IN THE NEWS:

1. When the House of Delegates unanimously approved the appointment of Lindsey Burke to the George Mason University board of visitors, members of the General Assembly did not know that she would later play a prominent role in Project 2025. That’s the conservative think-tank plan to reshape the federal government’s functions and benefits. Now, Speaker of the House Don Scott is calling on the governor to remove the co-author of the Project 2025 chapter on education.

2. Experts say Virginia will benefit from tens of millions of dollars from the Infrastructure Act to finance energy storage for data centers. Supporters of clean energy are hopeful this program in Manassas will show how new technology can address the rising demand from data centers without the need for new energy generation from fossil fuels.

3. From the hills of Appalachia to the melodic tones of the Piedmont, Virginia has some of the most perplexing accents in the country. A survey conducted by language-learning platform Guide2Fluency shows Appalachia and Piedmont accents have artificial intelligence stumped. 

Episode Transcript

Michael Pope  

I'm Michael Pope.

Lauren Burke  

I'm Lauren Burke.

Michael Pope  

And this is Pod Virginia. A podcast that's feeling formidable as the Olympics are over, and we're kind of sad about that. But Lauren Virginia has two-star Olympians.

Lauren Burke  

They are very nice and very fast, guys, Grant Holloway of Chesapeake and Noah Lyles from Alexandria. Lyles went to TC Williams, which has been renamed. I'm saying TC Williams because I'm remembering the Titans. Those two guys are from Virginia, and it's nice to see the gold coming to Virginia. 

Michael Pope  

Yes, it's definitely nice to see the gold coming to Virginia. Let's get onto our first story. Unwelcome visitor. When the House of Delegates unanimously approved the appointment of Lindsey Burke to the George Mason University Board of Visitors. Members of the General Assembly did not know that she would later play a prominent role in Project 2025. That's the conservative Think Tank plan to reshape the federal government's functions and benefits. Now, Speaker of the House, Don Scott, is calling on the Governor to remove the author of the Project 2025 chapter on education.

Don Scott  

He won the election. We understand that he'll get to appoint some folks. But for the person who actually wrote Project 2025, that's a little much. Even Donald Trump has enough sense to say that I don't know anything about Project 2025. Even he had sense enough to back away. That's how bad the document is.

Lauren Burke  

In a written statement, the Governor said he has no intention of removing Burke, and he sees no reason to do so. Rich Kelsey was a student rep on the George Mason Board of Visitors when he was in law school back in the 1990s

Rich Kelsey  

I think this is an opportunity in the election season to paint people as, quote MAGA, extremists and to create an issue for voter turnout. I don't think anyone believes that George Mason University is going to become a conservative right-wing University. It did not when it had Ed Meese and Ed Feulner on its board 25 years ago.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, Ed Meese was the Attorney General in the Reagan administration. He later became a fellow at the conservative Heritage Foundation and was on the board of visitors at George Mason. Ed Feulner IS the former president of the Heritage Association. He also served on the George Mason Board of Visitors. Ed Meese and Ed Feulner were both on the board of visitors at George Mason with Rich Kelsey back in the 1990s. I mean, yes, it's true that this current member of the Board of Visitors, Lindsey Burke, has ties to the Heritage Foundation and wrote this chapter. But Lauren, the Virginia world of politics, especially this kind of person who gets appointed to boards of visitors. There's a long association there with Republicans appointing Heritage Foundation people to the board of visitors at universities. While it's true that this one person has a relationship with Project 2025, this relationship with Heritage goes deep and back many years. 

Lauren Burke  

It sure does. I'd love to know the opinion of the Governor on whether or not he agrees with Lindsey Burke, who wrote part of Project 2025, a 900-page document. She wrote the education section, and that is quite an interesting reading. In fact, it includes the idea that the Department of Education should be destroyed and dismantled. 

