys and 4 Edward R. Murrow awards for investigative reporting. His 2020 memoir, "Confessions of an Investigative Reporter" was an Amazon #1 bestseller. He writes a weekly blog for Hudef Sports and plays pickleball 6 days a week. Matthew offers an expert and insider view of the world's fastest growing game. He shares invaluable tips about equipment, strategy, health benefits, and effective drills to quickly raise the level of your pickleball game.

With consumers tuning out pretty much anything that interrupts their media flow, it's getting harder and harder for brands to break through the noise. When it comes to the creative side, marketers must be a lot more supple and, perhaps more important, media agnostic. Kara Buckner, president and chief strategy officer at Fallon, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss how marketers are changing their approach to whipping up what they hope will be ad creative that truly resonate with their audiences and will get people talking.

Wither performance marketing? Doubtful. However, branded advertising is becoming a much bigger consideration among B2B brands that are eager to bolster their appeal to small- and medium-sized businesses and tout their values (as opposed to price points). It's a tall order. Lydia Michael, owner of marketing agency Blended Collective, and De'Lon Dixon, team leads at CX (customer experience) at Glassbox and founder of Think Technologies, join host Matthew Schwartz to discuss how B2B marketers build relationships with SMBs and borrow a few pages from the consumer playbook to turbocharge their messaging.

Sports reporter Matthew Schwartz joins the podcast.

Chris Oswald, EVP, head of law, ethics and government relations at the ANA, joins host Matthew Schwartz to provide some salient tips for marketers and brand managers grappling with an increasingly complicate legislative terrain at both the federal and state levels.

Jamie Gier, CMO at DexCare, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss the latest trends in relationship marketing, which emphasizes customer retention, satisfaction, and lifetime customer value. One option is for B2B marketers to reclaim socializing from social media, as relationship marketing is based on getting out into the field to engage customers and cohorts and make their jobs and lives easier. Gier provides some salient examples for how B2B marketers cultivate their relationship marketing efforts without being preoccupied by the transaction.

JuHee Kim, president of ad agency MuteSix, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss some of the key questions marketers need to ask when they want to align their brand with a cultural moment (or movement) and why serendipity may play a bigger part in such activations than brand managers appreciate.

Tapping into Gen Z is at the heart of a new influencer marketing network launched by Rubix Foods, which provides food flavors and ingredients to restaurants. Shannon O'Shields, VP of marketing at Rubix Foods, and Megumi Robinson, VP at Belle Communication, join host Matthew Schwartz to talk about the network, as well as some of the larger trends swirling around influencer marketing, which is expected to reach, which is expected to reach $8.1 billion this year and $9.2 billion in 2025, per eMarketer.

Michael Farmer, chairman and CEO of strategic consultancy Farmer & Company, and author of Madison Avenue Makeover: The Transformation of Huge and The Redefinition of the Ad Business, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss the growing schisms between client-side marketers and their advertising agencies, and how to enhance their relationships.

Marketers who fail to make their voices heard in the growing debate regarding data privacy could be in for a rude wakening if they don't step up to the plate. That's according to Arun Kumar, author of the recently released book The Data Deluge: Making Marketing Work for Brands and People, and former chief data and marketing technology officer at The Interpublic Group of Cos. Kumar joins how Matthew Schwartz to discuss why the marketing field is may be making a grave mistake deferring to Big Tech when it comes to influencing the conversation about fostering online privacy.

Randi Stipes, CMO of The Weather Company, joins host Matthew Schwartz to talk about how marketers sharpen their weather strategy, the growing relationship between weather and consumer trust, and how marketers leverage weather-related data that can be deployed across the organization.

Lou Aversano, CMO of The Cigna Group, joins host Matthew Schwartz, to discuss the performance marketing versus branded advertising debate heating up throughout B2B precincts, why there's a growing onus on B2B firms to thread more emotional elements throughout their messaging architecture, and taking a more realistic approach toward breaking down the silos between sales and marketing.

Sally Percy, journalist and author of “21st Century Business Icons: The Leaders Who Are Changing Our World,” joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss how senior marketers bolster their leadership skills, why remote work is changing the so-called “70/20/10” rule of communications, and the increasingly key role empathy plays among successful leaders. 

Chris Comstock, chief growth officer at software firm Claravine, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss how marketers bolster their data standards, why embracing failure is a path to success, and what the pending demise of third-party cookies means for brand advertisers and consumer engagement. 

Greg Boosin, EVP of global B2B and product marketing at Mastercard, joins host Matthew Schwartz to break down the ANA's 2023 Marketing Capabilities Framework. The document provides a roadmap for how marketers navigate an increasingly complicated terrain as well as how to sharpen their career path. “It's not a Monopoly Board,” Boosin says, referring to the Framework “It's a template to shoehorn into your [company's] marketing capabilities.”

Ryan Kutscher, founder and CEO of ad agency Launch Party, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss how B2B marketers recalibrate their ad-creative strategy, why less is more when it comes to quality content, and the marketing benefits of listening to the Broken Record Podcast hosted by legendary music producer Rick Rubin.

Listeners, please welcome Prof. Ben Trumble to the show! Prof. Trumble joins us to talk about his fascinating research on how oral health can affect cardiovascular disease risk and cognitive health later in life. Find the publication discussed in today's episode via this citation: Benjamin C Trumble, Matthew Schwartz, Andrew T Ozga, Gary T Schwartz, Christopher M Stojanowski, Carrie L Jenkins, Thomas S Kraft, Angela R Garcia, Daniel K Cummings, Paul L Hooper, Daniel Eid Rodriguez, Kenneth Buetow, Bret Beheim, Andrei Irimia, Gregory S Thomas, Randall C Thompson, HORUS Team, Margaret Gatz, Jonathan Stieglitz, Caleb E Finch, Michael Gurven, Hillard Kaplan. Poor oral health is associated with inflammation, aortic valve calcification, and brain volume among forager-farmers, The Journals of Gerontology: Series A, 2024;, glae013, https://doi-org.proxy.lib.duke.edu/10.1093/gerona/glae013 ------------------------------------------------------------ Benjamin Trumble is an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change and the Center for Evolution and Medicine and the Institute of Human Origins. His work focuses on chronic diseases of aging, working to understand how environmental conditions like parasites, pathogens, food availability, and social interactions impact human health. Taking an evolutionary life history perspective, he uses field and laboratory studies to understand variation in human endocrine systems, and how this influences chronic health conditions like benign prostatic hyperplasia, cardiovascular disease, and Alzheimer's dementia. Prof. Trumble's website can be found here: https://trumblelab.org/ ----------------------------------------------------------- Contact the Sausage of Science Podcast and Human Biology Association: Facebook: www.facebook.com/groups/humanbiologyassociation Website: humbio.org/, Twitter: @HumBioAssoc Courtney Manthey-Pierce, Co-Host, Website: courtneymanthey-pierce.godaddysites.com/ E-mail: cpierce4@uccs.edu, Twitter: @HolyLaetoli Alex Niclou, special returning Co-Host Eric Griffith, HBA Junior Fellow, SoS producer E-mail: eric.griffith at duke.edu

