What is a journalism? TikTok and the future of news (w/ Vitus Spehar of Under the Desk News!)
There Are No Girls on the Internet
iHeartPodcasts
4.1 • 907 Ratings
🗓️ 12 July 2023
⏱️ 52 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Bridget has a deeply fascinating and important conversation with the brilliant Vitus Spehar from Under The Desk News about “the news.” TikTok and social media have changed who gets to tell the news, for good and for bad. On the positive side, engaging creators are making important issues resonate with their communities more deeply than Walter Cronkite ever could have dreamed. On the negative side, social media algorithms reward outrage and encourage disinformation that entrenches polarization. It’s complicated! Fortunately we have people like V who can succinctly tell us, and legislators, what we need to know.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | It's not just one white man writing a story from a white man's perspective, handing it to another white news anchor to deliver on an entirely white brand major network. |
| 0:13.8 | There Are No Girls on the Internet is a production of IHeart Radio and Unbossed Creative. |
| 0:21.6 | I'm Bridget Todd, and this is There Are No Girls on the Internet. |
| 0:28.6 | I grew up in a newspaper family, and in fact, our family always got two copies of our local newspaper, |
| 0:35.6 | one for the family, and another one just for my dad |
| 0:39.5 | that none of us were supposed to rifle through. I guess because the man really enjoyed |
| 0:44.5 | having a crisp, fresh newspaper all to himself. But that was a long time ago. Today, less |
| 0:51.4 | and less people are getting their news from traditional sources like a newspaper or a mainstream media outlet. |
| 0:57.2 | Instead, they're getting their news from podcasts, hey, like the one you're listening to right now, and from content creators on social media. |
| 1:05.7 | And if you've gotten your news on TikTok, odds are you've seen Vitus Spear from Under the Desk News. |
| 1:11.7 | That title, Under the Desk, is literal, by the way. |
| 1:15.4 | V actually gets down under their desk to tell their 3 million followers on TikTok what they need to know. |
| 1:21.6 | And it started during the height of the pandemic. |
| 1:24.9 | We were seeing a lot of journalists working from home, and so I didn't want to blur this line of, like, being some super serious journalist who was just working from home because of, you know, the pandemic. |
| 1:36.7 | And so I got under my desk to create this kind of safe place where we could have like a secret and talk about the news in a way that wasn't going |
| 1:45.0 | to be scary to people, that wasn't sensationalized, and that just kind of was what I would do, |
| 1:50.5 | you know, if I was still in the office. Like, if I had a water cooler in my home, I probably |
| 1:56.0 | would have been water cooler talk, but I didn't. So I just had the under the desk space. So that's, |
| 2:00.6 | that was like the ethos and the I just had the under the desk space. So that's, that was like |
| 2:01.1 | the ethos and the idea of like why under a desk. Going back to that time where we all were |
| 2:07.2 | sort of emotionally, that's when doom scrolling became a thing. And the news, it was like you couldn't, |
| 2:13.4 | if you opened up a news app, you were, like, opening up this whole rush of emotions, |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from iHeartPodcasts, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of iHeartPodcasts and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.

