the media landscape in the process of ongoing and dramatic evolution. So we're going to join the chief executive of Big Cabal Media, Tech Cabal and Zicoco, Tomiwa Aladikomo, the founder and host of TheAnalysis.News, Paul Jay, the editor-in-chief of The Consortium News, Joe Laura, now as they navigate independent media in the digital age. Hi and welcome and thank you for joining us for this session. It's independent media and the digital age. With us today is Paul Jay, he's a journalist and a filmmaker, the founder and host of TheAnalysis.News, a video and audio current affairs interview and commentary show and website. His films won numerous awards at major festivals around the world. He's past chair of the documentary organization of Canada and was the founding chair of the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival. Welcome Paul. Thank you. Also with us is Joe Lauria and Joe Lauria is the editor-in-chief of Consortium News and he's a former UN correspondent for the Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe and numerous other newspapers. He was an investigative reporter for the Sunday Times of London and began his professional career as a stringer for the New York Times. Welcome Joe. Thank you very much. Good to be here. Excellent. Great to have you. I'm going to start just, you know, sort of kick it off talking a little bit about kind of the transition from sort of big established media companies to sort of smaller more independent platforms. Joe, if I can kind of kick it off with you and ask, you know, sort of what that transition's been like and sort of, you know, what your experiences have been, what's the good, what's the bad of that. Okay. I just want to tell you a little bit about Consortium News, if I can, because if we're talking about, if we're talking about independent media, Consortium News rules a very important place in the history of independent media, online in particular. I mean, there's been independent media for centuries, I guess, outside of major, uh, daily newspapers and TV stations and Consortium News was founded in on November 15, 1995 by Robert Parry, who was an investigative reporter, a real one for the AP and later for Newsweek. And at the AP he broke some of the biggest Iran Contra stories in the 80s during the Reagan administration. It was Bob and his partner at the AP who broke the story that named Oliver North, the Marine who was working in the basement of the White House to facilitate these illegal arms transfers and payments to Iran and sending the money on to the Contras in Nicaragua after Congress had cut off that funding and totally unconstitutional act. Major scandal, doesn't get its credit in the list of American scandals, was Iran Contra, Bob, but however, got very fed up with AP because they continuously tried to spike that story. Not a surprise, anybody who's familiar with how a big corporate media works, that they protect normally too often the interests of powerful Americans, they're part of that power. And Bob, they kept telling him to go and interview more people. Finally, they asked him, Kent, Oliver North, just confess. And of course, they had documents and interviews. The article was published inadvertently in Spanish translation on AP Spanish wire, which of course went out to Central America. And at that point, the AP could not do anything but publish it in English. So Bob went on to Newsweek, same kind of thing happened. He was told by a senior newsweek editor not to dig too deep into a story because it's not good for the country. So a good for the leaders of the country. This is not Bob's idea of journalism. It shouldn't be any journalist's idea of journalism to do the bidding of powerful, it's supposed to be just the opposite, to hold them accountable. So he started in 1995, this first independent news website on the World Wide Web. And a little bit of research. It actually came out two months before the New York Times. Website was launched on January 22, 1996, five months before the LA Times. Website in April of 1996, the Wall Street Journal came out on April 29, 1996, just a few weeks later. It seems like Chicago Tribune may have been online a few weeks before Consortium News and salon.com front enough launched five days after Bob started Consortium News. Bob died almost three years ago now in January of 2018. I became editor-in-chief in April 1st of 2018 and I've kept going. His vision for what this site is and essentially non-partisanship is a very major part of this website has been from the beginning where as journalists we should not be pushing an agenda or any sort politically, particularly of any political party. It's quite easy for Consortium News to continue to be non-partisan because we really can't stand either major party, very critical of both major US parties. So it's not a stretch. It's not hard for us to hold back some feelings in either direction. But of course that brings enemies on from both sides and a lot of misunderstanding because people bringing this extraordinary binary thinking now, this beyond hyperpartism. I left the US a year ago. It was unbelievable. But I think since then it's even gotten worse if that was possible. So this this complete breaking down of two camps, which I attribute to back in 96 a year after Bob started about when Fox News began. Murdoch is really central to this extreme partisanship that's so damaging to the United States in particular but other countries too. But when Fox began, they really replaced any semblance of journalism not having an agenda, trying to get to the facts of the story with Republican party propaganda. The problem was it destroyed the ratings of CNN and MSNBC. And they scrambled and a few years later they have become, in my view, partisan, even propagandistic for the Democratic Party. So we've lost us. And this is also any semblance on US television news. Look at the very first day of the broadcast of CNN. You can go on YouTube and find it. They have an extraordinary investigative report for 20 minutes, about 40 fuel gauges on airlines, an interview with Jimmy Carter who was president then, etc. And they had a live report from Israel. They were reporting like newspaper reporters did. That was journalism on TV was possible. It's gone now. It's screaming heads. It's partisanship. It's embarrassing and damaging to the country. Yes. So now what we face with now is this partisanship has led to censorship. I don't like that word. I think it's the C word. I think the C word is overused. People are screaming. For example, we're a publication, not social media. And we have a comment section. Because people have been conditioned to use social media now, a lot of our readers think we are a social media platform that we can't use editorial judgment. Now, we have plenty of people sending in articles to concern news writers. And we might use editorial judgment like every publication to accept some and deny others. We apply the same comments. Big media in New York Times does that you not every comment sent to the Times or Wall Street Journal is used. So but we're attacked for being censored also doing census, which is false. There's a big difference, big discussion, but between editorial judgment and censorship. However, just two weeks ago, YouTube took down one of our videos. We have a webcast called CN Live, which we launched two and a half years ago. And CN Live interviewed Greg Palast, a journalist who's done enormously good work for 20 years now about voter suppression. Now, YouTube was pressured by the Democrats, let's say it openly to take down videos that question the 2020 election that said that Trump got it robbed. Okay, we could argue concern news never said it was robbed. We accepted right from the first night basically that Biden had won that those postal votes came in. So you've never been on the side of saying that this was a stolen election. And it was always and the 60 lawsuits that Trump can't put forward that were rejected is the evidence that you need that every right to do that. But it's failed. They lost the election. We never said that. However, in this video Palace is talking about voter suppression, which is different than voter fraud. Of course, voter suppression being efforts made before the vote to stop mostly minorities from voting to hurt the Democrats because most minorities vote Democrat, the electoral fraud that the Trump's people talking about is very, very rare hardly ever happens to a dead person voting that kind of thing. But YouTube took our video down anyway, they gave us a warning and then without allowing us to even put up another video gave us a strike. And we repealed and they rejected it. The only thing that was in our video was a short opening in one of Palace's films of Trump supporters saying it was elected was stolen. And then immediately we have people saying, Oh, that's not true. It didn't happen. So we were just working as reporters to show people on the Trump side saying something for one minute that was in Palace film, not even ours. So we don't really know why this was shut down. But it was clearly a mistake. And we had a strike against us now. And this is very worrying this. I have to use to see where the censorship now that social media companies do because it's a platform, or is it a publication? I think I can leave it there. We opened up a lot of things to talk a lot of I mean, a lot of really big issues. And some of them are actually quite excited to dig into editorial judgment, deciding what it is that you want to publish the independence of opinion and then tech power, I think definitely there's a lot in there. Paul, if you want to give us a bit of a background about the analysis, the news about you and sort of your position, that'd be great as well. Yeah, I mean, I used to wear various hats documentary filmmaker, which I made films for all the big broadcasters, you know, BBC and A&Es and CBCs and so on. I grew up in Canada, but I'm a dual citizen. So I spent a lot of time living and working in the US. But I used to be executive producer for 10 years of a show on CBC, which was the main current affairs debate show nightly, as I say for a decade called counter spin. And we used to do these shows, for example, in the lead up to the Iraq war, we would have a debate on whether there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and we would have a proper left's and right debate about it, including the Canadian left debating American neocons who couldn't believe such a debate would even take place. But it was clear out of the debates came that there was no evidence of weapons of mass destruction. And then the next night on the Canadian news, never mind American news, there'd be practically no follow up on what happened in the debate. The same thing happened after the invasion of Afghanistan. Canadian national news would be doing stories about should Canadian jeeps have more armor on them in Afghanistan. And we'd be doing a debate on should there be an alliance with warlords if you're pretending to create democracy in Afghanistan. So I got very fed up with the even though I was on mainstream news or mainstream television, very frustrated with the fact that the daily news cycle would never pick up the stuff we were revealing in our show, even though we're on the same network. And then after 10 years, our show, even though we were, I believe the highest rated show on the network, this is CBC's news channel, we got canceled and replaced by a young host who was supposed to increase the youth demographics. In fact, his ratings were less than ours. So I went on and I created something called the Real News Network. I moved to the States. I lived in first in the Washington area, then in Baltimore for almost nine years. And we created a decent, small, modest footprint in the media landscape with independent journalism. And we frames interviews and stories in a way not many others were doing with a consortium and a couple of others were also exceptions. But I actually become quite frustrated with one, how much our voices are still so marginalized, even when I've had enormous, what I think are real breakthrough