Bill Duggan, group EVP at the ANA, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss the results of the “ANA Programmatic Media Supply Chain Transparency Study.” The report, which was released in December 2023, shows that marketers incur an awful lot of waste in programmatic ad buying, and could save $22 billion in efficiency gains. Indeed, just 36 percent of every dollar invested by an advertiser that enters a DSP (digital signal processing) effectively reaches the targeted consumer. Duggan offers several tips to help marketers optimize their investments in programmatic media and provides the key questions that marketers need to ask sellers, so they don't get burned.

Francesco Lagutaine, chief marketing, communications officer at M&T Bank, and Jacqueline Kolek, senior partner and chief innovation officer at PR and marketing agency Peppercomm, join host Matthew Schwartz to discuss the long-standing relationship between M&T Bank and Peppercomm and why it's increasingly important crucial that brand managers view their PR agencies as partners and not vendors.

Peter Prodromou, president of marketing and PR agency Boathouse, joins host Matthew Schwartz to talk about how the rise of generative AI is affecting marketing communications as well as agency-client relations. “There's an opportunity for organizations to blend generative AI with human storytelling and for using AI to be smarter rather than just placing content,” says Prodromou, whose clients include Mass General Brigham, Project Liberty, and Eversource. Amid the onslaught of AI, he adds, marketers must be clear on what the most important metrics are for boosting engagement and driving growth. “Use [AI] to assess the data and come up with better insights.”

Let's Back Track Back to 2009 as the guys are joined by Matthew Schwartz to talk about the Pacifico album Thin Skin And An Open Heart. Friends & Lovers and Elliotts, let's get into it and Shine On.If you like what you hear, please rate, review, subscribe, and follow!Connect with us here:Email: churchjamsnowpodcast@gmail.comIG: @churchjamsnowTwitter: @churchjamsnowFB: https://www.facebook.com/churchjamsnowpodcastPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/churchjamsnowpodcast

Gilbert Dávila, co-founder of AIMM and President and CEO of Dávila Multicultural Insights, joined host Matthew Schwartz to discuss where the marketing industry's diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) efforts go from here and how companies brace for what's expected to be a turbulent year. The president of the Society of Human Resource Management was quoted in The Guardian late last year saying that DEI policies within U.S. companies will “come under full-out attack in 2024.”

As the pressure for marketing accountability grows, creativity is getting to be a much tougher sell to upper management. Ann Marie Kerwin, Americas Editor at marketing research firm WARC, joins host Matthew Schwartz, to discuss WARC's new study, titled “Building a Culture of Creative Effectiveness.” The study provides a road map for brand managers who are eager to make a business case for the value of marketing and advertising and develop a valid framework for their entire organization.

Ed See and Robert Tas, partners at McKinsey, join host Matthew Schwartz to discuss the results of their recent survey titled: “The Power of Partnership: How The CEO–CMO Relationship can Drive Outsize Growth.” The survey, based on the responses from more than 100 C-level executives and 21 CEOs from B2B and B2C companies of all sizes and across multiple industries, offers some salient and actionable advice for how chief marketers foster a more productive relationship with their CEO. Seldom a beacon of corporate synergy, the dynamic between CEOs and CMOs seems to be getting worse, as upper management ratchets up the pressure on marketers to spike both the top and bottom lines.

In this latest episode I welcome Matthew Schwartz (Pacifico, Pacifico Records) and Aaron Sprinkle (Poor Old Lu, Rose Blossom Punch, Fair) from the Moontraveling Podcast. This is an awesome conversation with the 2 legends regarding there beginnings in music and a few of the records they have worked on. We talk with Matt about 2 of the Pacifico records and with Aaron we focus on the Fair records. We also touch on the latest vinyl release for Aaron's record Moontraveling that is up for preorder now. https://aaronsprinklemusic.com/ https://www.instagram.com/moontravelingpodcast/ https://pooroldlu.bandcamp.com/merch https://open.spotify.com/artist/7bF1C4SzAZF9FuqGmLXBUZ https://open.spotify.com/artist/4kKX2Dc7HBE6fozhXYzPw8 https://open.spotify.com/artist/3tTyMb425q0FBGdkPa6TGu https://open.spotify.com/artist/0aXdXHxUgb1qBvOjopd8Bo https://open.spotify.com/artist/6ABeWdskFYawDKWbTz4WVO https://music.apple.com/us/artist/pacifico/725100920 https://music.apple.com/us/artist/poor-old-lu/571795 https://music.apple.com/us/artist/fair/155930705 https://music.apple.com/us/artist/rose-blossom-punch/1475231034 https://music.apple.com/us/artist/aaron-sprinkle/17757026 Produced by Brian Jerin @jerinkid Music by Brian Jerin @jerinkid Artwork by Jared Chase Bowser @jaredchasebowser --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/therumorsaretruecast/support

Avoid groupthink. Don't get sucked under the marketing bubble. Recognize that it's impossible for brands to be all things to all people. These are just a few tips for marketers who are grappling with dramatic and rapid changes in advertising and consumer behavior, compliments of Allen Adamson, cofounder of Metaforce.com, and author of the recently released “Seeing the How: Transforming What People Do, Not Buy, To Gain Market Advantage.” Adamson, former chairman, North America of branding agency Landor, joins host Matthew Schwartz to talk about why it's incumbent upon brand managers to “zoom out” on their audiences to bolster consumer engagement and generate better returns.

