Rise of the Influencer Journalist with Mo News

Ylan Mui: 0:06

Welcome to this week's episode of what's at State. We're your hosts. Ylan Mui, managing Director at Penta.

Megan Whittemore: 0:11

And I'm Megan Whittemore, Managing Director at Penta. Today, we are joined by my good friend and former colleague, also a former GW, alum Mosh Oinounou, to talk about all things evolving in the media landscape. Mosh and I know each other from our days working at Fox News Channel, where I took on the role of research producer for Fox News Sunday, and Mosh went out on the road as political producer covering the McCain campaign in 2008. He then went on to become one of the youngest media executives at Bloomberg TV and CBS News. In 2020, he launched MoNews, an award-winning social-first news brand that provides news updates and daily analysis to audiences via Instagram, as well as the daily newsletter and podcasts that he hosts. Mosh, welcome to the podcast.

Mosheh Oinounou: 1:03

It is so great to be with you guys, Megan, as we now get to interact, and yet we've interacted. We were colleagues at Fox, then you were on Capitol Hill, I was covering Capitol Hill, and so we've had many iterations over time. So it's great to be with you again and, elan, great to see you as well.

Megan Whittemore: 1:19

So, for people who are listening, let's start with Mo News. What really is Mo News? Tell us a little bit about what it is, why you launched it, how did you come about this? I think people are really interested in kind of the personal story how you got to this point in your career and what should they know about Mo News and what you're doing today.

Mosheh Oinounou: 1:40

Well, you know, as you mentioned, I spent a number of years. I always wanted to be a journalist. I spent a number of years. I always wanted to be a journalist. I spent a number of years at Fox News, went to Bloomberg, spent almost a decade at CBS News the most fun I had at CBS News I was given an opportunity to launch our streaming channels and digital presence there, and this is like more than 10 years ago now, about 2014. And I was trying to stress the merits to the folks back there. Like you know, this Roku and Apple TV this is going to be a thing Like this is where we're going and got some people who were on board and definitely some people who are like you're a cute little internet thing. Good luck with it.

Mosheh Oinounou: 2:15

Well, we know how that all has turned out, but I had a chance after that to go back and run the evening news the 630 broadcast has been around since the Truman administration that Cronkite used to host and found myself in 2018 and 19 telling people you know tune in tonight at 6.30 pm In an era where, like we know, that that's not how news works anymore, and so I ended up doing that for a couple of years and then leaving CBS and really needed a break from the day-to-day grind, and so was looking at potentially going documentaries and I was consulting and would come into spring of 2020. So, after a few months and we know what unfolded there, and my friends and family had always come to rely on me as, like I'm the news guy in the family. What's going on? Is the world ending? Is martial law going to be declared in New York? I mean, we all knew what that period of time was like in March of 2020.

Mosheh Oinounou: 3:03

And it was the first time I wasn't in a newsroom, and so I found the experience of being a news consumer sucked, and so I, in lieu of trying to text back everyone that I knew about what was going on, I was like you know what? Just follow me on Instagram. And I really viewed it as like an exercise I was going to do for who knew how long to help my friends and family. Like, I'll watch Fauci, so you don't have to. I'll watch Trump, so you don't have to, I'll watch Cuomo. I'll break it down.

Mosheh Oinounou: 3:28

Here are the sources that I trust, here are the reporters that I trust on these issues, and so I was doing that in March and in April it was a closed Instagram account, private Instagram account. My wife, or then girlfriend at the time was like you know, people could really like be helped by this, like make it public. I was like sure. And then we get to a thousand, then 2000, then 5,000, then it starts. Celebrities start following me and by the summer of 2020, I'm now a few months into what again wasn't the launch of a business, it was a service to my friends and family and now several thousand people I didn't know at the time and then by the summer of 2020, now the Jonas brothers start following me, like literally like Joe and Nick Jonas.

Ylan Mui: 4:04

I mean, that's how you know. You've made it. Moshe, I mean, when Joe bro is following Mo, you've made it.