stories, the mainstream news just completely ignores them, even though I do everything I can to let them know, for example, and I can talk more about it later. But Senator Bob Graham, who was the co-chair of the Joint Congressional Investigation into 9-11 and was the chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said to me in a series of interviews that his investigation into 9-11 came to the conclusion that one, the Saudi government through their ambassador, Prince Bandar, was directly involved in facilitating and supporting the attacks on 9-11. Number two, that Cheney and Bush knew the attacks were coming and deliberately created a culture amongst the American intelligence agencies of not wanting to know what was happening, that this Keystone cops idea that the intelligent agencies weren't simply communicating, and that's why there was such chaos. Senator Graham said that it was a deliberate creation of chaos. Three, that Richard Clark, who was supposed to be the anti-terrorism czar, said on camera that even though all intelligence information was supposed to come to him so there wouldn't be such lack of coordination, Cheney deliberately set up a second channel so everything went to him and not to Clark, and then Cheney sat on the information, and Graham says to me on camera that Cheney and Bush deliberately allowed 9-11 to happen. Now whether you believe any of that or not, the guy is a serious member of the American intelligence community, the senior senator. His story was virtually ignored, and when I had this guy on camera saying this stuff, I sent it to all the major news networks up and down the East Coast, where most of them are, and said you can have it for free. All you got to do is say it came from my organization. That's it. Not a single one took me up on it. I'm frustrated with that. It's not that we didn't have some impact, but in some ways today I'm frustrated with something even more. I left real news. I've created the analysis that gives me more space and time to do the kind of work I want, but I'm very frustrated that it's very difficult to get to the sections of the population that are so befuddled, first of all, by Trumpian stuff and also by corporate Democrat stuff. I'm trying to figure out how do we get to those sections, particularly of the working class, because the issue of distribution is so critical. I think many of our type of sites are creating good content, but we're not getting to those sections of the population. So I'm trying to deal with that. In terms of the analysis, I do a half hour to an hour, mostly video podcast, in-depth interviews, some commentary and reports of my own, and I'm trying to deal with questions just quickly, another example, which I'm happy to get into more in detail. But the events of January 6th on Capitol Hill have been completely obfuscated. It's very clear, I think, that Trump and his acting Secretary of Defense, it seems, I can't be definitive because I don't have subpoena powers, but there's enough evidence out there in the public domain, that former Secretaries of Defense wrote a letter in the Washington Post warning the acting Secretary of Defense not to get the military involved in the outcome of the election. And then the same day, this is all about January 4th, I believe, like two days before the events of the 6th, Admiral Staffordus, who's the former Supreme Commander of NATO, writes a letter in Time Magazine supporting the letter from the 10 former Secretaries of Defense, saying, warning the military not to get involved. And then two days later, and now everybody at this point knows there's a massive crowd coming to Congress two days later. The idea that they didn't have intelligence is nonsense because the Chief of Police of the Capitol Hill Police on January, I guess it's 5th, the day before, asks the Sergeant of Arms of the House and the Senate, and the one at the Senate reports to Mitch McConnell, the House reports to Nancy Pelosi, asks for the National Guard to be brought in and is told no. So clearly there's enough intelligence about what's coming for him to ask for the National Guard. So put all these pieces together and the Financial Times on January 4th actually says, quote, a coup is in progress. There's a day before the 6th or two days before the 6th. So why is no one reporting on this? I mean, frankly, I seem to be the only one going on about this. And of course, I'm accused of having conspiracy theories. But if the Financial Times says there's a coup in progress and now who talks about a coup in progress? Almost nobody.   A whole campaign of lies about weapons of mass destruction. That wasn't a conspiracy. And nobody wants to talk about that either. So we are able still, by we meaning sites like Consortium and the Analysis and a few others, we are able to say these sorts of things and do this kind of reporting. We're not closed down yet, although one of our videos was taken down from YouTube for the exact same reason as Joe's. And then I did a second video when I figured the algorithm had taken down the first one, because like Joe, I'd put a clip of Trump speaking to the audience. And I was using that to show how he incited the audience, his crowd, not to confirm there was a fraud. But I figured the algorithm picked it up. So I did another version with some more information. I took Trump right out of it. So this time they left the video up. But then I tried to advertise on YouTube to promote the video. Not only did they not allow me to advertise that video, they actually banned me from advertising on all of Google forever.  I appealed it twice, turned down. So it does lead to, and I won't get into this too much more, but I think we do need to talk about it. How do institutions like ours start to work together better and more with more clout? Because right now, like when we complain about YouTube and Google, nothing happens. I talked to the guy at ACLU who's in charge of this kind of stuff. And he wrote a letter to Amazon. They haven't even answered them. And they're private companies, they can do as they please. But anyway, the issue of more collaboration amongst sites that do this kind of work, I think, is important. Hi, guys. So thank you very much for that, Paul. I guess let me ask a question. For either of you, do you see some of these alternative positions, some of these independent positions, when there are things that you find independent sites concerned about? Do you ever see them move into the mainstream? And if so, how? So I know you've both identified the issue of sort of pursuing lines of investigation or sort of yeah, lines of investigation that the mainstream or perspectives that the mainstream is missing. Do you ever see where some of these positions jump from the independent sites to the front of a newspaper? And what happens, like what happens to trigger that? Joe, do you want to give it a shot? That's a very good question. And I'm searching my memory. I can't come up with one example of a consortium news story, even going back in the 23 years of Bob Perry was the editor that a story that we broke or that we put a different angle on. I mean, basically what we tried to do is cover stories that the mainstream media is either not covering at all or an angle that they or an angle that they're suppressing, which is why there's a lot of stories that we don't touch because it gets sufficient coverage in corporate media. So that's an extremely good question. And I'm going to have to think some more about that. Other media, it's very possible that that did happen, that it started, whether they gave credit to an alternative media for starting it or not is another question. You could say Matt Drudge, I don't know if I want to go there, but Matt Drudge, of course, who started the Drudge Report and his big first big story, he's not a journalist, he just aggregates, but Newsweek had a story about Monica Lewinsky and the dress that they apparently suppressed for a while. Anyway, someone at Newsweek leaked it to him, it seems, and he put it out there. So that was the big story that as everybody knew, it became the main story in the US leading to an impeachment. That was in that day, at least on an online sort of alternative website. He did that with a story that the Sunday Times of London didn't run. And then it was given to him about a cloning lab. It's a big long story that I'd found in West Virginia. And he put that out. And that became, I got on, you know, Wolf Litz interviewed me and I was going to be on the next day, but it was September 10, 2001. So that was the end of that story. But so those are only two examples I could think of, we're drudged at that, but maybe Paul could think of a where I've got, I've got, I've got two of my things that went mainstream viral, but they're, they're both, I don't know if I could use the word quirky. I guess the first, the first one was I did a, we were, I did a lot of coverage. I think people should really go look at it, but I have the G20 protests in Toronto a few years ago. And, but one of our stories was this cop facing a protester and she's blowing bubbles and the bubbles like soap bubbles and one of them hits him on the shoulder and he threatens to arrest her and nobody can believe it. So that went so viral that even Fox picked it up television and went everywhere around the world on TV. But nobody of course followed up on the actual coverage we were doing of the substance of G20, you know, they arrested a thousand people there literally for no reason. They arrest, I'm quite sure it was done as a training exercise. And that was one of the stories we broke is that they were doing this at various things, including the Democratic Party Convention, the Republican Party conventions where they would do mass arrests. When the only possible rationale for it was to train police on how to do mass arrests. Well, of course, nobody picked up on that. Then the second thing I did, which was went viral was when Julian Assange was arrested, he was carrying my book of interviews I did with Gorvid El. He held it up and that went on television everywhere. The Washington Post interviewed me about it and gave me a decent interview about what the book was about, why Julian might have been holding it up. Practically every other broadcaster newspaper, like if you look up Julian Assange, Paul J. Gorvid El, there's like tens of thousands of media institutions that covered it. Nobody else interviewed me. Nobody else asked me what the book was about. But the only one I know that's kind of in the space we're talking about is maybe the Intercept. Some of their stories do get treated in the mainstream media and get referred to. Not much else. Interesting. So I mean, I'll talk a little bit. I'll give you guys a bit of background on myself because I did not actually do an intro. So my name is Tamiwa and I run a company called Big Cabal Media. We have two publications, one's called Tech Cabal, covering technology in Africa. The other one's called Zicoco and it's kind of youth content and youth publication. And I mean, speaking to this question of sort of seeing stories jump from kind of the edge to the mainstream, we're obviously not in the U.S., so we're not covering U.S. sort of like topics the same way you two are. But I mean, there's a story we did last year in the middle of a series of pretty major protests in Nigeria.  And they had, they actually announced that they were going to do a cyber warfare sort of training. And we saw quite a bit of evidence that at the time they were pushing out all kinds of propaganda to sort of muddy the issue and to confuse what was legitimate protest and what were sort of like, you know, all of this kind of like false information flooding the airwaves. And it's quite interesting because we saw that story get picked up by Google. And, you know, Joe mentioned sort of the way the algorithm kind of decides, or the various algorithms these big tech companies have, make these decisions that are a bit opaque. But sometimes they work against you, sometimes they work for you. But what was interesting was we saw that picked up by Google. And then it started to sort of sit on the front of sort of searches for these protests.  