Doug Novack, managing director of U.S. business and industrial markets at Google, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss the ongoing debate throughout the B2B field about performance marketing versus brand advertising, the rapidly growing role of generative AI in both branding and lead generation efforts, and why it's incumbent upon B2B companies to pivot to a full-funnel marketing strategy.

We're joined by Aaron Sprinkle & Matthew Schwartz of Moontraveling Podcast to talk about the record that started it all. Moontraveler is Aaron Sprinkle's debut solo record, and the namesake of their show. From stowaway basement studios to cold war spies, this record has plenty of stories. We were honored to sit down with two musical greats to cover this record, and we did it All In a Day's Work.Be sure to subscribe to Moontraveling to hear more from Aaron & Matthew!Visit colliderecords.com and use promo code “churchjamsnow” for 20% off your first purchase!If you like what you hear, please rate, review, subscribe, and follow!Connect with us here:Email: churchjamsnowpodcast@gmail.comIG: @churchjamsnowTwitter: @churchjamsnowFB: https://www.facebook.com/churchjamsnowpodcastPatreon: https://www.patreon.com/churchjamsnowpodcast

Erika Katz, head of brand marketing and studio at New York Road Runners (NYRR), joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss the NYRR's rebranding campaign that launched earlier this year, getting the message out for the upcoming New York City Marathon (November 5), and making sure the event's marketing and advertising efforts resonate with a global audience.

Mike Rosen, chief revenue officer at National CineMedia (NCM), which sells ads for movie theaters, joins host Matthew Schwartz to talk about the company's new advertising services, why brands tend to underestimate the value of running in-theater spots, and whether movie theaters may be in for some reinvention.

Josh Ingram, founder and principal of MOST Wanted Co, which specializes in employee communications, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss why it's crucial that employees feel that they can be themselves at work, how employers can tap into their workers' side hustles, and the benefits of both mentoring and reverse-mentoring.

Jerri DeVard, founder and board member of BECA, the Black Executive CMO Alliance, joins host Matthew Schwartz to discuss the apparent backsliding within the marketing and ad industries when it comes to diversity, equity, and inclusion, the danger for companies that give diversity short shrift and how CMOs and marketers develop new business models to build a more equitable workplace.

Sandeep Chennakeshu, COO of digital-imaging radar company Uhnder and author of the recently published “Your Company Is Your Castle: Proven Methods for Building a Resilient Business,” joins host Matthew Schwartz for a wide-ranging discussion regarding how marketers can demonstrate their value and spike the top and bottom lines. Chennakeshu, former CTO of Sony Ericsson, discusses why it's crucial that companies develop a common set of metrics for sales and marketing executives, how marketers align corporate culture with business strategy, and the growing onus on CMOs to spot the “gorilla in the room,” or a market disruption that can rattle their company.The Champions of Growth Podcast airs Wednesdays at 2PM EST. For more information about the ANA Podcast Network, visit www.ana.net/podcasts.

It's okay not to feel okay. It's part of the overriding message of a $65 million, multi-year mental health initiative by the Ad Council. The effort is mobilizing the advertising, media, and marketing industries to address mental health issues facing communities across the country. About half of Americans (48 percent) say they're getting help or treatment, according to a study conducted in May to June 2022 and released by the Ad Council, while 43 percent do not feel comfortable talking to people close to them about their emotions and how they are feeling. Heidi Arthur, chief campaign development officer at the Ad Council, joins host Matthew Schwartz to talk about the campaign, working with brand partners to get the message out, and using the power of music to facilitate difficult conversations about mental health.

Live from the Heart of America—I'm Steve Gruber— your Soldier of Truth ready to fight for you from the Foxhole of Freedom—asking the questions you wish you could and nobody else will—giving you better analysis and defending this great nation—this is the Steve Gruber Show—   Here are 3 big things you need to know right now—   Number One— The pandemic may have one more victim—and that is Tony Fauci—with Rand Paul accusing the Doc of lying to Congress—and sending an official criminal referral—   Number Two— The Climate Zealots have a new Public Enemy #1— and its called Summer! And because they want to cancel July going forward—they are going after the farmers! If you thought food was expensive now—just wait!   Number Three— The Department of Justice in the latest subtle move to hide the truth—actually took a shot at getting the star witness to the Biden corruption scandals—tossed in jail before he could appear before a hearing in front of Congress—which is set for a little bit later today—   Devon Archer is the long time friend and business partner of Hunter Biden—and he is expected to tell members of Congress that Joe Biden—as Vice President—and maybe as President—was not only present—but an active participant in many of the shady dealings pulled off by Hunter and his friends—   So, in one of the most blatant moves yet by Bidens Lieutenants to keep the scandal hidden—they are pushing for Archer to report to prison now—that according to brand new court documents and a letter that was sent on Saturday—that's right an official DOJ letter sent on the weekend! Nothing fishy about that of course—   Archer was previously sentenced to one year in prison for a conviction all the way back in 2018—for a scheme to defraud Native Americans—to the tune of roughly $60 million dollars—Archer has been fighting the conviction and has been out on bail for months now—but his attorney says this latest development is unusual—and he will be filing a formal response by mid-week—   This is just another bizarre twist—and it is being noticed by those on both sides of the aisle—   Archer's attorney—said his client is aware of speculation that the DOJ move is an attempt by the Biden Administration to intimidate him before his appearance today behind closed doors with the House Oversight Committee—   The attorney, Matthew Schwartz says his client doesn't believe that is why the DOJ is sending its demands on a weekend—BUT we do—   Schwartz says Archer will be there—and will answer all the questions put to him honestly—and as a result—James Comer says he could be a hero—   But the blowback on Hunter, Dad and the entire clan—could be damaging—it could be a disaster for the entire Democrat Party in a way we have not seen in recent years—this could be a real game changer—and that's why the Democrats are getting their talking points in order—and rehearsing them already—   So it was Donald Trump that weaponized the DOJ and went after his political enemies? Can I get some examples of that please? That was the biggest pile of horse manure I've heard in awhile—and that is quite something—it seems to me that the Blue Team is frightened—and they know the damage that can come from Devon Archers testimony—and of course this comes on the heels of the Delaware Disaster—where the sugar sweet plea deal got tossed out by the judge—for a blanket immunity deal that she refused to accept—   So that is going to get re-negotiated—and returned to the courtroom in about a month or so—BUT by then the wheels may come off—because the Hunter Biden story instead of going away—got a whole lot bigger with that mess—   Of course that is the part of the story—where Hunter and the entire Biden family have tried to pretend that a daughter he has with a former girlfriend—is actually his— But I digress—   The real meltdown was inside the courtroom—and the real problem for the Bidens is everything that could lead too—so why did the judge say no?    And whether or not Democrats are willing to tell the truth—there are plenty of people willing to step up and do it—   And when you look—the amount of money that may have flowed in to the Biden's bank accounts is absolutely obscene from all of this—   And that of course can only lead to one outcome—as long as Republicans are in the majority—and that is not a place Dems want to be in an election cycle with The White House on the line—   So the flailing continues—and the circling of wagons continues—because Democrats know—that the guy they sold as a moderate united—is in fact a far left hack—and a completely dishonest one at that—and that is going to be really hard to get the stink off by November—    But how about just one more denial—from Dementia in Chief—Joe Biden—  