Mosheh Oinounou: 4:10

We got two out of three of them. Kevin still hasn't followed me after all these years, but Joe and Nick started following me and they're like DMing me, they're messaging me, they're showing up on my Instagram lives and so I got a message. I mean your point, Ylan. A friend of mine texted me. He's like you know you're stuck right, you're going to keep doing this, and I was doing like 24-7 updates. I mean, you remember that era of like it was initially COVID, then we get into Black Lives Matter and then we're into an election and you know, by that summer I think the realization was this is not a temporary exercise and I'm going to go back to traditional media. This is the thing now. How do I build this up? How do I turn what is a service to my friends and family into a business? And so ultimately, it started as like I'm going to give you a real time updates and analysis into things and aggregate things and over time, has become both an aggregation service analysis. We try to do historical context.

Mosheh Oinounou: 4:59

You know, one really moment I remember when we got a huge amount of following was during the withdrawal from Afghanistan in the summer of 2021. And you know people were like can I ask you something Like who's the Taliban? Again, right, like really you know basic questions that they feel they weren't getting the answers from traditional media. Because we know the limits of traditional media At the evening news, when I run the evening news after you take out commercials, it's 21 minutes. I could do eight stories. Some of those stories are like 60 seconds, like hey, a correspondent in the middle of Gaza. I need you have 60 seconds to explain the issue tonight, literally. I have an extra 20 seconds, I'll give you 80 seconds tonight.

Ylan Mui: 5:40

It feels like a lifetime 80 seconds. I mean. People would. People would crawl over each other for that. I mean, I think what's what's so interesting is that you found an organic audience, which originally was friends and family, but then obviously expanded to celebrities like the Jonas Brothers. What do you think about what you were doing? Really getting there around, maybe not. Maybe not talking down to people, maybe spending more time, maybe being able to explain things at both a basic level and a higher level analysis level. What? What do you think made this work?

Mosheh Oinounou: 6:14

so I think a number of levels. One, uh, that you know people are watching me on their devices in their pocket, right, right, like. I think there's that like intimacy factor there. Two, I was very transparent about what I knew and didn't know. I didn't try, as some of us are prone to in the media, to say, well, let me tell you exactly what happened today. I was like you know what we actually don't know. The answer to that, this is what we do know. This is what this person's saying. They've been reliable on this front, but haven't been reliable on that front. So I think, just like just super transparent about things.

Mosheh Oinounou: 6:51

I think what's also super important on social media is you let people in on your personal life. That's something also that like sitting standing in a suit with a microphone out in front of the White House or whatever, like who is this person? Why should I trust them? There's also something to like the fact that people have come to rely on creators and influencers for advice on home renovations, on lifestyle, on makeup, on a whole variety of things.

Mosheh Oinounou: 7:21

And it was sort of inevitable and we probably, you know, until we saw it we didn't get it, but it really happens during COVID when we start to rely on individuals to give you news. You know, like this is my lifestyle person and I became the person's news news person and like I think a super important thing and I'll add this is it was a two-way street on social media, whereas news feels like they tune in every night. We know you're watching, we see the ratings numbers, but I have no conversation. I have no dialogue with the audience and yet on social media, if I posted something and somebody reacted to it, I would then post their question and answer their questions and I think that interaction was very appealing to folks.

Megan Whittemore: 8:01

Mosh, I was going to ask you to add to that because I know early on you were really focused on user engagement. Like you said, how did you feel, kind of breaking down that wall, not being on the traditional news media side anymore and now you're the personality, you're the influencer, you're the content creator. Talk to us a little bit about how did that work for you personally? How did you approach it? How did you engage with viewers and users following your content?

Mosheh Oinounou: 8:28

Well, I mean, I had a good case of imposter syndrome. Like I was a behind the scenes guy. I was always the guy behind the person, right? Like that's what you do as a producer you make you know, you and I, you know, got our career started, Megan, like making Chris Wallace look good and look really smart and having all the questions and all the research. And so I did that my entire career. I was the person behind the person. I got to produce interviews where I'd go to the correspondent. I'm like all right, we're interviewing the president today, charlie Rose. Like this is what you're going to ask him, this is how he's going to answer it, this is how you follow up, we can make a headline on this, and so I always did that. So to me it was like super weird. Like wait, they want, they want to know what I have to say. I'm not the person, I'm the person behind the person. Now I will again give credit there to my wife, alex, who was like no, no, no, like you're the person, like people like you, and we actually would like.