And that was everything, a few names, I think writers might have picked it up. And we saw something by a couple of other sort of like American outlets picked it up as well. And so I got a bit of lift. But I think it is quite interesting in the way and the place I do want to take this conversation to is the way the tech companies have this huge power to amplify stories in to amplify or to take down stories or to take down angles. And Joe talked about sort of some of the censorship that he sees being done by sort of the tech platforms. It's quite an interesting conundrum for me because I clearly see the harm where legitimate conversations being suppressed. But I also see the dangers where these platforms allow certain conversations to be amplified to such an extent that they literally drown any other conversation or they hyper amplify voices like so I think the example Joe gave was you know, everybody who said it wasn't a legitimate election, despite the 60, you know, the so the stop the steel, the stop the steel platforms on Facebook for an example, which are hugely, hugely amplifying all of this like, you know, quite frankly, conspiracy theories and sort of like nonsensical ideas or your Q anons and they're amplifying them to huge, huge, sort of like impacts drowning out any other conversation. Do you see, do you have any concerns about the way technology works, not just in suppressing, but also in amplifying some of these some of these angles? Does that concern you or do you have any thoughts about that? Let's start with you, Paul. Well, I think we have to see what's happening with the big tech companies within the context of what's happening in the society in US, but globally. And that's a process of financialization, which means, you know, the domination of the financial sector and the fascization of most societies, but in the United States to the extreme. There is a real growing fascism. And it's I see it in two forms. One, there's kind of this slower moving one, which is done through the mainstream, including the corporate Democrats. It's not that they're all setting out, you know, to organize fascism. It's a process that takes place when one sector of the elites starts getting such control over the state. Roosevelt called that the definition of fascism when a sector of the corporations control the state. And right now the banks primarily not only control most of government, they actually own almost everything on the stock market. They have what amounts to controlling interest. So you have this kind of fascization taking place. And then then you get a malignant tumor like Trump, which is a more even more overt form of fascism. So the tech companies to the large extent represent this more corporate banking control. They're themselves becoming practically like financial companies and Apple and others are almost more financial companies now than tech companies. They don't like that malignant tumor Trump, especially when he wouldn't peacefully hand over power. That created the potential for such chaos. It wasn't good for business, which is why 90 minutes after the storming of the doors of Congress, the Association of American Manufacturers calls for Pence to invoke the 25th Amendment and remove Trump. I mean, 90 minutes. So obviously they had already planned this ahead of time. Trump became, after being very useful in terms of tax cuts and deregulation, Trump had outlived his purpose and the corporate elites wanted them gone. But this suppression and censorship of these far right conspiracy is becoming a broom to sweep up anything that seems oppositional. And they're using, I don't think it's all algorithm either. I can't tell yet just how deliberate. But I know, for example, when we appealed our advertising ban, some human actually looked at it and turned us down on the appeal. There's a guy's name at the end. I have no idea how senior it is. I also know that the ACLU wrote them and they never replied. But it's a process, not so much a conspiracy, but part of that process is anything that's considered to get at some of the core mythology of the state, like that book that Assange was holding up was called The History of the National Security State, this interview with Gore Vidal. They don't want that kind of stuff talked about. And I've got to say, consortium is one of the places in Perry where one of the ones that really went after some of this core mythology of the Cold War in the state. So I'm sorry, I'm losing track. That's all right. Anyway, let's just have a while. It's very deliberate. It's not just an impersonal algorithm kind of going after things. There is sort of like a deliberate agenda and sort of deliberate sort of and do you see this as a collusion between the tech companies? Well, let me say one thing. I just learned something the other day, which if this is true, that apparently that showing of the Trump video that the algorithm picked up that if you're a news site on YouTube that has more than three, I think it's three million views a month or something. Maybe it's a week. I don't know. There's some level that makes you mainstream. Then the algorithm didn't kick in and they didn't delete videos that had that same clip from Trump because of course they're all reporting on Trump's speech. So they're already making this division between what's legitimate. In other words, if mainstream television or newspaper say something's legitimate to report, then the tech companies will say, okay, that's within the mainstream discourse. So it's okay. And if you're big enough, you're okay. So it's a very broad kind of censorship where the New York Times or CNNs and all this, they get to establish what's truth. And then other people, oh, we're all conspiracy theorists. So you can suppress them one way or the other. I'm sure the algorithms are suppressing our views on YouTube. We were doing tens, 20,000, 50,000 views. And then after this stuff started, all of a sudden our views are down under 10,000. Gotcha. Joe, let me answer your question. You asked whether there's a danger here in certain narratives becoming too big because they're spread and they're damaging narratives, basically. And I think it's a complicated question. I would say in general, yes, there is some kind of danger here, but how to deal with it is not an easy question to answer. What Paul just said is quite interesting. I didn't know that, but it goes to the heart of what I was about to say, which is monopoly is at the core of this issue in both ways. One, the social media companies are too large. There is an antitrust movement in the DOJ to think that they actually charged anybody, but they are investigating YouTube and the other social media companies, I believe, for antitrust violation. So this is the heart of it. If YouTube is a platform for, and I would say this, on political issues, no matter how crazy they are, I think it's really dangerous to shut it down. But when you get to science and health issues, which should be nonpartisan, should not be political like the virus. I have a big question whether social media should allow groups that say the virus is a hoax, that it's only a flu, et cetera, and then not allow scientists, which should be nonpolitical, that's a different issue than political speech. But even then, there's a problem. So if you break up, A, the big social media companies, they may not have that wide scope that you said and be able to spread that everywhere, and B, if you break up the monopoly, basically the corporate media, there's only six major corporations that own all the newspapers, all the major TV stations, and they, as Paul just pointed out, they get a pass if they're over three million viewers a week or whatever, and they can report Trump saying something, even though we weren't supporting it, and Paul wasn't supporting it, whereas our videos were taken down. That's really damaging, and I did not know that, and I thank Paul for letting us know about that, because that also shows the monopoly that major media has, and I think that they find, as Glenn Greenwald pointed out in his extremely good writings on this, that they're threatened by independent media, particularly good independent media like Paul Jay's Real News Network, and now his analysis, Consortium News, and a few others that have ex journalists like myself and Paul, who had a lot of time inside the mainstream, and we know how to do this job, I'm not saying that anybody would declare themselves a journalist, can't do good journalists that work, but you know every citizen journalist is not really good at it, just because you declare yourself one, but so if you took the, if you also examined the monopoly of corporate media, where they, I think, as Greenwald said, are threatened by independent media, they want to have control of the narrative and the eyeballs and the advertising, and they don't want to share this, and now all of a sudden everybody with a camera and a motive can set themselves up, and some of them do really good work without any background in journals like Paul or I had, so I think this is also a threat to the business of corporate, big corporate media, and it's clearly to social media, now people say, well YouTube let you publish that for free, well they're getting our content for free, and they're making money off of that content, so if they, they should be broken up, we have to look really closely at breaking up the big monopoly of social media and corporate media, that that's the heart of some of this, some of these issues. I mean I agree with both of you, I mean, and I particularly like this point about sort of the idea of monopoly being at the heart of this, I mean there's been a large wave of deregulation and a reducing in the, the regulation of, I mean even traditional media platforms from TV to the radio stations, which led to pretty massive consolidation across the US, and we saw sort of the impact that had on the diversity of voices. I guess as somebody who covers the technology industry, I do have the concern of how sort of this technology platforms determine what are good independent voices and what are bad independent voices, and there is a, like you said Joe, there are a number of people who, you know, anyone can declare themselves a journalist to these days, anyone can declare themselves a publisher, start their own site, and you do wonder sort of like how as a society we judge those signals and decide which of them, you know, have people really doing the hard work and relying on facts versus which are sort of more people shouting into the echo chamber, whatever it is that, you know, conspiracies they've sort of like come up with or whatever sort of agendas it is that they have. So that can be again, that's one of those places where it does feel like the answers aren't super clear cut. And I think it's a murky future. I'm quite curious to see how this sort of breakup of the big social media companies or the big technology companies, how it happens if it does happen. And I guess I am concerned about sort of what happens in the wake of it, you know, technology is an interesting space. And these guys, I mean, one of the arguments that Facebook makes often is that in order to kind of like provide, in order to provide the kind of moderation that's required to make sure the bad actors aren't taking over the place you need to the kind of scale that they have, which is obviously a very self serving argument. But it does make you wonder at the point where there's six or seven companies, if you break Facebook into six or seven companies, do they all suddenly become better actors because they're six or seven companies? Or, you know, do you just have six or seven people to chase to see six or seven companies to chase to see if they'll be better? I don't those aren't answers. Those are questions more than anything. If you don't mind, I just want to add something. First of all, the fact that big corporate media protects powerful interests and institutions rather than challenge them, which journalism should do spawns the speculation that can go off