Jim Williams, CMO of Uptempo, which provides marketing software, joins host Matthew Schwartz to talk about the most effective ways for B2B marketers to update their operating models, align advertising strategy with execution, and communicate the benefits of marketing to an ever-growing number of stakeholders.

This week on The Download: Advertisers and audiences refute the idea that podcasts are on the wane. NewsGuard: Programmatically-placed ads for major nonprofits and government orgs on dozens of misinformation websitesWhy Black creators say brands are ‘quiet as a mouse' on Black History Month and Juneteenth this year. Quick Hits: Podscribe Launches YouTube Conversation Modeling. The new dashboard unifies RSS and YouTube metrics into one location.ARN and Magellan AI announce Top 15 Podcast Advertisers in Australia for Q1. The list includes familiar faces like Apple, Amazon, and McDonald's.‘The Turning' Podcast Studio Rococo Punch to Merge With Audily by J. Clara Chan. From the article: “When two independents come together, we can do much bigger things.” ARN uses geo-location to deliver headlines on Your News Now podcast. The new podcast uses geotargeting to create a sub-three-minute episode covering local news, sports, and weather forecast. Missing the Sounds Profitable Podcast this week? Check out the latest episode of the ANA's podcast Champions of Growth. The episode, titled Is Podcasting the Future of Branded Advertising, features both Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster talking with Matthew Schwartz

This week on The Download: Advertisers and audiences refute the idea that podcasts are on the wane. NewsGuard: Programmatically-placed ads for major nonprofits and government orgs on dozens of misinformation websitesWhy Black creators say brands are ‘quiet as a mouse' on Black History Month and Juneteenth this year. Quick Hits: Podscribe Launches YouTube Conversation Modeling. The new dashboard unifies RSS and YouTube metrics into one location.ARN and Magellan AI announce Top 15 Podcast Advertisers in Australia for Q1. The list includes familiar faces like Apple, Amazon, and McDonald's.‘The Turning' Podcast Studio Rococo Punch to Merge With Audily by J. Clara Chan. From the article: “When two independents come together, we can do much bigger things.” ARN uses geo-location to deliver headlines on Your News Now podcast. The new podcast uses geotargeting to create a sub-three-minute episode covering local news, sports, and weather forecast. Missing the Sounds Profitable Podcast this week? Check out the latest episode of the ANA's podcast Champions of Growth. The episode, titled Is Podcasting the Future of Branded Advertising, features both Bryan Barletta and Tom Webster talking with Matthew Schwartz

On Oct. 31, 2022, the Supreme Court heard arguments that Harvard's and the University of North Carolina's use of race in admissions goes too far. Given the current ideological makeup of the Supreme Court, it's almost certain the justices will overturn more than 40 years of precedent and declare affirmative action in higher education unconstitutional. But, as Bloomberg Law's Matthew Schwartz explains, there is a remote-but-not-impossible chance that the court may issue a surprise ruling upholding affirmative action but further limiting how it can be used. In this episode of our weekly legal news podcast, On The Merits, Matthew joins us to speculate on the court's ruling in this potentially landmark case and to talk about his recent four-part podcast series on affirmative action. Matthew also talks about the anti-affirmative action activist driving this case and what is behind his motivations. Do you have feedback on this episode of On The Merits? Give us a call and leave a voicemail at 703-341-3690.

Seamless video-capture of every procedure & AI-powered patient selection for clinical trials, these are a few of the services Virgo can offer. Join the conversation with Matt to learn about the origins of Virgo, their first MVP, their funding journey, their unique business strategy, future of GI data and a bit about Astrophotography!Special thanks to Matthew Zhao (UCLA) for intro and conclusion!