Mosheh Oinounou: 9:18

Initially, on Instagram I was doing mainly text and I wouldn't put my face on camera and like she's like, if you're going to grow like. People need to know who you are and we would like have it out Like you know. She's like I was right. Right, I was like, yes, you were right. And like, the first time I taped something I think I was trying to do like an explainer on the Supreme court and it probably took like a good hour to do like a two minute thing out first try. You know, so the Malcolm Gladwell rule of like 10,000 attempts, 10,000 hours or whatever you know make it, makes you an expert. But it was weird and then it sort of embraced it and now it's incredible the impact you can have on people. You know, once in a while I get spotted, like in New York and in other cities, to like, hey, are you? I'm like yes, I am. Can I take a selfie? I'm like, oh my God, so uh, it's now you're the celebrity.

Mosheh Oinounou: 10:09

Well, let's, let's, I'll do celebrity with an asterisk.

Ylan Mui: 10:11

You're following yourself Internet celebrity.

Ylan Mui: 10:13

Well, I want to zoom out a little bit because, Megan, you use a term, um, you know, sort of news influencer or content creator that I want to dig a little bit deeper into, especially as it relates to journalism. One of my former colleagues, Liz Kelly Nelson, who now writes a newsletter called Project C, she did this great project in which she tried to sort of break down or categorize the landscape of journalism today, and on one side of the spectrum she had traditional news organizations which we can all name very easily. You know your New York Times, your Wall Street Journal, your Washington Post, your Trad News, I guess as the kids might call it today. But then as you go across the spectrum, you know there are a different number of models.

Ylan Mui: 10:58

So what we used to think of as new media is now feels a little bit more dated, that it's your newsletters, like a semaphore or a puck or a punch bowl, but then you seem to exist in a space that's even beyond that on the spectrum, where there are journalists like yourself who have turned into content creators, and then there are people who are journalism adjacent, who might be what we call news influencers or what they sort of describe in this, in this, in this overview of the landscape, these news influencers who are maybe more personality driven, maybe not traditionally trained journalists, but still, because of the influence they have on social media, they can end up making news even though they themselves did not start out as journalists. And so I'm a little curious about how you think of yourself along this spectrum and if you have been able to define it and sort of what how you see the boundaries of journalism starting to change.

Mosheh Oinounou: 11:58

Yeah, I've been trying to bring some of the approaches, the fact-checking, the analysis, from traditional journalism to the new media space. So I sort of see myself sort of marrying the two, because there's a lot of like digital creators. I think the preference is creators over influencers, but it really depends on who you ask. You know who've come up in this environment with no traditional journalism background but, like they are interested in the news and they're like I'm an independent reporter, I'm an independent journalist, and so I think there's a wide spectrum of folks and some of those people have a very clear agenda. Some of those people are hiding their agenda. Some of those people might be paid by certain people. I mean, it's a wide spectrum of people on YouTube, on Substack, on a variety of these platforms now, where anybody can be their own news creator. You know, and no matter your background, no matter your knowledge or lack of knowledge. You know, what I found remarkable in getting into this space is that I also became a go-to for people who started to feel and this especially was true during beginning with Black lives matter, and now I think it's true for pretty much every issue they would like message me like hey Moshe, like my community is telling me like um, asking me questions about, like, what I think about Israel, Gaza or, you know, BLM. What should I tell them? Like well, and, and it's like they're they work in fashion or they work in whatever, and, but they, you know, we sort of have entered an era now where you feel obligated at times to like, have a viewpoint, and your audience demands it, and so you know they might ask questions. I was like, well, and she's like, why do you know that? I'm like, well, this is what this person has said. This is what this person said, this is what we know about that. Here's the history and context behind that.

