Mo News: Getting To Know About Mo

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Hey all,

Normally, I'm the one asking the questions. But, recently I got a chance to answer a few of them and talk about what we are building here at Mo News.

For this premium edition, I bring you highlights from my interview with Brooklyn Magazine for a deep dive into the state of the media, a behind-the-scenes look into broadcast journalism, and where I think the future of the industry is headed. I also spoke about what was like leaving years of television news experience to grow my platform with all of you.

☕️ But first, a few headlines this AM before our interview...

• Controversial Taiwan Visit: House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) began her meetings with Taiwanese leaders after landing in Taipei yesterday. It's a significant show of support for Taiwan... and has China fuming. Pelosi is the highest-ranking U.S. lawmaker to visit Taiwan since former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, in 1997.

• China is furious. The communist country believes Taiwan is just a breakaway province and views the visit as an affront to its views. Taiwan is a democracy and has effectively operated as its own independent country, with its own constitution and elected leaders, since the 1950s. In the last few years, Beijing has been setting the stage to take back full control of Taiwan - and says it will use force, if necessary. Some analysts believe China is closely watching Russia's invasion of Ukraine to help shape its plan for Taiwan. Pelosi's visit prompted Beijing to announce a number of major military exercises around the island--including some that will be the biggest in nearly 30 years. Most will take place after Pelosi's departure Wednesday.

• China issued several strong threats ahead of Pelosi's visit - each more aggressive than the last. Last week, Beijing warned Biden that anyone who 'plays with fire' on Taiwan will pay. China has been conducting military drills and flying warplanes purposely close to the Taiwan Strait. Some Democrats urged Pelosi to call off the trip and not provoke China. Many Republicans actually encouraged her to stay the course, arguing that canceling the trip would be caving to China. Pelosi defended her decision in an op-ed.Beijing generally opposes any American official visit to Taiwan, but is especially threatened by Pelosi's visit because her seniority as Speaker of the House puts her second in the line of succession to the president. The White House has tried to reassure the Chinese that this doesn't change the longstanding "One China" policy.

• Big Abortion Vote: Kansas voters on Tuesday resoundingly rejected an amendment that would have gotten rid of abortion protections in the state's constitution. The procedure remains legal in a conservative state that hasn't voted for a Democrat for president since 1964. It's the first time since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade that U.S. voters have cast ballots on abortion.Axios reports that Democrats were closely watching the vote in the red state to see what signal it may send about the resonance of the abortion issue this fall--especially when it comes to suburban female voters.“This vote makes clear what we know: the majority of Americans agree that women should have access to abortion and should have the right to make their own health care decisions,” President Biden said in a statement.Voters in California, Vermont, Kentucky and Montana will get to make decisions related to abortion on their ballots in November.In other abortion news, the Justice Department announced it is suing Idaho for it's near-total abortion ban.

• “Superstition ain’t the way.” Massachusetts’ last-known Salem ‘witch’ has finally been exonerated, more than three centuries after the Salem Witch Trials. After confessing to practicing witchcraft at the height of the Salem Witch Trials in 1692, Elizabeth Johnson Jr. was sentenced to death - but was never executed. She died in 1747 at 77 years old.Still, 329 years later, she remained the only person convicted during the trials whose name had never been cleared… and therefore, Massachusetts' only-known resident who was still considered a witch.Her acquittal was propelled by an eighth-grade civics teacher and her students, who researched Johnson and the steps needed to be taken in order to formally pardon her. The Governor of Massachusetts, tucked the exoneration into a recent bill. ~NY Times

Now, to my interview with Brooklyn Magazine, where I was thrilled to recently be named one of Brooklyn's Most Fascinating People. I spoke to the magazines Editor-in-Chief Brian Braiker, about my journalism career, how I ended up launching the Instagram page, what's next for Mo News and my run-in with Paul Rudd in Brooklyn. I curated highlights from my conversation below. You can listen to the full conversation on the Brooklyn Magazine Podcast.