the rails into some crazy theories that if corporate media were doing their job, there wouldn't be a maybe this space to fill. And number two, well, I forgot the second point. So I'll let Paul go. I think breaking up the big monopolies, it's a good thing, but it's not a panacea by any means. And I think you make a good point. You could have six Facebook's all with this, you know, more or less, it's the commercial imperative that drives them and their elite ideology, of course. But why wouldn't you just have six Facebook's similarly? So I'm for breaking them up, but we shouldn't over-expect or exaggerate what would come of it. I think, first of all, while I think the suppression of certain things is not a bad thing in itself, it is a bad thing in terms of the overall consequences. And by suppressing some of the crazy conspiracies about the elections or the vaccine and using then that as a way and excuse to suppress all kinds of things that shouldn't be suppressed is actually more dangerous, because I think the far-right crap is going to find a way to get to its audience no matter what. I don't think you're really preventing it from being distributed. What you are doing is what's happening to Joe and our thing. So I actually don't think, for what it's worth, the First Amendment should apply on these platforms. The fact they're privately owned too bad, then if the excuse is they're privately owned, then make them publicly owned. And maybe that is the bigger real solution is that there needs to be a platform that's essentially a public utility that has some kind of democratic process of control. And maybe if it's a product of a real democratic process, some things could be suppressed. On the other hand, there's already laws that exist that even within a public platform, like you're not supposed to libel and slander people.  There's already laws about that.  The second and bigger question America has to face, and probably other countries do, but let's talk about the U.S., why do so many people believe the bullshit? Why do 74 million people vote for Trump? Why do millions and millions of people, including nurses, don't want to take vaccines? I was seeing this crazy story, 20, 30% of nurses are refusing to take vaccines. The anti-scientific mood in much of the country and the incredible urban rural division in America, the educational system, it's like two countries. My kids went to school in Baltimore and Brooklyn, in both of their schools. They actually learned about what the civil rights movement was. I talked to both teachers and I had little kids, my kids are only eight now, so when they were seven and six, I refused to let them stand for the Pledge of Allegiance. I went to the teachers, I said, I don't want my kids saying the Pledge of Allegiance. It's BS. I couldn't even finish my sentence because both teachers agreed with me. I don't think that's happened in rural Texas and rural Iowa or wherever. You got two different countries that exist and the corporate Democrats and the urban elites have just ignored rural America.  The more important question is if people can believe QAnon in such crazy numbers, that is the breeding ground for such a fascist culture. Us who have lived in cities, I can't say I'm so different. I mean, when's the last time I went into rural America or rural Canada? I haven't, not really and I'm planning to now, but the urban populations, if they don't wake up about what's happening in rural America, because of this stupid election system where every state gets two senators and because of the gerrymandering at the state level, how many Republicans control legislature is not that it's so much better when Democrats do, but it's a little bit better. We better figure out how to talk to rural America, rural working class and understand the psychology, the culture, so we can really get breakthrough to people and by we now I'm talking as journalists, I have to say I do have an agenda in the sense my agenda is we better have real change and fight this growing fascism and so we got to figure out how to do this. Gotcha. Guys, we're going to have to pull this to an end. It's been a fascinating conversation and I think there's quite a bit that we could kind of go on about. It's an interesting and difficult time that we're in with a lot of change. I am encouraged to see sort of independent thinkers and independent journalists, sort of doing the work and thinking about and chasing the stories about the way the world is and I think we all need to continue to do that work. I think there's a lot that we need to do to get smarter about sort of working with the digital platforms and the big tech platforms, understanding the algorithms so we can get our messages through and continue to pressure sort of government in terms of our governments, whether it's US, Canada, Nigeria, in terms of ensuring that the rules they are making around these platforms sort of like increase the spread of sort of opinions allow sort of voices to cut through. I think the fascism conversation is really quite interesting and we do have to think quite deeply about what it is about our current moment. What kind of alienation it is that's allowing so many people to sort of run up on so many frankly boneheaded sort of opinions or maybe it's just the latent thing in humanity. It's like we do like, you know, we humans do have a huge capacity for believing all kinds of nonsense and I think always have had some of that capacity. But I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to join us today. I want to thank you Paul and Joe for your comments and have a great day. Enjoy the rest of the conference everybody.


Welcome to The Journey. Today we're going to talk about which e-commerce KPIs you should focus on. Launch your e-commerce business. Most of your time and your resources will go into setting up the site and facilitating orders. However, as you get more comfortable, which you will, you'll want to start focusing on how to optimize and improve your e-commerce store. And that is where e-commerce KPIs come into play. And when considering what e-commerce KPIs to measure, don't get too distracted by the vanity metrics that only serve to make sure that your website looks good. Let's go through our top five key performance indicators that you should be focusing on, starting off with average order value. So this average order value or AOV really provides information on the typical amount of money that a customer spends every time they visit your website. So it's important in e-commerce KPIs to track because it could be manipulated by your marketing efforts. For example, a survey by the National Retail Federation found that 75% of consumers expect shipping to be free on orders below $50. This means that shoppers might bounce they have to pay for shipping and by setting a free shipping threshold for say $35, $50 or $100 depending on your average order, you can encourage customers to spend more. And if your average order value is say $85, you can set free shipping threshold to $100. This is going to encourage most customers to want to spend the extra $15 in order to save money with the free shipping. I save so much money, I'm broke. Another KPI that you want to focus on, cart abandonment, right? And I actually have an interesting story that happened to me recently. I was going to purchase a t-shirt and a new hat because you know, protect your skin from the sun. And I decided, oh, I shouldn't spend money right now. And so I was about to abandon my cart. And this website must have been doing the strategy of exit intent discount because as I started to leave, they were basically like, there was this pop up and it's like leaving already. And I'm thinking, yeah, but then they offered me a discount free shipping if I continued with my order on the items that I had in the cart. So again, that was a really cool strategy that they did. But basically the cart abandonment rate, it tracks the percent of people who add items to their carts without completing the purchase. And this number varies by website and also varies by industry, but the universal average for 2020 is 69.57%. So about 70%. And this means that after all of your efforts to bring people to your website and promote your products, nearly 70% of people who add items, they're not going to buy them. That's alarming, right? So cart abandonment can shed light on issues that are in your e-commerce business, right? Such as a long convoluted checkout process. I know that always deters me from going further. It's like, I'm just ready to purchase and I'm on yet again, another page, I'm going to lose patience. And generally, most e-commerce experts suggest keeping the checkout process as streamlined as possible, including but not limited to allowing guest checkouts. Another personal favorite. I don't want to sign up for an account. I just want to buy this t-shirt and hat. Another way to streamline it is to automatically use the same address for billing and shipping and adding one click pay options like PayPal or Amazon Pay. I absolutely love the exit intents. It's not obtrusive.  It's too early. Those exit intents, in my opinion, are the best way to go if you are going to do a pop-up on your website. Another KPI you want to focus on is your conversion rate. So along with tracking those abandonment rates, you'll definitely want to look at this. This is the total number of people who purchase versus the total number of people who have the opportunity to purchase. It's basically people that visit your website. This percentage can indicate a few takeaways such as whether you're attracting the right audience, whether you have technical issues with your site, and if you need to optimize your pages better. From a high level, you can look at your conversion rate out of everyone who lands on your site or drill down to a specific product page. So every time someone goes to your cool hat page on or whatever you're selling on your website versus how many times people are actually clicking that add to cart button. Another great KPI cost per acquisition. A successful e-commerce business will balance sales with their operational costs. So the price of materials, manufacturing, and marketing efforts will take away from the profits from your site. Makes sense, right? And at the highest level, you want to take your total marketing cost for the month and then divide it by the number of sales over the same period.  And CPA is an e-commerce KPI that is often broken down by marketing channels. So let's say, for example, you're curious about making a marketing investment in Twitter versus Instagram. Which one, right? Well, then you should look at the CPA. And our last KPI that you'll want to focus on, especially as you start growing as an e-commerce business, is customer lifetime value. The easiest way to track this metric is to take your average order value and multiply it by the number of customer visits per year and their average time spent with your company. So every company has its own unique customer lifetime value. Bookstores and clothing retailers might get visitors monthly while a car dealership only might see their customer once a decade. But that customer lifetime value will help when tracking your cost per acquisition. And at first, it might not seem profitable for that coffee shop to spend $30 to get a $7 customer.   I feel like every time I see Nealey, he's holding a coffee cup. But anyways, once you have an idea for which e-commerce KPIs are the most important to monitor the health of your site, simply develop a process to check them regularly. Don't forget about this. And some companies accomplish this through Google Analytics reports and develop their own reporting tools that provide Windows into the information that they need. So test different views so you can get the most value from your data. And remember, tracking and measuring e-commerce KPIs is just the first step. Now you need to start setting goals. But hey, your journey isn't over. We have over 200 episodes to help you with your small business. Be sure to like, comment, subscribe. This is The Journey. We'll see you next time.