Mosheh Oinounou: 13:34

So I've tried to play my role to sort of like steal from the Marines, being like the few, the proud, the like the journalists, like with journalism background in the new media space. But again, try to bring fact checking, verification of headlines, you know, trying to give people fair perspective on things to a space where you don't always see that and there's like this knee jerk to retweet or repost without any sense of like well, do we think that's real? Do we think that, like, maybe that seven second video clip might be out of context? And so what I try to do and this is a bit of what we also try to do at MoNews is bring media literacy both to students but also to adults, to our parents and grandparents. Like what are questions you should be asking about this account? Like do you know this person's background? Do you think they might have an agenda? Until yesterday, were they posting anything about the news? And so that's a bit of what I'm trying to do in the space here.

Ylan Mui: 14:33

Do you think your audience understands that? I mean, do you think that they can distinguish between the few, the proud, the journalists and the? You know, I started my account yesterday and here's a bunch of viral clips.

Mosheh Oinounou: 14:47

I think some can.

Mosheh Oinounou: 14:48

I think our audience at Mo News comes to us because they know our background.

Mosheh Oinounou: 14:56

They've come to rely on us and they're willing to have their political bubble punctured once in a while. And I've seen it over time where, like I thought you were this and you're clearly a raging liberal or you're an apologist for Elon Musk, I'm like, all right, pick your pick, pick whoever I am today, but it's, you know, it's interesting because we live in such partisan time. So I think, for the most part, they've come to rely, you know, on our account. They might send me clips from other accounts being like hey, is this real? And sometimes, by the way, they'll send me like a clip and they're like it's a clip on certain, you know, certain places, and that you also can't paint every organization with one brush, that sometimes there's good reporters and there's not so good reporters and good editors and bad editors and whatnot, and they make mistakes, like everyone else makes mistakes. Not everything is malicious intent. So, you know, I think part of what we're doing beyond covering the news, is also giving folks an education in the media and how the media covers things.

Megan Whittemore: 16:00

Yeah, and to add to the transparency piece that you mentioned, Mosh, how do you also come up? I mean, you come across super authentic because you are who you say. You are right, you are literally trained as a journalist and you know what the news is and you've been in newsrooms. You know how editorial decisions get made and how news gets made. But do you think people are looking for that authenticity? And how should people look at content creators too? Because not all content is created equal right. So how do people really ascertain what you're telling them to be factual and true, and look at something else and really be able to distinguish between those two and look at something else and really be able to distinguish between those two.

Mosheh Oinounou: 16:44

So I think you know, when you look back at kind of internet culture, millennial culture, there was this kind of airbrushed, my perfect life on social media. You know we had filters on Instagram when it launches more than 10 years ago. And then there's this evolution, I would say over the last decade, where it's like you know, tell me, you know, let's be real here Like authenticity is the name of the game.

Ylan Mui: 17:01

And that's literally the name of the app.

Mosheh Oinounou: 17:03

Be real, yeah, exactly Be real, right, like be real, it captures you in a moment. Gen Z this is very true for them. Like they want it raw, they don't trust anything. Nothing is airbrushed. It's like a rejection of kind of again where the millennials were at, you know crew, like where we were, all of us were at like 20 years ago. We're like we are going to give you this perfect Internet, and so I think anything that is not authentic is rejected. And you see this also like it's very interesting, like seeing like corporate apology videos and crisis comms, like if it feels overly scripted, whatever, like it does not play. In fact, it makes your case more challenging. In fact, it makes your case more challenging. So I think that you know that's one of the huge dividing lines between who's going to be successful and who's not going to be successful out there. But I also tell people I mean, getting to the second part of your question, Megan don't just rely on me. People are like oh, you're my news person. I was like no, no, no, no, no, no.

Mosheh Oinounou: 17:57

The way you do news these days, unfortunately, is it takes more work than going to one source, and so I want you to go to multiple places. I want you to get multiple perspectives on things. I am only humanly my team is only humanly capable of covering this many stories a day. We might miss things, and it's not for trying to purposely ignore it, so you don't know that story.