[This Interview has been edited for time and clarity. It was conducted in late July 2022.]

BRIAN BRAIKER: Mosh, welcome to Brooklyn Magazine, the podcast. I can't imagine what your DMs are like. What are you getting on a daily basis?

MOSH: One of the reasons I actually took to Instagram (in 2020) versus Twitter is because I found Twitter, as many will attest, to be a nasty place. Things taken out of context, the vast majority of folks who link to stories, they don't even read the stories. So I ended up at the height of COVID, March 2020 being like, I’ll just do this on Instagram for my friends and family, and try to break down what's happening, the chaos in our world that month. And, eventually, went public. My wife was like, 'you got to do this for other people, not just your couple hundred friends and family'. What I found is that like, 95-97% of the DMS are actually pretty positive, though there are the people who are like, you're biased - or worse - you have no business doing this. Initially I wanted to respond to these people. And then, for the sake of my mental health, well....block is a great feature.

BRAIKER: Cannot feed the trolls. It's 12:30 here on a weekday afternoon. What media have you consumed so far today? What is your diet like?

MOSH: It's an unhealthy amount of news and media that I consume on a daily basis. I joke with people that I consume all the media so you don't have to. What am I reading this morning? So I'll go through the big national papers. So that's the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times. I'll hit a couple local outlets, New York Daily News, New York Post. I like to see what's happening in the business world, CNBC, Financial Times. Also, Reuters..and internationally, the BBC, Sky News. I check out translations of various European newspapers. I got some DMs this morning from people in Texas and Oklahoma, ranchers and farmers that are dealing with drought, really significant drought conditions, which then led me to try to take in some of that. I also track sports via Barstool, ESPN, etc. So frankly, on a daily basis, I'm probably consuming three or four dozen outlets, and then depending on the rabbit holes I go down on a daily basis on the stories that I'm covering.

BRAIKER: How many DMs do you get in a day?

MOSH: On Instagram, average day, you're probably looking at like 400-500. Some days it eclipses 1,000. I actually try to breeze through as many as I can, because I'll get some of my best story ideas, and some more interesting exchanges over there.

BRAIKER: Let's walk it back a little bit to who you are. You have this great Instagram account where you act as this news concierge breaking down the events of the day for an increasingly sizable audience. But you had been, previous to this, an Executive Producer at CBS Evening News. It's a hugely powerful job earned after years of working on other networks, including Fox and Bloomberg TV. You've launched shows. You've won an Emmy, among other awards. Why did you walk away from it?

MOSH: I probably had five different jobs at CBS. I came in to help launch a morning show and then went over to launch the streaming channel, CBSN. I got to dabble a little bit in some primetime documentary-style shows. We tried to launch a more youthful 60 Minutes. Brian, people might not know this - the average audience in network news is in their mid-60s. And cable news, median age is 70. I don't know the last time you or your friends or your family tuned in at 6:30 at night to digest the news. By the way, they are really good programs that give you a good sense of the world. But Evening News, in particular, launched in 1948. And having come most recently from the digital side of things, launching the streaming channel at CBS, I felt like that's the world I want to live in. I want to be reporting news, digesting news, translating what's happening to the world, on the platforms that people are on now.

BRAIKER: And there's less friction, right? There's less institutional barriers and all that.

MOSH: That's the thing. You have incredible resources at these networks. At the same time, you have certain institutional knowledge and infrastructure. So I don't know how many people know this, but 20 million Americans – it once was 100 million – but 20 million Americans watch one of the three network news shows at night. You have about 10 million Americans that watch one of the three morning shows on NBC ABC, or CBS. And their core business, Brian, is still the money they make during those commercial breaks during those shows. And so to innovate digitally, and to try to do some new stuff, you're coming up against that institutional thing. At the time, I had limited resources to build the next thing. My argument: If we don't build the next thing, our existing audience isn't getting replaced.