Bob Garfield sits down with private equity tycoon and author David Rubenstein to discuss his latest book, The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream, consisting of interviews with scholars and other notable Americans.TEDDY ROOSEVELT: Surely, there never was a fight better worth making than the one which we are in.BOB GARFIELD: Welcome to Bully Pulpit. That was Teddy Roosevelt, I'm Bob Garfield, with Episode 23… “The Botched Experiment.”In his day job, David Rubenstein is a private equity tycoon who made his fortune buying undervalued companies, restructuring them into profitability for his investors and earning huge management fees as a steward of their stakes. The Carlyle Group, which he founded, has enriched him to the tune of $4.5 billion. Rubenstein also has many side hustles, from philanthropy to amateur historian to T.V. interviewer of the rich and powerful. In these excerpts from Bloomberg T.V. we hear George W. Bush and Oprah Winfrey.RUBENSTEIN: Over much of the past three decades I've been an investor, the highest calling of mankind, I've often thought, was private equity, and then I started interviewing. GEORGE W. BUSH: (laughs)RUBENSTEIN: When I watch your interviews I know how to do some interviewing. OPRAH: (laughs)His conversations with cultural, political and business icons have been edited into two books, the latest being The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream. Collected within are conversations with the likes of Madeline Albright, Ken Burns, Henry Louis Gates Jr. Wynton Marsalis and Billie Jean King.While acknowledging inequities and fault lines in our society, these conversations are in all a celebration of the so-called “American experiment,” which Rubenstein compares to the unique assortment of genes that determine the nature of the societal organism. Had they not converged, he says, “we would not be who we are, we would not be who we are. Rubenstein joins me now. David, welcome to Bully Pulpit.RUBENSTEIN: My pleasure to be here. Thank you for having me.GARFIELD: Your book takes these 13 genes and kind of divides them up among various scholars and cultural icons. What's on the list? RUBENSTEIN:Well, the genes are ones like the belief in the democracy, the belief in the importance of voting rights, the importance of of things like the military should not be in control of the civilian government, the civilians should control the military, the belief in the importance of diversity and importance of the belief in and then having elections and the right to vote. Those are the kind of things I think are parts of our culture; now, increasingly, the belief in diversity is a very important part of our culture, and the belief in the American dream is an important part of our culture. GARFIELD: I want to begin, as you do in the book with the Democracy Gene and your conversation with Harvard professor Harvard Professor Jill Lepore, author of the staggering 900 page survey of American democracy, titled These Truths. She has two insights which blew me away. One was the democratizing role of permitting personal bankruptcies, non-corporate bankruptcies — which was unknown to the world — and which played out as a safety net for entrepreneurial risk. Right in your wheelhouse, that one.RUBENSTEIN:Yes, her point is that when individuals couldn't pay their debts before they were put in jail as opposed to be allowed to be bankrupt, and that the fact that that was changed was an incentive for people to try to take greater risks than they might have taken before. So, yes, it's a very good point that she made. GARFIELD: Yeah, freedom of religion it ain't, but has taken an outsized role in the development of the democracy, but also the American form of capitalism. RUBENSTEIN: That's correct. You know, remember in our country we started, which started for religious freedom, but only to make sure that people could worship the way that those people wanted to worship. The Puritans and pilgrims didn't really want people to worship any way other than theirs. Now we have a system where people can worship the way they want it. But our Founding Fathers honestly didn't believe so much in the idea that you could worship any religion you wanted.GARFIELD: Yeah. Hold that thought because we will return to it. Lepore's second poignant observation was the grotesque collateral damage of the victorious American Revolution and that damage being the perpetuation of slavery, which the British had vowed to abolish. Instead, slavery and its associated injustices have been with us now for 400 years. You used the term original sin. Now, at least in Catholic doctrine, that is something inherent that permanently corrupts our nature, and it has sure done that, slavery has. Now you are in the valuation racket. Was the independence from Britain worth the incalculable human cost? RUBENSTEIN: Well, counterfactuals and history are always difficult to come up with and give definitive answers. I think they — if we had not won the Revolutionary War, I suspect we would have become like Canada, a member of the Commonwealth of Britain, and basically had pretty much the country we've had. But I think that the British probably would have ended slavery quicker than we did, though, because Britain had ended slavery in its country before. But I don't know that it was going to be that easy to end slavery that quickly in the 1700s; the economy of the South increasingly depended on it.GARFIELD All right. So if the slave trade was, as you put it, our original sin, after 150 years came the the bloodbath of the Civil War and after that, the reconstruction of the South, brief, as it was. You spoke to Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., about the ruinous backlash to reconstruction from the infamous compromise of 1877 that effectively obliterated reconstruction and laid the foundation for Jim Crow and white supremacy to the retrograde Plessy v. Ferguson “separate but equal” decision. Gates also told you something I'd never heard of that, the newly restored white power structure called itself “Redemption” — that was how they described the the end of reconstruction. It occurs to me that maybe this foreshadows today's Christian Right using biblical text to whitewash what to my eyes are obscene ideas. With redemption like that, who needs sin? RUBENSTEIN: Well, the redemption that he was referring to was basically the belief that they had restored the white order that had existed before the Civil War. Their so-called lost cause of those in the South was what they believed in, that they had a cause — not to preserve slavery, that was what they were saying they weren't fighting for as much as preserving the southern way of life. But in the end, it was really to preserve slavery. But they believed that they were restoring the original sin or restoring the Southern Order was what redemption was all about. GARFIELD: Now, since the end of World War Two, there have been acts of legislation and judicial decisions now enshrined in law — the principles of the founding documents codified: women's suffrage, desegregation, the Miranda decision about the rights of the accused criminals, removing prayer from public schools, marriage equality and so on, as the United States followed a general Western path towards liberal democracy. These very advances have infuriated conservatives for 60, 70 years, because they believe that their values and their hegemony are under attack. Make America Great Again seems to share a viewpoint with Redemption. Which country are we, do you think? Are we open hearts or are we closed minds? RUBENSTEIN: Well, that's a difficult question to answer. I would say that the beginning, the rhetoric, of the Founding Fathers was wonderful: all men are created equal. But as we all know, we had slavery; we didn't allow women to have certain rights, including the right to vote; so we've been trying to live up to the rhetoric over the 250 years, and we still have a long way to go. Many people in this country, as you suggest, are not happy with the idea that minorities have the same rights that majorities have, that women have the same rights as men have, that people of different skin color are to be treated the same as whites. There are many people who think that that's not necessarily the way the country should be. In my view, that's a mistake, but that's the way that many people look at the situation.GARFIELD: A mistake? I would