Michael Pope  

In their defense, Lauren, this is actually a long-standing campaign platform for the Republicans. They have campaigned on getting rid of the Department of Education for many years and in many election cycles. There was the Governor of Texas, you may remember, who wanted to get rid of the Department of Education, and there were three departments that he wanted to get rid of as a Republican candidate running for president. But then, at the debate, he could not remember all three of them. This is a famous oops moment. Ironically, he later became Secretary of Energy, which is one of the departments that he wanted to eliminate but couldn't remember on the campaign trail. Anyway, this issue of getting rid of the Department of Education is kind of table stakes for Republicans. They've been saying the same thing over and over again, way before Trump was on the scene. I don't know if that really qualifies as being all that extreme. I mean, it is extreme, but this is a standard Republican talking point that predates Donald Trump. Then, you get into other things in the Project 2025 education chapter. One of them is basically getting rid of DEI. Well, hey, that's Youngkin's thing. He wants to get rid of DEI. I don't know if that would be all that shocking as a policy position. Getting rid of the Department of Education is extreme, but it's not shocking because it's a long-standing policy. Getting rid of DEI is extreme but not all that shocking because Republicans have already been campaigning on this for years. The association with Project 2025 does not make this particular person look all that great in terms of our current environment, but it seems unlikely the Governor is going to oust her. 

Lauren Burke  

I'm not sure campaigning on things for years makes it okay. I would love to know if Governor Youngkin thinks that the Department of Education should be dismantled and destroyed. Does he agree with Lindsey Burke or not on that? Does he agree with Project 2025 or not? Also, there is the reference to the bloated, arrogant, increasingly lawless organization that is the FBI. Does Governor Youngkin agree with that? There's a line in here from Lindsey Burke talking about the education establishment being captured by woke diversocrats. I'd love to know. This is one of the mysteries of Republicans in quotes policy, just knowing what they believe in. If you're top of the ticket, and the leader of the party is Donald Trump, and he is backing away from this, then that's interesting, isn't it? Does Glenn Youngkin agree with all of that or not? That's what I'd love to know. Apparently, the indication is that he agrees with it because he has no problem with Lindsey Burke being on the board of visitors. I guess he does agree by default. I don't know, but I'd love to see that conversation play out. Why are Republicans backing away from it if it's a long-standing policy that they think is so great? Rick Perry, the former Governor of Texas, couldn't remember the third thing he wanted to eliminate, but they're always about eliminating things. What are they for? What policies are they for? This is a states' rights argument; by the way, getting rid of the Department of Education is a state's rights argument. They don't want the federal government making decisions related to anything involving racial equity. So, let's get to that. Does Glenn Youngkin agree with that or not? These are things that would be fascinating to talk about with him. If you believe that, fine, then say it. Say it with your full chest.

Michael Pope  

Obviously, getting rid of the Department of Education is a policy position that Republicans have held for more than a decade, probably two decades. That's kind of a long-standing policy position. DEI is kind of newer, but if you think about Youngkin, it has already been on record as not being a fan of equity and the concept of equity. In fact, he changed the name of the Office of Diversity Equity and Inclusion to Diversity Opportunity and Inclusion. In fact, later in this podcast, we will wish the Director of that office a happy birthday. But yeah, we know his thoughts on equity, and we know Republicans' thoughts on getting rid of the Department of Education. I will say it does seem politically kind of smart for the Speaker of the House to focus attention on Project 2025 and cast aspersion on the Governor and Republicans. Because there is this kind of feeding frenzy now about Project Project 2025, it is the boogeyman. The Democratic strategy has been to cast everything the Republicans say or think on the campaign trail to be part of Project 2025, which, right now, seems like a pretty smart strategy.

Lauren Burke  

Well, wait a minute, doing a dance with authoritarianism, putting the DOJ under executive/ presidential control. That's a dismantled democracy argument, which is a thread through the entire document. Yeah, I think somebody should bring that up. I particularly think somebody should bring up when we have a president who has been criminally convicted the idea that he now wants to come into office and dismantle the highest, top federal investigative authority, the FBI. Yeah, we should be talking about that.

Michael Pope  

No argument here; it's definitely something that people should be focused on and thinking about, trying to grapple with what happens when all this stuff actually becomes a reality? What world does that look like? It's interesting to me how successful Democrats have been in shining a spotlight on this and getting people to think about it and Google it. I saw a recent report about the Google searches for Project 2025 outstripping Google searches for Donald Trump. That's got to hurt. 