As I left CBS (in 2019), I wanted to get into documentaries. I was looking around that world. I wanted to find something that was new and fresh, where I get to build something again. And I was looking for it and looking for it. And then COVID hit, and that is what brought me to Instagram.

BRAIKER: I will just say as a side note, I worked at ABC News briefly, many years ago on the digital side primarily, but occasionally, I was called in to pitch as a writer on Nightline. It was maybe the least rewarding writing job I've ever had.

MOSH: Well, that's the thing about these jobs. You have this huge audience, Brian, at the same time, I would sit there and we'd have teams around the world. Almost 200 people are contributing to the Evening News on daily basis. London, what do you got? Beijing, what do you got? LA? Miami? Chicago? And now, after commercials, I have 19 minutes and 30 something seconds to fill a show, to tell you the story of the world every night.

Break that down, I can tell you 8 stories, maybe 10. Some of those stories are 20 seconds. And these are complex stories. Like I'm telling you, the Middle East, the war in Ukraine. I'm calling a correspondent, “I know you're in the middle of hell. Can you cut 20 seconds out of your story?” And they're like, “It's 1 minute and 40 seconds.” And I'm like, “It needs to be 1 minute and 30 seconds or we're going to crash into the commercial break.” And that's not fun. We respect people's time, and the audience's time, but that's where I found that the digital side, even platforms like this, you can expand, you can tell a story.

BRAIKER: So you chose Instagram. But there's been this whole trend in journalism where people have developed followings on their own. You are largely behind the scenes. And they go on to start a substack or medium, but you didn't go that route.

MOSH: The reason why I started Instagram is because I was not intending to start a media brand at all. I was consulting. And so the reason I went to Instagram is, first of all, I was annoyed that, in the beginning of COVID, my wife was getting these text messages. "Hey, they're going to shut down all the bridges to New York. There will be martial law." And I was like, what are people smoking? As someone who's spent time in Washington, covered the White House, Congress, Defense Department - no one in their right mind is shutting down. This is not China. You can't just shut down a city of 9 million. This is crazy. Where's this coming from?

So I took to Instagram, not endeavoring to start a news brand, but just trying to correct the record on things and calm people down a little bit. And so it sort of evolved from there. I think if I was putting a business plan together two and half years ago, I probably wouldn't have started on Instagram. At the time, I had a private account with 500 people and photos of my friends and family, and things I've eaten, and views I've seen. You know, the average Instagram account.

But over time, as the audience grew on Instagram. I was like, I have to diversify. I need to build beyond Instagram. I don't want to put all my eggs in the Zuckerberg basket. Many of us who've worked in media know that there are times when they've been burned by that basket. Like, they say we're going hard on this type of content. Media partner, you should really build content like this. And you do it. And then it's like Lucy (from Charlie Brown) and the football. They sometimes pull the football from the media and say, "actually, we're not so into that anymore." And that was an underlying fear I had about (being on one platform). That is what's led me in the past year to build beyond that.

BRAIKER: Are you able to make a living? Is this lucrative for you?

MOSH: My primary source of income continues to be the consulting side, Mo Digital. Although, as I've tried to build (Mo News) up slowly but surely. I am getting some income. Is it enough to make a living in New York City? No. But my hope is that by diversifying the platforms I'm on, continuing to grow an audience, that over time, I will be able to say 'this is what I'm passionate about, this is what I care about, I love what I do.' And so if I can do what I love, and make a real living off of it, and support a family, that's what I'm endeavoring to do. And that's kind of one of the big goals of this year and the next year.

BRAIKER: You and the pandemic sort of took off at the same time. Not to make light of a pandemic, obviously, but did that help accelerate what you're doing? It sounds like it did.

MOSH: It didn't hurt that a lot of people were at home looking for information. It didn't hurt that people were very confused by what they were seeing, what they're hearing on the news. What I tried to do is like, listen, this is what Fauci said in the briefing. I just watched Trump for an hour so you didn't have to. Here are the three things to take away from it.