Hey, hello, everybody. This is Andrew from Hibachi Talk, one of our Think Tech Hawaii shows. And let me tell you why Think Tech's important to me. It's because I get to share information with the community that they wouldn't otherwise get their hands on. And it's important to the community because they get to get information from us that I don't think they'd come across anywhere else. Let me tell you, for the first time, Think Tech Hawaii is participating in an online web-based fundraising campaign. We're trying to raise about $40,000 in a Give Thanks to Think Tech effort. It's going to run only during the month of November and you can help. Please donate what you can so Think Tech Hawaii can continue to raise public awareness and promote civic engagement through free programming like Hibachi Talk. I've already made my donation and I really look forward to yours. So please send in your tax deductible contribution now to the website. It's Thanks4ThinkTechCausevox.com. That's Thanks4ThinkTech.Causevox.com. On behalf of the community enriched by Think Tech Hawaii's 30-plus weekly shows, mahalo for your generosity.


I've spent a lot of time playing computer games, video games, which when I look back on those many hours, when I was in those hours it really seemed like the most fun thing. I was absorbed, I was dedicated, I was immersed, I was putting all my energies into achieving some task and then I would be rewarded when I achieved it. But then looking back at that time, it's very easy to see that as being mostly a waste of time. I don't dismiss all entertainment and leisure activities as being entirely a waste, there's a value, but when I look at the number of hours, the whole days sometimes that I spent absorbed in some imaginary project, it really is like clouds, it's like building dreams on puffs of air that then disappear. All the worlds I conquered and the castles I built and the stories that I lived and it's all in this imaginary ether that adds nothing or a very small amount relative to the time it takes, it adds a very thin reward to my real life. And this is one of the biggest escapist vices which I thankfully am no longer engaged in, but I do sometimes feel this pull to dive back into a game and I don't rule it out that I will never play again, I might dive into a little hole for a day or two at some point and just allow myself to have that escape, but it's a very dangerous hole because it's just consumed so much time. And looking back, I'm amazed that I had that much time and now I can't so easily find such time and wish that perhaps I had used some of that time differently. So what is it about this pull? There's something about it that's calling me and when I think about the call to dive into a game, I think one of the things that was very attractive about the game is the way that it simplifies everything. A game is a system of challenges and rewards which is very pleasant to engage in. We work and struggle through the challenges and then receive the rewards. The challenges are relatively easy since don't have to leave the computer or the TV and the rewards are similarly small. It's all just blinking lights and the way the lights line up makes us happy. But there's something about that that is very appealing. This kind of simple cartoonish, bright, clear, colorful. There's something that I find that it calls out to me, it's like real life is so much the opposite of that where so much in the real world is awkward, undefined, unclear. Challenges are unclear, rewards are often unclear and especially delayed. Whereas in a game you can have these nice colorful clear buttons and you press some buttons, you make some choices, you move around in this colored cartoon world and then you get the flashing lights and the colorful badges that tell you what you have achieved. It's very orderly too, it's a closed system where the game is designed with only certain variables, only certain factors are included and everything else is out of the picture and I can simply focus on this limited set of clearly defined factors. Whereas in real life there is really no limit on all the variables that could be involved. We can learn to focus on the core factors but there's still so much always noise and there's imperfections and variations and so I find that call to simplicity and clarity seems to be part of what attracts me to that world. So sometimes I like to think of how I can possibly apply that to real life. Of course real life is always going to be much more difficult to do anything than pushing buttons and it's never going to be as fun and exciting to do regular mundane things as it is to participate in the high dramatic action of a game and the rewards are not congratulations you have conquered the world, it's small gains but what makes all the difference is that of course real world the rewards are real and it's that simple fact alone that makes everything. The video game world is a world of imaginary rewards that evaporate at the end of the day or as soon as I leave the world of the game but the game of the real world is a game that never ends as long as I'm here they may be small wins today, it may be comparable to a very boring video game where you slowly do mundane tasks and get unclear delayed rewards but what we do get is real.