Lauren Burke  

I would think so. Project 2025 is a change in what our government would look like. It's dismantling the federal government. There's no denying that; they put it out publicly. It's being analyzed, and it should be analyzed. Why are the people who agree with this hiding? They should say they agree. Why is, all of a sudden, the Heritage guy delaying his book. JD Vance is in this book authored by the Heritage Foundation president. And now we're delaying the book. Why is that? If you're into this stuff, then say you're into this stuff. But the fact they're hiding; you want to talk about consciousness of guilt. They're hiding because it's an obvious move toward a more authoritarian and dictatorial form of government that's not democracy. If you're in a marginalized group, particularly the LGBT community, you should be paying full attention, which I'm sure they are. You've got to be kidding me; there's a thread running through the entire document dinging various sectors of the LGBT community. Why is that so? Again, it would be nice if the Republican Party would reveal what their views are and stop hiding. Why are they hiding? If, in fact, this is what you believe in, and this is what you want to transform the American government into, then say that. I think it says a lot that everyone's ducking and dodging and saying we have nothing to do with this. Chris LaCivita, what is that? All of a sudden, they're trying to pretend they don't know what it is. That's a big tell.

Michael Pope  

Big tell. Yeah, totally agree. Another thing to keep in mind for the future is that it seems unlikely that Lindsay Burke is going to be ousted from the board of visitors at George Mason. There was this back and forth between the Governor and the Speaker, and we're left with the status quo. She's still on the board, and it doesn't seem like she's going to be removed from the board anytime soon. However, the thing you want to look forward to in the future is something the Speaker told me when I interviewed him about that last week. In the next general assembly session, he hopes there will be some oversight over everybody who has any kind of relationship with the Heritage Foundation. Heritage is coming under new scrutiny because the mask has now been lifted, and we know what's in Project 2025. You just laid out some of its more dangerous elements. These are the people that are on boards of visitors all across Virginia. Is that a good idea? I think the Speaker is going to bring that up, and it'll be a conversation that people are going to have in early 2025.

Lauren Burke  

Absolutely.

Michael Pope  

All right, let's move on to our next story. Bananas in storage. Imagine that a data center is a grocery store; demand is constant, but supply is limited to when the trucks can arrive with the produce. Harry Godfrey at Advanced Energy United says storing the bananas in a refrigerated truck outside the grocery store will prevent that truck from getting stuck in a traffic jam at peak hours.

Harry Godfrey  

With battery storage, what we're able to do is roll that truck up to the grocery store in the middle of the night and have it there ready to be unloaded when demand peaks. This is about getting ahead of that and shaving off those particular peaks that otherwise create a lot of congestion and cost in our electricity system.

Lauren Burke  

That's why he says Virginia will benefit from tens of millions of dollars from the Infrastructure Act, going into a data center in Manassas to finance energy storage. Stephen Haner, at the Thomas Jefferson Institute, says the money could end up reducing the cost of electricity.

Stephen Haner  

The data centers are creating a lot of this load, and the data centers are the ones that promise your customers that we use only solar power, wind power, and clean energy. So, if these grants are directed at solving that problem for them and taking the burden off me as a ratepayer, that makes sense.

Michael Pope  

Wow. Shocking. This is breaking news. Lauren, the conservative Thomas Jefferson Institute, says, yeah, that federal money from the infrastructure coming to Virginia, that's actually a good deal, even if it benefits clean energy. Why is he saying that? It's very likely this project, from the Infrastructure Act to this data center in Manassas, will reduce the cost of your energy bills.

Lauren Burke  

That would be a welcomed change, wouldn't it? The energy bill keeps going up and up. I can't believe some friends of mine who are in various places and parts of the Commonwealth are paying a lot in energy bills. That's a hugely welcome change, no doubt about that.

Michael Pope  

One of the things that's going on here that's worth focusing on is the issue of storage and storing energy. In the old fossil fuel format of creating energy using fossil fuels, natural gas is basically dead animals that have been underground for many years, and you pull them up, extract them, and create energy out of them. That fossil fuel energy is what they call dispatchable. You can dispatch it when you need it. So if it's a really hot day, and everybody needs air conditioning, then all of a sudden, you can dispatch all that energy for the high demand at peak hours. The problem with wind energy and solar energy is that they are not dispatchable enough. At least not yet, because the technology hasn't caught up. You've got power when the wind is blowing. You've got power when the sun is shining. But there's not really a good technology for storing that energy until when you need it. That's where this program comes in. It's $85 million for two projects, one in South Carolina and one in Virginia; both are for energy storage. There's this specific data center in Manassas that will benefit from tens of millions of dollars from the federal government, from the Infrastructure Act, and from the Department of Energy. This one data center is going to get tens of millions of dollars for this data storage project. That will benefit this one data center, but that technology will benefit everybody else. Because this idea of storing clean energy is really important for the future of clean energy, having the technology to store it so you can dispatch it when you need it.