I said I'm not going to scare the hell out of you for the sake of ratings. I'm just here, like anybody else, to figure out what the hell is going on, and what we can believe. In this country, in particular, COVID became very political, very quickly. And so people start to block out stories that might pop their bubble. And these are liberals who might see a study that was skeptical of masks, like, “oh, no, that's some COVID denier stuff.” And then you have the other people who are like, “I don't believe anything coming out of hospitals and stats.” They're parroting whatever they're hearing on the right. And I was like, listen, if you want to get a straightforward take, and you want to get a take that sometimes questions your assumptions and questions your politics, come my way. And I found that there was an audience for that. And it grew over time. And then during that time, some celebrities and some people with blue checks started to follow - Joe Jonas, Nick Jonas, Bobby Bones was a great supporter.

So there was COVID initially, and then I saw a huge amount of people coming in during the election. I was trying to break down the craziness that was that election. Then we had January 6th, then the Israeli-Palestinian war, Afghanistan, Ukraine. When these huge crises happen around the world, people are looking for context and understanding of what's going on. And that's where I have found an opportunity to bring that to an ever-growing audience. We started doing "Mondays with Mosh" on Instagram Live where I answer viewer questions. My wife is very patiently behind the scenes, curating questions. We've been doing it weekly for a year and a half now.

BRAIKER: Talk a little bit about the burden of comprehensiveness. You've kind of put yourself in the situation where you have to cover all things. Do you find yourself having to choose your battles?

MOSH: I remember when Black Lives Matter erupted with George Floyd. So that was the first major storyline out of COVID. And I was like, oh my god, can I cover stuff besides COVID on Instagram? Well, I guess I'm doing that now. And so I'm then jumping from COVID to George Floyd. And then I'm coming from George Floyd to the election. And then I'll get DMs from people. 'Hey, why are you ignoring this story? You have some agenda?' And I'm like, No, man, I'm at lunch. Like, I'm out with my nephew at the zoo. That's why I didn't cover that. And it was the moment when RBG died. It was September 2020 and I was at dinner. It was Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and my phone just keeps buzzing in my pocket. And I'm like, what's going on? I start getting these notes. "Hey, man, is this real? Is this real news? We wait for you to cover stuff." And I was like, Oh, this is real.

And, so, I'm doing this by myself, effectively. It’s a matter scaling. Some people, when you build a business, you take outside money. I have not done that. Not yet. That's certainly something I might consider at some point. But at this time, I'm just trying to do it on my own. Also, I'm trying to keep my other business going and trying to have a personal life. It's challenging. I try my best to get to the biggest things happening in the world and to try to be responsive to stories people care about.

BRAIKER: You're from the Chicago area, from Prairie View, Illinois. How was growing up there? What was young Mosh like?

MOSH: So my mom's originally from the area. My dad actually was born and raised in Marrakech, Morocco, and came to this country as an immigrant. So I grew up first generation on my dad's side. My dad's a cabinet maker. My parents had their own business. So I grew up basically in the cabinet shop. Every spring, summer, and winter break was spent learning how to glue formica and painting.

And yet, at the same time, from a very young age, I was always very interested in world maps. I wanted to be a weatherman. When I was in kindergarten, this became a thing for me. I'd go over my grandmother's house in Highland Park, and become obsessed with the World Atlas and memorize world capitals. I wrote letters to the local weatherman at WGN in Chicago. When I was seven, I got to tour the studio and came home with weather maps. My father likes to tell this story. We lived in an apartment above Baskin Robbins in Morton Grove, Illinois. And my dad would give me a quarter or whatever ice cream cost back then. And, instead, I put it in the Chicago Tribune machine, and brought the newspaper back up. So when you ask what young Mosh is like, that's a taste.

In fifth grade, I wanted to start a middle school newspaper. I was always very interested in world events. I remember staying up late election night ‘92 listening on the radio as Bill Clinton gave his winning speech. I'm 10 years old and just had this innate desire to learn about the world, learn about news.