Mosheh Oinounou: 18:17

It's like, literally, I can't. There's too much purposely ignore it so you don't know that story. It's like, literally, I can't, there's too much, there's, I can't even cover everything, given this current administration, that Trump does in a day, like there's just so much happening every day, so it's like, of the 14 things coming to the White House, like let's cover six of those things today, or four of those things, or whatever. So I think getting multiple perspectives is important. I think even getting you know we talk about biased news, yeah, partisan news is good. Like you should get it. You should find out why Republicans think the way they do on this and why Democrats think they would they do on this. I think you know, watching this in some of these immigration, a much better place. And you're like, oh, I sort of expected that, given what I've been seeing covered on MSNBC or seeing the way that Fox News is covering X, y and Z.

Ylan Mui: 19:08

Moshe, I'd like to go back to something you said at the beginning, which is, you know, when you hit sort of a critical mass of followers, you realize, oh, there might be a business here. And I think I want to double click on that, because I think that that's been obviously a big challenge within the news industry, not just or maybe this is a little bit circular, but not just you know how they deliver the news and formatting and sort of the way that they engage with users, but also how do you make money in an increasingly disparate advertising environment. And so I'd love to hear a little bit about your business and how you've been able to build this to be financially stable, hopefully for yourself, and then how you think about potentially scaling it in the future.

Mosheh Oinounou: 19:54

So that was one of the big questions I had was, like, I love doing this. Can I make a business off of this? Can I make a business that'll pay my rent, feed my daughter? Like you know, like literally like, is this enough, or is this like a sort of side thing? And I was consulting at the time a lot, I told you before we got recording here, consulting for a number of networks. I went back to Fox to launch the Fox weather app. I was at CNBC to help launch a show over there and I was like, all right, I can make money in consulting and I'll do this news thing. It's sort of a nice to have.

Mosheh Oinounou: 20:27

And so my initial experiment with monetization was on Patreon, which is a site that was actually created by, I think, guys who were in a band once and they needed financial support because, again, speaking of industries, that has, you know, had been trying to figure it out is the music industry. And so they found that, like, go to the community and be like, hey, we need to put a new album out or we're going to go on a concert tour, like we need money. It's sort of a, you know, Kickstarter, but like for organizations and bands. And so I was. I went, you know, I created a Patreon account and I full-time job for me. Send me some support. And suddenly hundreds of people started donating and becoming monthly members and I was like, oh, there's a thing here, people are willing to pay for something that they like to keep it around. Because I was like this takes a lot of time to do. I need your support. So that was sort of the first use case is like all right, there's a subscriber opportunity here.

Mosheh Oinounou: 21:22

And so over time, I think one of the challenges also doing news on Instagram is monetization is difficult, because what is my content Politics? You know, at the time it was like Roe v Wade abortion, or like some advertisers don't want to be near that content. Advertisers don't want to be near that content While they're okay with it in sort of the traditional setting on, you know, you see commercials on CNN or whatever. New media felt different to them. Now that's evolved over time and it's become much easier and we have some larger sponsors now, including Amazon, audible and Procter Gamble and some, you know, like real, you know, publicly traded companies that are comfortable with this environment. And it was hard initially. So initially, you know, my big push was among subscribers and so over time now we have monetized. We're basically a two thirds, one third split, two thirds subscriber revenue and these are people who pay us monthly, annually.

Mosheh Oinounou: 22:11

I have lifetime members as well for added content. You know, some of them are just there because they want to support independent journalism, sort of like the PBS and PR. Like I just like what you're doing and here's a donation and some people are like well, what are you giving me in exchange for that? And so for that we'll do weekend news coverage, we have an extra podcast, we'll do behind-the-scenes content and a lot of that is like I've moved over a lot of my interaction, video interaction with people over to the paid subscribers. And meanwhile we we built a partnership revenue. We're looking at events as another sort of slice of revenue. Uh, just for fun, we created like merch hats and t-shirts, which is like sort of a side thing. It's not really paying the bills, but it's fine, uh, and so you know, you really have to think and this is also weird as a journalist, like I had to put my business hat on for the first time and think of myself as a business person and like how do I work on marketing and business and, and you know, audience retention and all of this, and I think that's been a big challenge for a lot of folks.