The story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent. Fatima cigarettes, best of all long cigarettes, brings you dragnet. Detective Sergeant, you're assigned to homicide detail. A young woman has been murdered. The body was discovered behind locked doors. The assassin is still at large. Your job, find him. If you want a long cigarette, smoke the best of long cigarettes. Smoke Fatima. Fatima is the long cigarette which contains the finest Turkish and domestic tobaccos superbly blended to make Fatima extra mild. And that's why Fatima has a much different, much better flavor and aroma than any other long cigarette. That's why Fatima is doubling and redoubling its smokers. So if you want a long cigarette, smoke the best of all long cigarettes. Smoke Fatima. The documented drama of an actual crime. For the next 30 minutes in cooperation with the Los Angeles Police Department, you will travel step by step on the side of the law through an actual case from official police files. From beginning to end, from crime to punishment, dragnet is the story of your police force in action. It was Tuesday, January 9th, the stormy in Los Angeles. We were working a day watch out of homicide detail. My partner's Ben Romero. My name's Friday. I was on the way to work and it was 6.45 a.m. when I got to the steps of the city hall, the main street entrance. Hey Joe, wait up. Morning, Ben. When did they call you? 5 a.m. Donahoe called you here. Measurable outing. Pretty wet. See the transfer there? Yeah. New chief of detect? Wait a minute. I want to get some gum. Pack of spare men. Well, I don't mind the new chief. Bad brown. Good man. Peace gum. Okay. Now, we said make up some minds, but our shift.  Work nights, they call you back days. Why don't you put in for a desk job?  You're here all the time. Now, you just hide the police. Here we are. Thanks again. It's a great way to start off as your new chief.  I'm glad you got the job then. Yeah, congratulations, chief. It's hard to follow men like Ed Backstran. I'm going to need your help. You got it. Here's why I called you back. Laura Barclay, with the dead body, report nightclub entertainer. Landlady found the body an hour ago. Who's covering? Burton and Anderson. They're out there now. Strangled, huh? Well, the lamp cored. Still trying to figure out how the guy got in the house. Stores and windows all locked. Yeah. The tact. Is that the motive? For now, yeah. I just came from there. I think there's more. Any reason? A room wasn't proud. Yeah? Just a hunch. Play it for me. Ben and I left that Brown's office, picked up Lieutenant Lee Jones at the crime lab and drove to the West Adams District, number 16 Imperial Place, where the body of Laura Barclay had been found. It was an ornate frame structure done in Victorian style at least 30 to 40 years old. Number 16 was on the ground floor. We went in. A narrow hallway led to the bedroom in the rear of the house. Two gas jet fixtures, which had been converted to electricity were the only illumination. This place has seen better day. Anybody else coming out, Lee? I see flash bulbs down there. They must be here already. Lieutenant. Righty. Down this way. Hi, Burton. Hi. The target was covering the body position. Peterson's dusting for Prince. Fred, shoot a couple of overheads. Don't make them all angle shots. Get up high, then move in close. That cheap was right. Room's in pretty good order. Did you talk to anybody, Burton? Landlady lives upstairs. Only two people living in the building. Mm-hmm. Does she tell you anything? Said the Barclay girl paid her rent on time. Good tenant. Plays the organ at the Blue Fox cocktail lounge. Any idea how the murderer got in here? Not yet. Every door and window in the place is locked. Anything else? That's it so far. We'll give you 15.7 on what we got. Okay, Lord. You and Anderson have another detail? Yeah, I'm working on that Westwood thing. Two uniform men outside if you want anything. Right, thanks. Looks like a tough one, Joe. Whoever did it must have come in through the keyhole. See you later. Slowly. Andy. Peterson's dusting for Prince. Nothing yet. The only piece of physical evidence so far, the lamp cord she was strangled with. I'll run it through downtown. Not a sign of a struggle. Maybe she wanted to die. Check the bathroom, will you, Ben? I'll look around the kitchen. Pete, have you dusted the lamp? Not yet. Ben, come here a minute, will you? Ben. Yeah? Come in the kitchen, will you? You got a pencil? Oh, yeah. Yeah, here you are.  Let me see. About eight feet to the ground. Yeah, big enough for a man to get through. No problem. Lee. I'll be right there. It could be the answer, Joe. He either got in this way or he was in the house when she came home. What do you got?  What do you think? Could be. Let me grab a kit. Let's see. A little bit of powder. Got it. Nothing on the outside of the lid. Look pretty clean. My suggestion's been scrubbed. Abrasion's here. Got a pencil? Yeah, yeah, okay. Hold it up there, will you? Yeah. There we go. Large prints. Unusually large. Big hands. Can I look inside the shoot a minute, Lee? Go ahead. Watch out the lid. Looks like it's blocked off upstairs. This thing hasn't been used for garbage for some time. Most of them were condemned a few years back. I'll get Fred to shoot these. Let's go in the living room. That desk been dusted, Lee? Yeah, it's clean. Go ahead. Take a look, Joe. Photographs. Hmm. Wonders of all men. Yeah, all different. Lee Jones and the crime lab grew finished up and went back to Central Division. Two uniformed officers remained on duty at the scene of the crime. Thad Brown had men sent out to canvas the neighborhood. Ben and I went upstairs and talked with a landlady, a Mrs. Emma Smith. Yes? Police officers. You Miss Smith? Yes. You're not the same officers I talked with before. No, ma'am. I wonder if we could ask you a few questions. I told the other officers everything I knew. We have to double check, Miss Smith. Who was the girl who lived in the apartment below, number 16? Laura Barclay. Is that the name she used? A mail she received. Was it addressed that way? Yes, it was. She was a very good tenant, Laura. No trouble with her at all. When did she move here? Oh, about four or five years ago. I have the rent receipts. I always save receipts. Did she always live by herself? Oh, yes. That apartment rents to one person only. Did she have many visitors, friends dropping in? None that I ever saw. Pretty much to herself, Laura. The men came yesterday and took it away. What's that, ma'am? The organ. Electric one. Laura rented it from a big downtown firm. Used to practice all the time. My night was beautiful. Yeah. In the glowing. She used to play that for me. Mrs. Smith, when did the men come and take the organ away? Yesterday, in the afternoon, about 4.30. Was Miss Barclay at home when they came? No, she wasn't. She left me a note to let the men, so I let the men. I never allow anyone in the apartment without a note. You know the name of the company where she went to the organ? Braziers. It was called down on South Spree. Didn't you think it was unusual that Miss Barclay didn't have any friends? Now, officer, I didn't say Laura didn't have any friends. What I said was that she didn't have any friends who came to see her here. She moved here from a hotel for women. That's the reference she gave me. I see. I wonder if you could give us the address of that hotel, please. I'll write it down for you. Thank you. Miss Smith, did you hear any unusual sounds in Miss Barclay's flat last night? Anything out of the ordinary? If I had, I would have called the police and we'd have saved a girl's life. Well, thank you very much, Miss Smith. Here's a corn. If there's anything you think of after we've gone, don't hesitate to call us. Thank you, I will. I hope you get the dirty men who killed Laura. We didn't say it was a man, Miss Smith. Well, isn't it always a man? Before we met Mrs. Emma Smith, we asked her about the garbage shoot. She said it had not been in use for the last four years. We showed her the stack of photos. She could identify none of them. We drove back to Central Division. We checked Brazier's music store. The two men who moved to Oregon were checked out and cleared. We went to the Wynn Hotel for young ladies. They could tell us nothing. Laura Barclay's references were all good. We went back to the office and met with Chief of Detective Stad Brown.  Into where it looks, Chief. We went all over the apartment. If there's another way, we haven't found it. All right, you know, he got in. Who is he? We got out on APB and his MO. Late in fingerprints and making a run on those prints we found. We've got an idea about these pictures here. Most of them theatrical still, show people. Frank Lattour and his Canine Circus. To Laura, all my love, Frank. Tell me what you do. Here's a guy I checked with this morning. Bernard Carubian. Theatrical Booking Agent, huh? Yeah, Barney's office is down in the Orpheum building, 8th and Hill. He booked her into the Blue Fox. See what he can tell you. All right, I'll grab the pictures. Well, you got more than you started with. Those fingerprints. We'll get a make on them. We'll be close to the guy. So was the Barclay girl, but he got away. I wonder if we could see Mr. Carubian. Who's calling, please? Sergeant Romero and Sergeant Friday, police officers. One moment, please. Two police officers to see Mr. Carubian. Sergeant Friday and Sergeant Romero. Is that right? Yes, ma'am. Seven minutes. Go right in. Thank you. I help you. I understand that you booked Laura Barclay. Yeah, that's right. I spoke with her. Got his name right here. Chief Stathbrown? That's right. He asked me about Laura. Too bad about that. Any clues? We're working on it, Mr. Carubian. What makes a person pull a stunt like that? Laura didn't have no enemies. She had one. Well, I don't know much about her, except I've been booking her for about four years. Good organist. Pretty far boys, too. Got some pictures here. I wonder if you could take a look at them. Yeah, sure. Quite a stack. Yeah, old Frankie Latour and them dogs. Great act. I book them. Ricky Rogan, King of the Tap. Gus Sorinoco, and that same seal of his. Well, yeah, I know all these people. I book them all. Did Laura Barclay work with all these people? One time or another, yeah. During the war, USO camp shows, you know. Do you know whether she was close to any of them? Well, come to think of it, she was. That Frankie Latour, crazy about them dogs of his. No, I mean the men themselves. Anybody that she seemed particularly interested in. Never heard of mention anybody. Pretty girl. Did you know her very well, Mr. Carubian? Only when she came in and out of town on an engagement. I'm a married man. Well, when you don't think there's anything to these pictures here of hers, huh? Well, I wouldn't say so. When you're on the road, you always collect photos of the people you work with. Souvenirs. Well, thank you very much, Mr. Carubian. Here's our card. You betcha. I sure hope you catch the guy. I wonder why he picked on Laura. Sometimes they don't have a reason. When