And then I became really into 'West Wing,' and was like, oh, maybe politics is for me. And that's what ended up leading me to go to college in DC at George Washington University. I ended up getting my Masters in Security Policy Studies and International Relations. I looked at some jobs at the State Department and CIA that would take me around the world to do some cool things. And so I was applying to these jobs, but dealing with government bureaucracy was such a pain. I was also working part time at Fox News.

At the same time, Chris Wallace, who was the host of Fox News Sunday, had me fill in one Sunday to be his researcher, and help prep interviews for him. At the time, his guests were, like, Dick Cheney, Condi Rice, Don Rumsfeld. I thought it was incredible. And he asks: do you want a full time job here? This was much simpler and quicker than dealing with the government. Journalism is for me. Yes, I have a master's in security policy and international relations but what better way to apply it than developing questions to grill world leaders?

BRAIKER: People can pick and choose their own media diet that caters to their beliefs and doesn't challenge them. And who's to say you're a gatekeeper that people should trust? Why do we trust you?

MOSH: There are a lot of people who are like, "I follow Mosh because he's unbiased." And I'm, like, I have never called myself unbiased. Everyone has bias. I have biases. I'm an American. I grew up in the Chicago area, I went to school in Washington, at a private university. I live in New York City. We all have inherent biases based on our backgrounds, what we do, how we're educated, our families, our experiences.

But, I try my best to elevate as many things as possible. And I'll own up where I was like, Oh, that turned out to be a bad piece of information. Or, this is another perspective that is legitimate here. I think the thing that's missing from journalism today is that transparency, that admission that we're not all-knowing. And I think that one question you get to, in terms of bias and people differentiating between news and opinion, that line was blurry. And now it's so blurred, especially in the past five years of politics coverage. We live in an era where people are getting information from so many places. In order to stay relevant and keep an audience, places like cable news networks need to do opinion because they want to turn up the heat (and keep an audience).

BRAIKER: What's a day like where you don't have to constantly update your various feeds, you know, some time off? What do you do?

MOSH: Talking about a Friday afternoon, maybe? Friday afternoon in Brooklyn. We like to go exploring. We're big Citi-bikers. Something that I really appreciate about Brooklyn, having lived in Manhattan for more than 10 years, is that there still is this small business culture. Whereas Manhattan, I could walk for blocks and it's literally like Starbucks, Citibank, Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, and so on and so forth. In Brooklyn, here's the shop owner who has the plant shop that also makes coffee. Here's a shop where they still only sell children's toys. That, I love. My wife and I...we're big foodies. So we like to try out as many restaurants as we can.

BRAIKER: I've heard you have a good Brooklyn story.

MOSH: My favorite Brooklyn story. If you've heard of Apartment 4F, the bakery that started during COVID. This couple started literally out of their apartment, 4F. They now have a bake shop. You have to line up early in the morning. Literally, you'll see a line in Brooklyn Heights, of like 20, 30 deep at 7AM of people waiting for a limited supply of baguettes and croissants. So we wake up early and we get a box of croissants. My wife has to ship something at FedEx. We walk into the FedEx at Borough Hall, and lo and behold, my wife is standing behind Paul Rudd.

We learned a couple things. One, Paul Rudd, I didn't know at the time he lived in Brooklyn. Two, he goes to FedEx on his own. I was like, he doesn't have a FedEx guy? Shouldn't Paul Rudd have a guy that does the FedEx for him? So Paul Rudd is there. He needs a box to ship something, and he's going back and forth with the person. You don't want to interrupt celebs. They get interrupted all the time. But my wife is friendly. And she's like, "Hi, Paul. You're Paul Rudd, right?" And then suddenly she's like, "Mosh, get over here." And I have this box of croissants. She goes, "Paul, do you want a croissant?" He's like, "Are you sure? This is like, a highly-coveted thing, Apartment 4F. People stand in line for this." So we served Paul Rudd a croissant at the FedEx in Borough Hall.

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