Is Ben Shapiro the Most Powerful Man in News Media?

True Thirty with Joey Dumont

This week, my guests include Jim Meskauskas and Kevin Hicks, two old media buddies from New York City. During the show, we analyze the media metrics of Ben Shapiro’s growing media empire, the far left’s fascination with antiracism, and how the confluence of these two movements will hand the House and the Senate to the GOP in the November midterms.

I hope you enjoy the show!

In This Episode:

* Ben Shapiro

* Democrat’s demise in 2022

* Liberal news media

* Batya Ungar-Sargon’s new book, Bad News

* John McWhorter’s new book, Woke Racism

* “All white people are racist”

* Why the far left is now a religion

* Neo-Marxism, Post-modernization

* Critical Race Theory

* GOP

* Intersectionality

* Robin DiAngelo

* Diversity in Marketing

Guest Biographies:

Jim Meskauskas has over twenty-five years experience in both traditional and digital advertising, strategy, media planning, buying, analytics and measurement. He is co-founder and Chief Strategic Officer of Media Darwin, a boutique-consulting firm devoted to practicing those disciplines as well as evaluating and recommending resources and integrations — technology, data and analytics, talent structure — used for accomplishing them.

He’s also a “mediologist”; What’s a mediologist? Someone who examines the uses of technology and human symbolic activity as a means of cultural transmission -- specifically but not exclusively -- through electronic media with the goal of understanding the impact on society. This includes the impact on business, political, and social activity. His likes are Star Wars merchandise, B-horror films, southeast Asian cuisine, and medieval cookery.

His dislikes are people who read while walking, the use of the word “utilize” when “use” will do, pineapple on pizza, and TikTok.

He studied literature and philosophy at UC Berkeley and read literature and history of science at Merton College, Oxford. He lives in New York City with his wife and their three rescue cats. None of them likes his medieval cooking.

Kevin Hicks has over 40 years of print/digital media sales and sales management experience. Starting at a local Seattle newspaper in their classified advertising department (“Lost dog, black lab with one ear, blind in one eye, 3 legs, cut off tail – goes by the name of Lucky“), next starting a local free-distribution TV guide in the Puget Sound (back when there were only 12 channels), to mail-order computer catalog company (Multiple Zones), a stint in LA at Petersen Publishing, then into the digital space in 1999 – Go2Net, WhitePages.com, Hollywood Media, etc. Recently founder of Savio Media – an OOH agency specializing in “In-Hand” advertising.

Personal likes/interests are cooking, sailing and more recently, rock-n-roll stardom playing guitar in a band in New York (to an audience of 3 or so). Currently living in NYC (Upper West Side), I would be more than happy to taste Jim’s medieval cooking – regardless of what his cats think.

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