we left Bernard Carubian's office, we checked by the Blue Fox cocktail lounge. It was still early. The sign said open 5 p.m. It was 3.15. We went to the morgue in the basement of the Hall of Justice and looked at the coroner's report. The autopsy report stated that the cause of death for Laura Barclay was strangulation. We went to the second floor of the Old City Jail Building, the crime lab. Nothing on the lamp con. Standard URL, 110 line, about anywhere. No prints. How about the shoot link? We went back there and rechecked. You were right. The guy got in through the garbage shoot. Found more of the same prints along with some clothed impressions in the dust. Tell you anything? The guy was wearing some kind of tweed, Donegal, 15 to the inch. How about the size of a man, Lee? How big could he be to clear that shoot? It had a 20-inch diameter. Almost any man could squeeze through that. Checked the ground level of the shoot. Cement. No footprints. You don't have too much for it. I got one thing for you. What's that? I think I found your motive. It's listed on the report. Here are the blow-ups of the body. It's 36 by 54 here. Hold that in, will you, man? No, I haven't. Look through this magnifying glass here. The right hand. See where I'm pointing? Ring finger, yeah. Looks like ring marks. That's right. Pretty wide. Must have been good side rings. I might still be in that room. I called that brown. He had the room rechecked. No sign. We got a burglary body on our hand. That's my guess. Dad had the boys checked with the landlady. She didn't know anything about any rings the Barclay girl might have had. That doesn't help. I think I got something else here. A library book, Harry. The cards in one of the pockets inside checked out from the L.A. Public Library main branch. I think these might be your lead on the missing rings. A librarian sees a person's hands every time they check out a book. That makes sense, Lee. We'll play it that way. What department where the books checked out a music room? Well, that's it. I think you've got your motive now and a good set of prints. You're closed. Thanks a lot, Lee. Let's go to the library, Ben. I'll get it. Crime lab. No, this is Friday. Oh. Thanks, Frank. Well, we got some motive. How do you mean? No make on those fingerprints. Nothing. You are listening to Dragnet for the solution to an actual case from official police files. Now here is a real solution to many of your Christmas shopping problems. If your friends smoke a long cigarette, give the best of all long cigarettes. Fatima. Give Fatima for quality. The name Fatima has always stood for the best in cigarette quality. Give Fatima for flavor. Fatima has a much different, much better flavor and aroma than any other long cigarette. Give Fatima their extra mild. Yes, Fatima is the long cigarette which contains the finest Turkish and domestic tobaccos superbly blended to make Fatima extra mild. Yes, extra mild. So give Fatima for Christmas in the attractive golden yellow carton. It's the long cigarette that has doubled and redoubled its smokers. Yes, more and more smokers every day agree, Fatima is the best of all long cigarettes. 4.30 p.m. Tuesday, January 9th. Heavy rain. Laura Barclay's murderer was still a free man.  He had no previous record. His first crime, as far as we knew, was a killing and the odds were all in his favor. The fingerprints gave us nothing. All we had left to lead us to the killer were three library books and a stack of old theatrical photos. The solution of most crimes for the working detectives is method and persistence. When you have clues, you work with them. When you don't, you work your way to a logical conclusion as best you can. We went to the Los Angeles Public Library, the main branch. The librarians in the music room handled thousands of readers every week. None of them remembered Laura Barclay. We drove over to the Blue Fox cocktail lounge. We interviewed the manager and he knew nothing of her personal life. We talked to Harry Schumann, about Laura Barclay's place. What would you like to hear, fellas? Police officers, I'd like to talk to you a minute. About Laura, huh? Yeah, try it. All right, if I keep on playing, the manager wants full 15-minute sets. Go ahead, that's all right. What can I tell you? How long have you known Miss Barclay? Oh, four or five years. It's a terrible thing. You gotta get whoever did it. Do you think of anybody that might have killed her? I know you ask that question of everybody. I don't know. Does anybody ever know for sure? Sometimes. Well, I don't know. When you think of a person, you never think who might murder him. Maybe you might know a few things about her that you could fill us in on. I'll try. She went for jewelry much, rings, things like that. Funny you should ask that. She was nuts for it. Good things. Rings? Diamonds, they were big stones. It cost 4,000. I know she used to put most of her money into those rings. She'd buy them on time? Yeah. I remember one night she was overjoyed. The night she paid them off, it cost a lot of dough. Can you describe those rings for us? Not too good. I can give you the name of the jeweler she bought them from. That'll do. Do you know anybody else that we might talk to? I don't know any of her friends. No living relatives that I know of. How about her landlady? I guess that's it, Harry. Thank you. For what? I wish I could help more.  Before we left the blue box, Harry Schumann gave us the address of Laura Barclay's jeweler. The next morning we checked with the manager of the store and he gave us a complete description of the two diamond rings which the dead girl had purchased. They were valued at $4,000. He gave us detailed drawings of the rings. We went back to the office, gave the information to Burgary detail and all points bulletin was put out describing them. Pawn shops throughout the city and state were alerted to watch for the stolen rings. We had lunch with Chief Thad Brown at Costas Cafe. Never mind, O'Mara. I'll get it. Thank you, Chief. I'll get to the tip. The stew was good. We'll have some change with the cigarette machine. Need any cigarettes, Joe? No, no thanks, then. Let's go. What do you think, Thad? The description of the rings and the emotion helped. They hadn't turned up. Good chance he's holding on to him. Could be his first job. Probably scared. Anybody check back over the neighborhood there? This is the afternoon and this morning. A lot of door-to-door salesmen's with that district. All been checked out. Is it dead end? Nowhere. Only those prints are checked out. Well, they didn't. Got a kickback from Brerich and Sacramento on his MO. No make. We'll have to get him with what we've got. Here's the car. Sure you picked up all the loose ends? We've been back over the course three times. Go over it again. Keep going over it until something breaks. For the next ten days we retraced our steps from the room where the crime was committed throughout the neighborhood to the place where she worked, back to the same dead end. Ben and I checked and double-checked each other to make certain that neither of us had overlooked even the smallest detail of the investigation. We've got no place. It was 8 a.m. January 19th. Homicide Friday. This is Robles and Berglary, Joe. How do we figure in it? His MO? Yeah. Besides fingerprints and photographs, one other mark by which the unknown criminal is identified is by his method of operation, his MO. Once a thief finds a successful means of operation, he seldom changes it. In our search for Laura Barclay's murderer, we had checked our files and found no criminals at large whose practice it was to gain entrance through a garbage chute. It was reasonably safe to assume that this was the same man. It was 2 p.m. January 23rd. I found my way back from the record bureau. Just out of call, Joe. Elmer Radcliffe. Informant? Yeah. It says two days ago he heard about some guy who was making the rounds trying to peddle a couple of diamond rings. Same ones? He's not sure. Doesn't know what the guy looked like. Any idea where the guy is now? Hasn't been around since. Told Elmer to keep his eyes open. That's good. Come in here, you two. What do you got, then? The port just came down from Berglary. Pawn shop down in North Main took in a watch and strand of pearls last night. Yeah. That's what Rubles called you about. Yeah, I remember. Where's it dying? Same guy tried to peddle a couple of diamond rings. 10 a.m. January 25th. Thad Brown arranged to have all Pawn shop detail calls concerning the suspect put through to us on extension 2521, homicide. Five days passed. No further word. Homicide Friday. This is George Ropes. Maine? Yeah, what's the matter? Man's up now. Stalem will be right down. There goes the valley. Can you hit him? He didn't stop him. Watch it. He's turning on the spring. He ran into that cafeteria. Come on, let's run. He's not stopping. Stay clear. All right, come on. All right, get his guns. Yeah. You got him in the leg, Joe. Hit his head when you fail.  Two diamond rings. It doesn't make sense, does it?  That's true. Only the names were changed to protect the innocent. On April 2nd, 1947, trial was held in Superior Court, Department 81, city and county of Los Angeles, state of California, in a moment the results of that trial.  New Orleans Division. What's that? Detroit Division. What's that? Los Angeles Division. What's that? More and more smokers agree, Fatima is the best of long cigarettes. So enjoy Fatima yourself and give extra mild Fatimas for Christmas in the attractive golden yellow carton. Everyone who smokes Fatima says that this great new long cigarette is the best of all long cigarettes. Lola Barclay's murderer was identified as Martin Eric Swanson. He was tried and convicted of murder at his first degree. His case was fought through the Supreme Court of California and in the United States Supreme Court. In both instances, his conviction was upheld. Last Friday morning, after a delay of five years, Martin Eric Swanson was executed in the lethal gas chamber at the state penitentiary. You have just heard Dragnet, a new series of authentic cases from official files. Technical advice for Dragnet comes from the office of Acting Chief of Police W. A. Wharton, Los Angeles Police Department. Dragnet honors the city of Youngstown, state of Ohio, and the men who make up the Youngstown Police Department, another of America's great law enforcement agencies. One of these men, Chief of Police Edward J. Allen, honored as policeman of the year, who dedicates his life so that yours might be more secure. Fatima cigarettes. Best of all, long cigarettes has brought you Dragnet from Los Angeles. This Christmas, give the gift that makes every pipe smoker happy. A Christmas humidor of Mellow Granger. Granger is made just for pipes by the tried-and-true Wellman method. Rough cut to smoke mild and cool, and humidor packed to stay ever fresh. Yes, make this Christmas a merry Christmas for all the pipe smokers on your list. Give them each a Christmas humidor of Mellow Granger. Listen to Dragnet next week, and be sure to hear Morton Downey tonight on NBC.