say a nightmare — an ongoing nightmare. To what extent do you believe that what we haven't done as a nation to fulfill our founding promises has corrupted the American experiment?RUBENSTEIN:  The American experiment has been evolving over 250 years. It still has a long way to go. We still are a country that more people want to come to than any other country. Forty-seven million people in this country are immigrants. Very few people leave this country voluntarily, so it's still the best country on the face of the Earth. But we have these challenges that are just endemic. One of the challenges is income inequality, racial discrimination, also homelessness and illiteracy. We have an enormous amount of illiteracy in this country. It's hard to believe that such a wealthy country can have 14 percent of its population being functionally illiterate. But anyway, that's the case. So I would say that we are a country of — it's a tale of two cities, as Charles Dickens might say. We have the wealthy people, the internet-connected people, the people that are well-educated, and then we have the underclass. And I think the gap between those two is getting wider and wider. GARFIELD:  Well, we shall return to this. And in fact, let's turn now to the subject of capitalism, which you discussed with author Bhu Srinivasan. He says that the notion, and we discussed this earlier, the notion of religious pilgrims fleeing persecution and putting down roots in the new world is at best exaggerated, such as in this educational video.NARRATOR: About 400 years ago, 13 years after the first English settlement in America called Jamestown, there was another group of travelers who came to America in search of religious freedom. They wanted to worship God in their own way and separate from the Church of England.That America was a capitalist endeavor, an explicitly capitalist endeavor from the get-go, supercharged by the industrial revolution, the invention of the cotton gin, the Louisiana purchase and, of course, slavery. And we know it has all yielded a superpower of unimaginable wealth and influence in the world. Yet you have these regrets about inequity and you regret those who, in your terms, have been left behind. How so? RUBENSTEIN: Well, many people in this country have believed in the American dream and have lived the American dream. I feel I have lived the American Dream coming from very modest roots and to be more successful in life than my parents ever dreamed possible. But many people have given up on the American dream, and they think that they can't catch up to where they should be or where they'd like to be. And therefore, we have lots of poverty, lots of inequities, and it's a real challenge. GARFIELD: Yeah, Kristin Lems's song comes to mind.LEM: (singing) It's $1200 a month before the SSI and tax, the take-home pay is 900 and a half, and the rent takes half of that leaving $475, and a hundred for the groceries to keep us all alive…RUBENSTEIN: Overall, I think the American experiment has worked reasonably well, but not perfectly well. And I think right now the country is assessing whether we can move forward together or whether we're just going to move forward in a divided way if move forward is the right verb. Because right now the Congress is divided. We have a very difficult time getting anything through Congress, and social progress is made very, very sparingly right now and it's been hurt a lot by COVID because a lot of people have been left further and further behind than they were before COVID.GARFIELD: [00:11:48] Yeah, well, more details on the collateral damage: In the past 50 years, as the inflation-adjusted GDP has grown 400 percent, real wages have grown 10 percent. Now, you've just enumerated some of the reasons that society has failed its citizens. You say “regrettable,” I'd say “s**t show.” But turning it to you, not as an author or interviewer or a businessman, but to you as a citizen: I've gone through your writings and I don't see you advocating for more regulation of banks, or high marginal tax rates or higher minimum wages, or a far more robust social welfare system to provide for working parents or universal preschool or free higher education or other entitlements such as Europe largely provides. I mean, if we were to accept your DNA analogy — and it's a pretty good one — must we not also recognize the fact of genetic mutations, changes or errors in the DNA that can make the organism adapt or just go completely haywire? As a video from HealthTree University explains:MAN: Every once in a while a mistake occurs in a gene, in which one of those bases, one of those coding segments, gets altered and if it gets altered in a gene that causes more cells to more rapidly divide, that's a mutation we want to know about.”GARFIELD: Such as: campaign finance, systemic racism, gerrymandering, deregulation, vilification of the free press, stripped away voting rights and what I see as the broken founding promise to promote the general welfare. In short, David, you've achieved the American dream, but what the hell has happened to so many others? RUBENSTEIN: Well, obviously, the American dream hasn't worked for everybody, and we have lots of social challenges here. We are not likely to go to the European style of social capitalism or socialism that many European countries take great pride in; it's just not endemic to our American system. Capitalism has been ingrained in our system, and capitalism leaves a lot of people behind. So I just don't think we're going to change it dramatically. I haven't written on all these issues because that's not my role in life, probably, to address every social issue as possible. And I, you know, my basic mission in life has been to kind of move forward my career. I'm now giving away all my money, but giving away all my money is not going to solve our social problems, I don't have enough money to solve those problems. So I'm trying to point out some of the challenges, but I don't claim to be a great reformer and I don't claim to be a politician. If I had the answers to all these problems, I would have been in Iowa and New Hampshire a long time ago.GARFIELD: All right. We will continue momentarily, but please let me remind you what we are trying to achieve here with Bully Pulpit and the other BooksmartStudios.org podcasts. We are here to coalesce a community of listeners who value complexity over glibness, argument over doctrine, curiosity over certainty.  It's a community, in other words, built around both skepticism and  intellectual honesty. But as our friends in public broadcasting also incessantly remind you, it is a costly enterprise. Our content is largely free of charge, but our future hinges on your willingness  to pitch in. Please consider a paid subscription, which gets you not only our basic offerings, but bonus content from all three shows and my weekly column, which is a really, really good MRI of my tortured soul. Eighty-four bucks a year — less than a preowned 1985 Cabbage Patch doll on eBay. Please consider investing in BooksmartStudios.org, and please, please rate us on iTunes. Those ratings and reviews really matter. Now then, I was about to ask David Rubenstein my next question.You say that you don't see us going towards the European model of —RUBENSTEIN: That's correct. GARFIELD: — socialist capitalism or capitalist socialism, where there's greater entitlements, the welfare state is much more robust. Now, apart from our particular political problems of the moment, why do you think we'll not veer in that direction?RUBENSTEIN: Because I think the country is not, in its DNA, a socialist country. We've experimented with things that are maybe not as capitalist-oriented as we currently have and during the Great Depression, there was a view that maybe socialism would be the better system, but we've rejected that in the country by and large and I would say right now, it's hard to see any interest in the kind of socialist capitalist system that they have in Europe. If anything, we're probably retrogressing and providing fewer social benefits in some ways than we provided in the past. GARFIELD: Although, It was never great. Here's an excerpt from the Phil Donahue Show in 1979, where an audience member challenged economist Milton Friedman — the high priest of trickle-down economics. I'm cutting off his answer; it's the questions that still resonate:WOMAN: Why is it we have so many millionaires and