Mosheh Oinounou: 23:05

Heading into the creator space, you have a lot of people leaving traditional media and starting sub stacks, and some have done incredibly well. I mean, you've probably heard the success of like the free press and Barry Weiss, which is done over there and she's the number one sub Substack. She's a former New York Times reporter, and Jim Acosta from CNN recently went over there and it's doing well. And so you see Don Lemon, Megyn Kelly you see it a lot in the partisan space too who've created incredible YouTube and podcast channels. And that's not just traditional journalists, right. I was in a room recently where I was next to Sean Spicer, who's like building his own digital media empire, you know, and he's a guy coming from the RNC, former White House press secretary, and so that's been fascinating to see that space blow up. But it's it is a very robust and evolving environment and it just requires you to constantly be able to pivot because it's fast moving.

Megan Whittemore: 23:58

I want to build on that a little bit. Obviously, at Penta we help a lot of our clients navigate this new media space. So how should we be thinking about engaging with the new media, especially, as you mentioned, some of the corporate partners that you already have? But really, how should companies, policymakers, people who have either news or a story to tell or a brand they want to position, what should they be doing to engage successfully with people like you or some of the other again opportunities to kind of engage in this new media landscape? What's your advice to them?

Mosheh Oinounou: 24:36

I mean. So one thing to keep in mind is that, like, if you're going to reach an audience, you do need to embrace a new media strategy. That going, you know, getting an article in the New York Times or getting a segment of the Today Show is only going to reach a segment of the audience these days you know that was 20 years ago You're like oh my God, we're on A1, the New York Times and we're on with like Matt and Katie on Today. Like we're good, that was amazing. Today it's actually been amazing. We actually had a feature on Mo News in the New York Times and I have to tell you that I was maybe I shouldn't have been shocked the lack of reaction and audience for a New York Times story about us. Versus having done some niche podcasts and YouTubers, we've gotten much more reaction. Just to show you where the audience is, I'll hear from traditional media anchors at various cable networks that we've worked at Megan and that we're familiar with Elan, and they'll send me a segment they did on their network and they're like hey, can you post this on your Instagram page? I'm like you have a TV network you work at. They're like yeah, but all my friends follow your Instagram page and so just to give you a sense of the sign of the times, and so that's my message to brands too, which is, you know, look at the median demo of, like a TV watcher, 65 to 70.

Mosheh Oinounou: 25:49

The median viewer of cable news these days is 70, 70. Half the audience is over the age of 70. Like, 80% of our audience is female. On Instagram, like I have. What was the Today Show 25 to 54 year old female Like they're getting their news on Instagram these days. And on what was the Today Show 25 to 54 year old female. Like they're getting the news on Instagram these days and on TikTok and these new platforms.

Mosheh Oinounou: 26:08

So, number one embrace reality. Number two you got to have a stomach for risk because you have more upside potentially because, like, let's be frank here, taking off my big J journalism hat, you can probably make more demands of a creator and influencer in terms of an interview, things that are off limits. You know, those of us at TV networks are like you can't tell me what to ask, I'm going to ask whatever I'm going to ask and you're going to have an answer for it. Creators, don't follow that model, and so you might be able to get away with more or be able to kind of mold the segment more. At the same time, there's inherent risk because that creator who knows, are they going to end up actually using the segment? Like that's one question. Um, what is in their background?

Mosheh Oinounou: 26:50

Like you need to vet their accounts, uh, and so that requires more homework on your end. Like let's go back a couple years because inevitably you know whatever uh name, the uh media outlet they'll be like. Do you know that, that creator that you went on with back in 2019? Do you know whatever name, the media outlet they'll be like? Do you know that that creator that you went out with back in 2019, do you know what they said about X minority group or what they had? You know what they tweeted? So you got to have a stomach for this stuff and be prepared to say, well, okay, like you know what is your scenario, what is your statement, if they said something controversial or did something controversial X years ago.