Lauren Burke  

Stephen Haner at Thomas Jefferson Institute has to acknowledge President Joe Biden and the Infrastructure Act because it is, in fact, a Democratic policy that Republicans fight against all the time. 

Michael Pope  

He did talk about the money being from Uncle Sugar, right? He's skeptical of lots of money coming from the federal government. Still, he also has a realistic take on it, which is that when the government is throwing around tens of millions of dollars, it's probably a good idea to get your hands on some of it.

Lauren Burke  

Absolutely. I'd agree with him on that, absolutely.

Michael Pope  

All right. Well, hey, agreement all around, we've got to store those bananas in a refrigerated truck outside the Safeway. Let's move on to our next story; artificial and unintelligent. From the hills of Appalachia to the melodic tones of the Piedmont, Virginia has some of the most perplexing accents in the country. A survey conducted by the language learning platform Guide2Fluency shows Appalachia and Piedmont accents have artificial intelligence stumped. Alan Shark is the Executive Director of the Public Technology Institute.

Alan Shark  

There's a real sense of equity and fairness in all of this. We are turning more and more to these systems to help us in times of emergency, getting information from, say, government websites or commercial websites. Then, folks who are not able to communicate with these systems are at a real disadvantage. 

Lauren Burke  

J.P. Singh is a professor of global commerce and policy at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University. 

J.P. Singh  

They're not large enough data sets to make sense of all the ways in which people in the Piedmont or the Appalachian region use English. This relates to general problems in AI, such as inclusivity and bias and even facial recognition in the visual AI spaces. 

Michael Pope  

Yeah, we're going high-tech today on Pod Virginia. The last segment was about storing clean energy and the technology involved in storing clean energy. And now we're talking about AI not being able to understand people with accents. But yeah, this is actually a serious thing. You just heard J.P. Singh outline why this is something that should be a concern to people. Because if you have a deep accent, then your S-i-r-i is going to have a hard time understanding what the heck you're trying to say. My mother is from West Virginia, and her iPhone frequently has a very hard time hearing and understanding what she's trying to say to it. 

Lauren Burke  

I say, give it time. I'm checking out a bunch of AI apps now, and I suspect that they'll figure that out in due time. Because there are some incredible technological things going on right now in AI. I'll bet you anything that will be conquered in due time. I also wish that somebody could conquer Wi-fi in the more rural parts of the Commonwealth of Virginia while they're doing that. But the accent thing, I do think, at some point, will be solved.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, I mean, both the experts I talked to for that story actually said, this is about the data set. The larger the data set gets, the more reliable it's going to be, and we're still in the very early stages of all of this. So yes, give it time. It'll be better. However, I mean, we do have to live with this problem now, right? This is the world that we live in. People have access to things based on the technology that we've got right now. There's an equity issue right now, today, in 2024, that needs to be solved. So, yeah, give it some time, and it'll eventually be solved. But it's kind of interesting. Oh, another thing Singh told me that I thought was really interesting is when AI has a hard time understanding people. One of the problems is the AI doesn't tell you that it didn't understand what you said. It just ignores the fact that there's a problem and moves on as if there wasn't a problem. So, the person on the other end of that interface doesn't know there was a problem. They don't know that they were misunderstood. That's a tech fix that could be done now in anticipation of the data set getting larger and eventually solving the bigger problem in the future. So, yeah, it is an existing problem right now that probably needs some kind of fix. The best fix would be figuring out a way to tell AI. I guess AI would need some sort of recognition that they do not understand what the person is telling them, right? This is understandable; even humans, you and I, and our listeners sometimes have a problem understanding people who actually speak our same language because of the accents. I don't know if you've ever met anyone from Ireland. Sometimes, they speak the same language that we do, for the most part, and it's very difficult to understand what they're saying. Same thing with Scotland; people with very deep Scottish accents are speaking the same language that you and I are speaking. But sometimes it's very difficult to understand what they're saying. 