everything in the United States and we still have so many impoverished people who try to get up into the world. Why is it we have this lack of money where people who can't support themselves decently and get a decent job, where all these big men are up on top making oodles and oodles of money — they don't need it, they can only eat that much. FRIEDMAN: And what do you suppose they do, if they don't need it and don't use it —WOMAN: They hoard it.GARFIELD: And what about business regulation and soaking the rich? Well, at least at the highest marginal tax rates.RUBENSTEIN: Congress clearly reflects the fact that it doesn't want to do that. All the efforts to increase marginal tax rates don't seem to be getting very far. And I suspect that Congress is just not going to get there. Remember, the Congress is dividing pretty much 50-50 between Democrats and Republicans, and it's generally thought that the Republicans will win Congress for the midterm elections, so I don't see any of those kinds of changes that you're talking about likely to happen. GARFIELD: This conversation on Bully Pulpit will follow a two-part series with Anne Nelson, who has written about the Council for National Policy, which I guess is an anodyne-sounding name for the great right-wing conspiracy. They have stuck to their knitting and put their shoulders to the wheel for 60 years to kind of hack the democratic system, to take advantage of gerrymandering and the Electoral College to create a kind of permanent majority in legislatures for what is, by the numbers, clearly a minority party. Does it concern you that these archaic structures of democracy are subverting democracy?RUBENSTEIN: Well, it's interesting. We believe in democracy, but actually, when the Founding Fathers created it, they didn't let American citizens vote for senators; the state legislatures did that. And we created the Electoral College, which is anti-democratic, you could argue. In fact, I think of the last seven presidential elections the person who got the most majority — the most votes — didn't necessarily become President. George W. Bush didn't get the majority of popular votes when he was elected President, and obviously Donald Trump didn't get the majority of popular votes when he was elected President. And so we've got a system where people who are minority, in terms of popular vote, often get elected President. It's not a perfect system, but it's not going to change. To change the system of electing presidents requires a constitutional amendment which requires two thirds of each house and three quarters of the states. And it's inconceivable that you're going to do that.GARFIELD: Such as in this educational video:MAN: “Of the nearly 7000 amendments proposed in the centuries since, only 27 have succeeded.”GARFIELD: There's a chapter in your book that is particularly dear to my heart: your conversation with Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor on the subject of civics education. RUBENSTEIN: Right.GARFIELD: I myself am a co-founder of an organization called the Purple Project for Democracy, which seeks to address the plummeting faith and trust in American democracy and an accompanying appetite for extreme politics, including violence. It's my belief, and Sotomayor's, that a big problem is that Americans have lots and lots of opinions about government, but vanishingly little knowledge of even the most basic facts of how it all is meant to work and how it does work. Is that fixable? RUBENSTEIN: It's fixable, but we have to remember a couple of things. One, it has been a problem for some time. It's not like all of a sudden people don't know much about government. If you go back to surveys 50 years ago, it was a similar problem. Secondly, you're pointing out the reality that ninety one percent of people who take the citizenship test to become citizens who are foreigners pass, whereas a majority of Americans cannot pass these tests, whereas given by an organization recently in 49 out of 50 states, a majority of Americans couldn't pass the basic citizenship test that foreigners have to pass. So it's a sad situation. We don't teach civics very much anymore, as you know, in school and people know very little about the way our government works and operates.GARFIELD: And so there's ignorance; I don't mean that pejoratively, there's just a lack of basic knowledge. And there is the tidal wave of misinformation and disinformation, which competes very well against no information. Any thoughts about —RUBENSTEIN:Well, yes. Yes, look, I'm involved with a lot of civic education efforts and will announce some more projects that I'm going to support to do that. But right now, we have not only misinformation and disinformation, but we have I-don't-care information, which is to say some people put information out, they don't really care whether it's true or not, they just think it's politically helpful to them. And so we have another factor where a lot of people aren't really checking whether these facts are true when they say something and people are being misled, in my view, dramatically.GARFIELD: All of what we've discussed has made me look at America's future with a sense of doom. You don't see it that way.RUBENSTEIN: I don't think doom; I would say we've always had challenges. The Civil War was a big challenge, we got through that; the World War II was a big challenge, in many ways, we got through that. But clearly, the most recent stress-test of the election and the January 6th event is not a cause for optimism. So I think we have to address it, but I think we can't put our head in the sand and just say, “woe is me, the country is falling apart”; we have to try to do the best we can as you're doing and others are doing to educate Americans and basically inform them on the theory that the best informed democracy will be a better democracy. So we want to make our citizens well-informed. But it's not going to happen overnight. GARFIELD: Would you go long in American democracy? Would you short it? What?RUBENSTEIN: It depends on what period of time, of course, but I think generally nobody betting against American democracy has generally made a lot of money. America is going to be a strong country and a very powerful country for quite some time. Our democracy is not quite as beautiful as many people would like it to be, and many people around the world question whether our democracy is as good as we say it is. We say to people around the world, “Follow our system,” but many people say, “Well, your system isn't working so well, look what's going on in your country.”GARFIELD: One last thing, David. Over Thanksgiving, you hosted the President and the First Lady for a few days at your bungalow, is it Martha's Vineyard? I don't remember where your summer place is. But before they left, did they strip the beds? I mean, were there wet towels all over the place? Was Biden blasting his Motown playlist all night?RUBENSTEIN: Well, actually they used the place that I owned. They used it before, when he was vice-president. I was not there, so I can't talk about the issues that you're asking me about. But, you know, I did see him since then. I saw him at the Kennedy Center Honors over the weekend, he said he had a very good time. And he does listen to Motown a lot, as he said in his remarks at the White House recently.GARFIELD: Uh huh… So you don't know if he's a good houseguest. He didn't burn it down. RUBENSTEIN: I never heard any complaints from any of the people that have been working there. So I think he's a very good houseguest and I'm sure you know you'll be enjoying having him as your house guest at some point if you invited him.GARFIELD: Uh, well, it's a thought. It's a thought. Let's see. What can I say that would be even remotely funny? (Mumbles in Bob.) You know, I don't think it's possible. I don't think — I use 2% milk and I don't; I think he's a whole milk kind of guy. David, I want to thank you so much.RUBENSTEIN: My pleasure. Thank you very much.GARFIELD: Private equity billionaire David Rubenstein is author of The American Experiment: Dialogues on a Dream. All right, we're done here. Bully Pulpit is produced by Matthew Schwartz and Mike Vuolo. Our theme was composed by Julie Miller and the team at Harvest Creative Services in Lansing, Michigan. Bully Pulpit is a production of BooksmartStudios.org. I'm Bob Garfield. Get full access to Bully Pulpit at bullypulpit.substack.com/subscribe