Welcome to Maine Public News Connect, original news stories from Maine Public Radio, airing weekly in Spanish, French, Portuguese, Somali, and English.  Today is Friday, February 10th, and here are the week's top stories. Maine set a new record for drug overdose deaths again last year, as the synthetic opioid fentanyl continues to take a deadly toll in the state. According to unofficial figures released last week, 716 people died of drug overdoses last year. The powerful synthetic drug fentanyl or drugs like it were detected in 79% of the overdose deaths last year, according to data compiled by the state. That highlights both the increased prevalence of the drug in Maine and its danger to users. Efforts to build more housing for new immigrants suffered a setback this week when the Portland City Council voted to postpone indefinitely a project that would have created 48 units of affordable housing. The city was considering providing funding to the local development group Avesta Housing to help purchase the property and make it available to asylum seekers. But Portland Mayor Kate Snyder said she was told by Avesta that it has not been able to secure enough funding to make the project feasible. At the same time, local governments and immigration advocates are struggling to find housing for asylum seekers as funding for temporary emergency shelter in motels runs out this spring. Last week, about 50 people gathered at the University of Southern Maine in Portland to learn more about the women-led protests in Iran. The event featured a panel of three Iranian Americans who live in the Portland area who discussed their relationships with Iran and how people here can help the protesters. Avesta said one thing that people in Maine can do is contact their elected leaders and ask that they hold the Iranian government accountable for violence against protesters. Massive protests have been taking place in Iran since a young woman died after being arrested and reportedly beaten by police in September. And lastly, a new exhibit at a history museum in Lewiston focuses on the intersection of immigration and race in central Maine. The new project features 10 oral history interviews with Black residents of Lewiston, including immigrants and people who were born in Maine. Professor Marcel Medford, who conducted the interviews, said one goal is to explore the diversity of Black identity and learn more about how people relate to their community. The exhibition is on display at Maine Mill, formerly known as Museum LA, until December. This has been Maine Public News Connect. Thank you so much for joining us. We'll see you next time. Maine Public News Connect partners with wonderful groups across Maine, committed to providing access to important news and information for all. We'd especially like to recognize the Maine Immigrants' Rights Coalition, present a Maine, the Congolese and Angolan communities of Maine, Amjombo Africa, Catholic Charities of Maine, the Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center, Portland Adult Education, the Portland Office of Economic Opportunity, Prosperity Maine, the Maine Health Access Foundation, and the Maine Humanities Council for their support and efforts. Maine Public News Connect is made possible by individual sponsors, businesses, and foundations from across Maine, and especially by Coastal Enterprises, Seaport Credit Union, Haniford Supermarkets, IDEX, Koo and Patricia Ewing, Maine Health Access Foundation, Maine State Housing Authority, and the Sam L. Cohen Foundation. Thank you for your significant support. Maine Public News Connect is made possible by Koo and Patricia Ewing, committed to bridging cultural differences in our communities. Juntos, Ansan, Whatadjia, Junto, Seaport Credit Union, Together. At Maine Housing, we know an affordable home is key. Our first home loan program offers mayors low interest rates and down payment assistance on multi-unit properties. Learn more at MaineHousing.org. Haniford Supermarkets, celebrating the diversity of its employees, customers, and communities, and committed to fostering a welcoming environment. Together, they're greater than groceries. Learn more at Haniford.com. If you would like to support this project, please contact Cory Morrissey at<PHONE_NUMBER>.


Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Liz Wade. And I'm Adam Navas. Spotlight uses a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand, no matter where in the world they live. Imagine it is a hot summer day. The sun burns down on your skin. You have been working hard. You just want a break. You want something cool to eat. What do you choose? Well, millions of people around the world choose ice cream. Today's Spotlight is on the history of this special icy treat. Ice cream is generally a sweetened frozen food. It is usually made from cream, sugar, eggs, and different flavors. However, there are many different ways to make ice cream. No one knows exactly who invented ice cream. But there are many stories about how it began. A version of ice cream may have begun in Persia more than 2,500 years ago. And some stories say that Nero enjoyed ice cream in ancient Rome. They say Emperor Nero would send servants to get ice from the mountains. Then he would cover it in fruit juices and honey. The kind of ice cream we eat today may have been invented in China. The Tang period in China was between 600 and 900 AD. During this period, people brought ice cream treats to the ruler. They heated buffalo, cow, and goat milk together. After a time, the mix became thick like yogurt. They added flour to the mix, and they put camphor in it for flavor. They cooled the mix in icy water. Then they served it to the emperor. Marco Polo was an Italian explorer. He traveled to many parts of the world as a merchant. When he visited China, he tried many of these ice treats. He even learned how to make some of them. Then, when he returned, he made these iced treats for his family and friends. Around this time, there were also simple treats that were more like sorbet. Sorbet is an icy treat made with ice, sugar, and fruit or fruit juice. All of these ice cream treats became very popular in France in the 1500s. And it was not too long before they became popular all around the world. And over time, ice cream changed and developed in different ways. As you have heard, ice cream was first enjoyed only by the rich. This was because keeping food at such a cold temperature, or getting ice from a mountain top, cost a lot of money. But over time, the methods for freezing improved, and more and more people had the money and resources to buy ice cream and keep it cold.  Some studies say that New Zealand eats the most ice cream in the world per person. But other countries eat almost as much, including Australia, Finland, the United States, China, and India. Ice cream is a big business in many parts of the world. In 2016, researchers estimated that this industry was worth over $68 million U.S. and it is only getting bigger. Growing markets like Brazil, China, and India are buying more ice cream. Experts estimate that by 2023, the ice cream industry will be worth over $97 million U.S. Some studies even suggest that the 2020 pandemic increased ice cream sales even more. They suggest that people were looking for delicious food that made them feel happy. That is ice cream. So what kinds of ice cream are these people eating? Let's take a look at some of the different kinds of ice cream around the world. Italy serves an ice cream called gelato. Italians make gelato with milk, water, and different flavors. But gelato is a little different from ice cream. There is not as much air in gelato. Gelato is much thicker than normal ice cream. A person can eat smaller amounts because it is so filling and sweet. In India, a popular treat similar to ice cream is called kulfi. Kulfi has more ice in it than other ice creams. It is not as smooth. Indians flavor kulfi with foods like pistachio nuts or cardamom spice. In Japan, people eat mochi ice cream. First, people shape the ice cream into small round balls.  Mochi is a kind of sticky rice. Some places even have a special ice cream they are famous for. In Ecuador, there is a town called Salcedo. In Salcedo, they serve ice cream on a stick. They freeze the ice cream in different layers or parts. Each layer is a different color. So the ice cream almost looks like a rainbow. There are four layers. Three are made from local fruits. And there is a top layer made of thick, sweet cream. When you drive into Salcedo, you can even see a large statue of this ice cream treat. Ice cream is also a great treat because you can make it yourself. You can make your own ice cream at home with only a few simple ingredients. This ice cream looks a little different from the ice cream you buy in a store. It is softer, but it still tastes good. Here is how you make it. You can also find this recipe on our website. To make this ice cream, you need two zippered plastic bags. One large and one small. Fill the large bag halfway with ice and rock salt. Leave enough room in the large bag to fit the smaller bag inside. Then, in the small bag, combine milk or cream and a small amount of sugar. You can also add another flavor like vanilla or honey. Take all of the air out of the small bag and make sure you close the bag very tightly. Then, put it inside the large bag of ice and salt. Here comes the fun part. Close the large bag, too. Then, shake, shake, shake. You must shake the two bags together for 5 to 10 minutes. After it becomes harder, remove the bag of milk and sugar. It should now be ice cream. Now enjoy! What kind of ice cream is common in your country? What is your favorite kind of ice cream? Tell us what you think. You can leave a comment on our website or email us at contact at spotlightenglish.com. You can also find us on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. The writer of this program was Sarah DeCoster. The producer was Michio Ozaki. The voices you heard were from the United States. You can listen to this program again and read it on the Internet at www.spotlightenglish.com. This program is called Ice Cream Around the World. Visit our website to download our free official app for Android and Apple devices. We hope you can join us again for the next Spotlight Program. Goodbye!