Lauren Burke

Yeah, and I think in time, as already has been said. I mean, once you get enough people in the data set, that's going to be solved, but it's going to take a little bit of time. And, you know, AI is not particularly good at admitting when there's a mistake. It certainly has to be checked at this stage. But the speed that it's getting, the speed that we have, where it's getting better and better, is pretty amazing to me. 

Michael Pope

Yeah, not looking forward to the day when we have AI podcasts. What happens when you've got AI writing the script and AI doing the voice? There's a virtual Lauren Burke speaking at me on a podcast. Is it as good as the real Lauren Burke, or maybe it's better than the real Lauren Burke? I doubt that. I doubt that would be the case. But, I mean, like, that's kind of on the horizon.

Lauren Burke  

It is. I think, obviously, that's coming. ElevenLabs is a great example of a situation where you need to read a long document, like a book, and you want to have your voice read it without actually having to sit in the studio for 20 hours. That's where AI is a big benefit. They do have a safeguard there that you can't do it with someone else's voice. That is going to be an interesting question. There's going to be lawsuits flying around, no doubt about it. But I actually think it saves a lot of time in most cases. But these deep fake moments we're seeing in politics, I think that does have to be legislated against. No doubt about it, there's a good side to AI, and, of course, there is a dangerous side to AI. So we're seeing that play out.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, it does kind of feel like there's this tidal wave that's about to hit us of deep fakes. Like any day, we're just gonna get deluged with all kinds of deep fakes, and we're gonna have to dig ourselves out of that using our reality shovels. And I think people's grasp on reality has been loosened in recent years. I'm not looking forward to that. But that's the world that we live in. All right, let's take a break. When we come back, we'll play a round of trivia. And we're gonna head over to the water cooler. All right, let's play a round of trivia. Last week, we asked you what industry Jamestown was founded to cultivate; the answer is probably going to surprise you, especially since nobody submitted the correct answer. 

Lauren Burke  

Yeah. We had a lot of answers submitted by listeners who thought it might be gold, silver, copper, and sugar. All of which were great guesses.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, but the correct answer is that the one we were looking for is Silk. Yes, that's right, as in silk stockings. In the early 1600s, King James the First of England encouraged settlers in Jamestown to cultivate sericulture, that's the cultivation of silkworms to create Silk. Governor William Berkeley planted mulberry trees in Jamestown along the James River, and he also established a nursery of mulberry trees at his estate, Green Spring. Foreign experts in silk-making were brought into Virginia to help cultivate the silk-making industry. By 1668, Governor Berkeley was able to send some Silk to King Charles the Second, but the industry never really took off in Virginia.

Lauren Burke  

I guess nobody knew the answer because that industry never really took off.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, we don't talk about Silk because it was an experiment that failed. But hey, tobacco sure was successful.

Lauren Burke  

Yes, it was absolutely okay. So, what's our trivia question for next week?

Michael Pope  

We have a newsy trivia question for this week. Here's the trivia question. What town in Virginia is trying to withhold more than 3,000 emails about a proposed Amazon data center.

Lauren Burke  

Did you say 3,000 emails?

Michael Pope  

Yeah, as in, what about her emails? More than 3,000 emails are being issued here between the mayor of this town, the town manager, and Amazon. The town government is trying to shield all these documents and is making an argument in court that they don't want to release these 3,000 emails about a data center, an Amazon data center in this town. 

Lauren Burke  

Wow, if you think you know the answer, hit us up on social media; you might even win a prize. 

Michael Pope  

Let's head over to the water cooler. Lauren, what's the latest you're sharing about the water cooler?