Mosheh Oinounou: 27:22

So I think you've got to embrace the reality. You've got to embrace new media. We're seeing it. I mean, we've been invited to the White House several times recently and Capitol Hill. So politicians have realized this. I think a number of businesses have realized this, but you do need to realize that, again, it requires more homework, more research, but can end up reaching younger and by when I mean younger under the 60 audiences, and you can really take interesting slices. You can do an analysis and I imagine you know you guys work on this where you're at Like. If I want to hit people in Wisconsin who are this age group, you can find a social media page or a podcast that appeals to those people, and so it allows you to be much more targeted.

Ylan Mui: 28:06

Mosh, maybe final question for you, if I could ask you to get your crystal ball out and look ahead to the next, maybe just even three to five years. Where do you see journalism and the new media landscape going? Is what you're doing now going to still be considered new media? Will it be yesterday's media by then and there's something else that will evolve or come out of this? What's your take?

Mosheh Oinounou: 28:30

Things are moving quickly. I think you know A we're still really only since whatever the release of ChatGPT, that really went public just over two years ago. Like, the AI thing, I think is the big question mark right now in terms of its role in society, but also its role in journalism. Will it kill journalism or will it save journalism? Right Like, can you, as a local paper that only has two reporters left, like, use AI to churn out more stories by feeding press conferences in and notes in Like? And so I think AI is one key question mark. I think anything related to AI will be sort of and and customization for folks is going to be the cutting edge.

Mosheh Oinounou: 29:07

One thing I have in mind is that, like 10 years ago, I was at Digital and CBS and, like Facebook was the end all be all right. The 2016 election is the Facebook election. Today, the only person I know on Facebook is like my father, who's in his mid-70s. He was like you know, I saw this on Facebook and so inevitably, inevitably we know that this is how these platforms evolve. It's one of the reasons why, like, I'm not putting all my eggs in the Instagram basket, because you know it's this world, we know it's going to be a reality, but, like, the question is when, when? Like Instagram is not cool anymore, right? Instagram is for our parents, and like there's a new thing and that's TikTok. And then there's gonna be something beyond TikTok, right, because then AlphaGen is gonna come up and be like you, Gen-Zers, you guys are so old with your TikTok, we got whatever it is, and so I think three to five years is a lifetime in the digital era, you know. And so I think that one of the things we're focused on I think a lot of creators are is like owning your own content, having your own platforms.

Mosheh Oinounou: 30:09

If Instagram went away tomorrow, I can't get in touch with like 90% of my audience. Now, luckily, I've launched a newsletter and a podcast, but that's always the fear of building your thing and building your content on somebody else's platform. So I'm hopeful that I will remain in the cutting edge. Will I be doing exactly what I'm doing today? Absolutely not. I mean, will I still have a daily podcast? Will I have five podcasts who? Like I don't know, but I do know that, like, like you know, part of my fear is that, like, I haven't built myself up enough on TikTok, and so, like, this year is the year I'm like trying to increase our bandwidth and really build out YouTube and TikTok, because I'm basically trying to ensure I have a beachhead on every major platform, depending on what becomes the go-to.

Ylan Mui: 30:52

Omosh, we are excited to follow your journey across TikTok, Youtube and all five podcasts that you launch in the next few years. So thank you so much for joining us. It was really a wonderful and engaging conversation To our listeners. Thank you for joining us as well. Remember that you can like and subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast. You can follow us on X at PentaGRP and on LinkedIn at PentaGroup. Mo, tell us how we can follow you.

Mosheh Oinounou: 31:18

Just my first name, m-o-s-h-e-h on Instagram. If you just search Mo News M-O space news, you'll find it there. Frankly, if you just head to monews.com, you can sign up for our free newsletter. You can access the podcast. Search Mo News on whatever podcast platform you get. You can follow us on YouTube Again, just if you search Mo News M-O space news. I believe we have now gotten above all Missouri news-based outlets for MO News, so we should come up first for you on Google.

Ylan Mui: 31:45

All right, higher than a postal code. I'm your host, Ylan, and, as always, thanks for listening to What's at Stake.