SPECIAL WAR BULLETIN24 DEC 2021Not since Edward R. Murrow has a reporter so bravely brought home the terrible soundscape of war.Happy New Year! In the warm and generous spirit of the holidays, we're offering 30% off a subscription to Booksmart Studios until the end of the year. You'll get extra written content and access to bonus segments and written transcripts like this one. More importantly, you'll be championing all the work we do here. Become a member of Booksmart Studios today. Thank you for your support.* TRANSCRIPT *TEDDY ROOSEVELT: Surely, there never was a fight better worth making than the one which we are in.GARFIELD: Welcome to Bully Pulpit. That was Teddy Roosevelt. I'm Bob Garfield with Episode 22: Live from the War on Christmas.[RADIO STATIC]ANNOUNCER: Ladies and gentlemen, we interrupt this program to bring you a special report. Bully Pulpit's Bob Garfield is on the battle lines of a terrible conflict, which is setting the world afire. In the midst of the mad fray, without care for his own safety, Mr. Garfield recounts the sights and sounds of war. We now take you to the North Pole.[THE SOUNDS OF WAR]GARFIELD: This is the North Pole. Last night, some young reindeer fetched me here. These heroes, Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid and — with grim and  fantastic irony — Donner and Blitzen, describing the very scene that in this benighted duchy now unfolds. The pilot on our journey was called Rudolph, his caribou nose casting light through the smoke and darkness. The team was determined, for here resides the greatest center of holiday production. The shooting of cannon and ack-ack guns, the shrill roar of a diving airship, fills the night with a deathly din.A reporter cannot help but cower in the ruins. The secular humanists, in league with communists and cosmopolitans, are upon us. These are the sounds of the war on Christmas.From my icy shelter (the frozen remnants of a leveled doll factory) the fury seems fantastical. The insurgency began only 13 years ago, in what seemed to be flailing propaganda against a dubious oppression. This is when America first heard from the defenders of Jesus Christ about the godless machinations of the Macy's department store.BILL O'REILLY: This year they are touting Santa Claus who will help you “with your holiday wishlist.” So here's my question to Macy's: What holiday is Santa celebrating? The winter solstice? The birthday of a reindeer? What?GARFIELD: That lowly broadcaster, whose name is now lost to history, used his bully pulpit to speak of conspiracy against not just a persecuted religious minority, but a way of life.O'REILLY: Everything was swell up until about 10 years ago when creeping secularism and pressure groups like the ACLU began attacking the Christmas holiday. They demanded, demanded the word “Christmas” be removed from advertising and public displays, and many people caved into that. GARFIELD: It all began in a series of small partisan skirmishesO'REILLY: I'm like a guerilla fighter in the war on Christmas. You know what I do? I put little shepherds right in front of city hall in my town. Or if I know that there's a secular person in my town or the town neighboring me, I'll put a little baby Jesus on their windshield. GARFIELD: For years he would strike small blows against the Godless conspiracy, then melt away to his sacred country club. But like all guerilla fighters, armed with little but his half wits and audience of seething nativists 5 million strong, he incited rage against the false prophets of basic respect. In time, he would all but vanish from the fight. Smeared by the secularists for merely trying to spill his heroic seed wantonly among the faithful, he retired to a life of falafel and shame. Still the movement grew and grew, gathering the momentum history rewards for the zeal of the righteous. From fellow broadcasters…GRETCHEN CARLSON: I am tolerant! I'm all for free speech and free rights, just not on December 25th!GARFIELD: …to more fellow broadcasters…SEAN HANNITY: Welcome to Hannity. The War on Christmas is upon us again.GARFIELD: …to the emotionally-disturbed imbecile aspiring-dictator community.TRUMP: And speaking of Christmas, you're gonna be saying “Merry Christmas” again, okay? You're gonna say “Merry Christmas.”GARFIELD: Suddenly the dirty gray clouds turn white and the advance grows merciless. The Jews and Muslims and Satanists pour through the outer searchlight defenses. Aloft, a flying machine tumbles toward the pole, ablaze. It is a great, golden, slow-moving meteor slanting earthward. Yellow flares shoot up in bright relief, revealing the airship to be a sleigh, whose desperate escape has been foiled in a hail of flak. The pilot, intrepid Rudolph, with his shiny nose, lights the spiraling path to oblivion. What I am witnessing is a calculated, remorseless campaign of destruction. Now the little men, brave bantams one and all, are ragged and shivering in the final battle wondering what is it all for. They are but elves, laboring amid the chaos to meet quota. Moments ago, just as a projectile burst in the sky, I witnessed a little gnome utter his last words. In the strange argot of these industrious pixies, and in a squeaky impish voice, he declaimed: “FML. We have product to turn around.” And then he fell, his slippered toes curled toward the blazing heavens.  [RADIO STATIC]ANNOUNCER: You have been listening to Bob Garfield in an eyewitness report of his experiences at the North Pole. Now I see we have received a telegraphed dispatch from Mr. Garfield. I quote directly from his wire:“The North Pole has not fallen. Repeat: not fallen. [stop]“The advancing cosmopolitans were not waging war against Christmas. [stop]“It appears to have been some sort of celebration, with fireworks, in the spirit of seasonal good tidings that grace the world. The war on Christmas, it must now be reported, is a figment, neither waged nor declared. [stop]“Perhaps I was feverish with Omicron, or brainwashed, but assessing the aftermath what I have discovered is evidence only of a very big party. [stop]“No elves have died. The casualties were limited to an Amazon warehouse, where some workers simply collapsed from exhaustion. [stop]“Christmas is alive and unmolested the world over. The birth of Jesus Christ is on the lips of billions.[CHURCH BELLS]“I can hear the bells. I can hear the bells. [stop]”GARFIELD: All right, we're done here. Bully Pulpit is produced by Matthew Schwartz and Mike Vuolo. Our theme was composed by Julie Miller and the team at Harvest Creative Services in Lansing, Michigan.  Bully Pulpit is a production of BooksmartStudios.org. I'm Bob Garfield. Merry Christmas.TRUMP: They are saying “Merry Christmas” again, we got that. That was a big part of what I was doing. I would say it all the time during that period, that we want them to say “Merry Christmas,” don't shop at stores that don't say “Merry Christmas,” and I'll tell you what, we brought it back very quickly. Get full access to Bully Pulpit at bullypulpit.substack.com/subscribe