Lauren Burke  

The latest I'm hearing around the water cooler is there's a lot of money coming into Virginia. Governor Glenn Youngkin announced last week that there was a $934 million gain benefit from the Virginia lottery going into education. Which is fantastic. Some might remember that on July 19, there was a press release from the Governor's office saying that there was a $5.1 billion surplus, or, I should say, a $5.1 billion excess in resources. I was like, what? It was sort of funny because the same press release did say that it had been assumed that there would be a 14% decline in the revenue forecast, but there wasn't. And now we have billions and billions of dollars. To that, I say the car tax needs to go. I think the Governor is right about the car tax going. And yes, I am saying this because certain lawmakers will call me and tell me I'm wrong. I do want to hear from them, but there's a lot of money lying around. And I think that's interesting. I think it indicates that taxpayers in Virginia are over-taxed. I can remember years ago, I think it was 2021, when everyone said, Well, that's federal money from the American Rescue Plan from Joe Biden. That money doesn't really count; those billions won't last, and here we are again. Now, there's an announcement in the summer of 2024 that there's a $5.1 billion excess in funds that appears out of nowhere. I'd love to hear from our lawmakers on that because, yeah, I mean, we're getting taxed. We're getting car tax, and we're getting these red light cameras, which, to me, are another form of tax. The Commonwealth seems to have a lot of money, so that's a good thing. But I'd like to know when the taxpayers of Virginia get a break. That's my water cooler.

Michael Pope  

Speaker Scott and Leader Surovell, if you're listening to this podcast, Hit up Lauren Burke; she wants to have a conversation with you about this. So send her an email, send her a text.

Lauren Burke  

Oh, wow. So anyway, Michael, what do you get? What do you have for the water cooler?

Michael Pope  

Moves in the journalism world. Very important, moves in the journalism world. If you heard our episode last week with Graham Moomaw, he is moving from the Virginia Mercury to the newly created Richmonder. So The Richmonder is a great new news outlet. It hasn't launched yet. It's actually going to launch next month, and they are going to focus squarely on City Hall. So the city council, the School Board, the race for mayor. They're not going to be doing the General Assembly, the Governor, or the presidential race. They're just going to be focused on Richmond city government, which, by the way, desperately needs media coverage. Because what the heck is going on at Richmond City Hall? Every time I read about City Hall, it's more crime, more corruption, more awful things, and more public documents not being released. I want to know more about what's happening at City Hall, so I will be reading the Richmonder. I definitely will be reading Graham Moomaw's reporting. Also, they've secured Sarah Vogelsong, another top Virginia journalist. Her work on environmental issues has been really outstanding, taking this really complicated stuff involving the State Corporation Commission and then translating that into language so that I can understand. That's a talent, that's a real talent that Sarah Vogelsong has because understanding the inner workings of the SCC is not easy, and she makes it look easy, but it's not. Graham Moomaw and Sarah Vogelsong, moving from the Mercury to the Richmonder. Meanwhile, you got Marcus Schmidt moving from the Cardinal to the Mercury. Okay, so Marcus Schmidt is another top Virginia journalist. In fact, he is the president of the Virginia Capital Correspondence Association, moving from Cardinal, which is one of these new startups created to do news for Southwest Virginia. He is doing a really amazing job at Cardinal. Marcus Schmidt's reporting, in particular, has been really outstanding. I don't know if you saw his reporting on the recount, Lauren, but it was outstanding work from Marcus Schmidt. He's moving from the Cardinal to the Mercury. So there's all these moving pieces. Graham is moving from the Mercury to the Richmonder. Marcus Schmidt, moving from the Cardinal to the Mercury. The other move worth mentioning if we're talking about, you know, journalism and moving pieces around journalism, the Richmond Times-Dispatch, moving out of their building in downtown Richmond. This is really sad. This is really sad. If you're into newspapers or journalism, for the Richmond Times-Dispatch to not have a footprint in downtown Richmond. Ouch, man, that is painful. That is painful. What is it gonna be like in a hotel? That's a slap in the face. Slap in the face.

Lauren Burke  

Yeah, that's very familiar to what happened to the Virginian Pilot. They sold the building in Norfolk a few years ago. That was a major moment, and I thought about that landscape of newspapers. You see that, obviously, local news is struggling. Pilot and the Daily Press have joined, and so it's good to see another news organization show up in the Richmonder, particularly since they've got Graham there; that should be really good. Shout out to Samuel Parker over at the Richmond Times-Dispatch for all of these articles that we're seeing on the Richmond government. Of the lack of transparency, the spending on credit cards, which, of course, taxpayers money to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. That is why you need local news and local reporters, particularly investigative reporters, who are telling people where their tax money is going and how it's being spent. That Samuel Parker thing is pretty amazing, but the Richmonder coming along is great. I wish they were covering the General Assembly, but maybe they'll change their mind. Who knows, it would be great to cover the General Assembly and the Governor. x

Michael Pope  

Keep in mind you're going to see Marcus Schmidt's byline in Mercury covering the General Assembly. 

Lauren Burke  

Yeah. No, that's great; the Cardinal has been great. The not-for-profit model here we're seeing with the Richmonder and the Cardinal. We've seen it nationally, and ProPublica is certainly very successful with that. It's an interesting model. It does prohibit any sort of real political endorsements and certain things that are in the tax code. Remembering that not-for-profit is really a tax designation. It has become a business model in this sense for a lot of news platforms and raises, typically, a pretty good amount of money, but it'll be interesting. We do have a huge news hole in Virginia, not just in Virginia. But it's good to see some of the Substackers because Tammy Purcell is out there doing Engage Louisa. There are two folks in Charlottesville, Sean Tubbs and David McNair. I do think that one of the things that's happened is that local news is failing, the business model is failing, and a lot of citizens are stepping up with these very micro, targeted publications that are covering certain communities in Virginia. It's been interesting. John Baliles, of course, is one of the people we mentioned on the last show with RVA 5x5. John Baliles is particularly valuable because he's worked in the government. When you have, you have the insight of working in the government and knowing exactly what was going on. Then you can kind of lend your opinion to that with some facts involved; that's a valuable thing as well. But yes, the Richmonder that's going to be very interesting to watch. And, man, there needs to be more and not less. So it's good to see somebody else added to the mix in terms of journalists, journalistic coverage, and investigative coverage in finding out what everybody is doing. Because it does disenfranchise people when they don't know what the government is doing. So this is great, yeah.

Michael Pope  

We are on the topic of all these new Subtacks popping up. I'm not going to let you get away with not mentioning your Substack Lauren Burke, which our listeners should hit the subscribe button to Black Virginia News. It's an excellent Substack that really dives deep into journalism. I know I always learn stuff when I read your Substack, so thank you for doing it. Going back to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, I mentioned Graham Moomaw from the Mercury to the Richmonder. Marcus Schmidt, moving from the Cardinal to the Mercury. Worth pointing out that Graham Moomaw and Marcus Schmidt are both RTD expats. They once worked for the Richmond Times-Dispatch. They no longer work for the Richmond Times-Dispatch because the newspaper cycles through these reporters, usually very young reporters, who work there for a brief period of time and then go on somewhere else. In fact, we've seen that in the last year that's happened. It's a stark contrast from the era when the Richmond Times-Dispatch would have really good reporters for decades and decades. I'm thinking specifically about James Latimer. This is not a name that's probably familiar to a lot of our listeners, but he was instrumental to me personally when I was researching the Bryd machine because James Latimer was there for the whole thing. He was there, maybe not in the early, but he was there for most of it and certainly there for the end of it. So, seeing his byline in old copies of the Richmond Times-Dispatch was very helpful for me personally in understanding the Bryd machine. People like James Latimer and, of course, let's not forget Jeff Schapiro, who has been at the Richmond Times-Dispatch for very long periods of time. I'm talking about decades here. So if that hotel that bought the building was smart, they would have a newspaper theme, and they would have the Jeff Schapiro suite that you could stay at. I don't think that would happen, and I think it might not be as popular with the general public, but something I would like to see.

Lauren Burke  

The Richmond Times-Dispatch, I have a love-hate relationship with the. I know the history of the paper and the embrace of massive resistance. And when I see people like Patrick Wilson leave, and obviously enterprises, he owns a paper. You can see there is definitely a management issue there. Because there are too many people who have left that have been really great reporters. Patrick Wilson was fantastic. And you know you mentioned already, Graham Moomaw, it's like when see who's leaving, I know, okay, something is wrong. But at this moment, they're doing a good job in terms of Samuel Parker's work. It does come down to the individual work of the individual people, thank goodness, and not the management so often. 

Michael Pope  

Yeah, that's a really important point that I want to make sure that we underscore for our listeners. I also tried to make this point when we had the episode about the Richmonder. The Richmond Times-Dispatch is hurting, and they're in a difficult place financially. They're about to leave downtown. However, despite all that, they are still, to this day, cranking out some really outstanding journalism, despite the fact that the news organization is kind of fading away. It's getting smaller. Still, despite their challenges, they're still creating some really outstanding journalism to this day.

Lauren Burke  

Absolutely, and I think they make some very foolish decisions about their paywalls, which it was great to know from the Richmonder That, of course, everything's going to be free under the not-for-profit model, and even know the Richmond Times-Dispatch, that huge building sitting there is going to be owned by somebody else, which is a shame. We should remember that the Richmond Free Press's office is still there. Right down the street, there is their glorious wood panel throwback office, which I say is one of the best offices in Richmond. It's just so cool. But anyway, yeah, there's a lot of changes in journalism. It's a battle to figure out how content makes money, and the for-profit model is a big challenge, but we do see people who succeed. Punch Bowl has succeeded at that in a big way; a lot of it is niche strategies that take a little bit of time. And you really break the news and figure out a way to get people to pay attention to things that nobody else knows about. It's hard to do, but it is good to see the Richmonder. And I can't wait till they start. I think it's on September 9. Yep, that'll be great. That'll be fantastic. 

Michael Pope  

Let's open up that Pod Virginia mailbag. Lauren, what are our listeners talking about?

Lauren Burke  

I was expecting to get some feedback about my mistake on the dates when McAuliffe had a challenge in the primary and where he didn't. I believe I said it was 2009 when he didn't have a challenge. Well, that was wrong. That was 2013. In fact, the 2009 primary was quite exciting. It was extremely exciting. 

Michael Pope  

I remember I covered it. It was it was fascinating. It was a Democratic primary. It was a three-way primary. Creigh Deeds ended up winning that primary. But until the momentum shifted at the tail end of that race because of a Washington Post endorsement, he actually was not the front runner in the race at all. Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe were in the race. Creigh Deeds, at the sort of the tail end of that, ended up winning. But it was a very nasty race between Brian Moran and Terry McAuliffe. They really went at each other hardcore in a very nasty race. And that's how Deeds ended up winning, as the beneficiary of the nastiness between Moran and McAuliffe. And then, after losing that primary, Terry McAuliffe teamed up with Levar Stoney, who drove McAuliffe around the state for basically four years, setting the wheels into place for his next run for Governor and also elbowing everybody else out of the way. By the time 2013 rolled around, this was really amazing. In retrospect, there were no other Democrats in the race. Terry McAuliffe had the whole thing to himself because Levar Stoney and Terry McAuliffe had traveled the state and pushed everybody else out of that race. Somehow, there must've been a lot of arm-twisting in there because how do you get a gubernatorial primary where there's one candidate? I don't know how that happens, but McAuliffe and Levar Stoney made it happen.

Lauren Burke  

Yeah, I think, I think that was interesting. I do remember the Deed's situation, the story of that cycle in 2009. Let's go back to that for a second. Creigh Deeds won, and I don't know how I ended up there, but I was actually at the McAuliffe, which was supposed to be a victory party, but I wasn't in Ballston at the Westin. That was something because I think everybody sort of expected that he would win. But Deeds, I should talk to Creigh about this. To this day, I don't know how he pulled that out. I thought Moran was a great candidate, and there were three good candidates, and somehow, Deeds won. And it was kind of a shock-the-world-type moment for Virginia at that moment. And wow. But as far as people that don't have primary challenges, obviously, there's a lot of belief in the party, a lot of times, with the machinery within the party that, oh, we don't want to spend the money, and the primary is going to be divisive. And I get all that, but I'm telling you, when I saw the Hillary Clinton situation in 2016, there was no real challenger. Then we just saw it again with Joe Biden, even though, of course, it's different because he's an incumbent. You would assume the incumbent would run again. But I think that no challenger scenarios have been fraught with peril. You don't have the challenging questions that you're going to get from the other candidates. You don't have the debates, and so you end up with somebody who's very sensitive about being questioned. And we're gonna probably see a little bit of that with the Vice President, I suspect because there's nobody there to really challenge that person. You can see it setting up again in Virginia on the Democratic side in 2025. I don't know, I don't think that yields a discussion on policy, and it usually doesn't yield the best result, but we'll see. Maybe it will. Maybe I'll be wrong. Only time will tell.

Michael Pope  

Yeah, obviously, Spanberger is currently viewed as the front-runner, but there could be other people who run in the race and make a challenge. We'll continue to keep an eye on that. But for now, let's celebrate some birthdays. 

Lauren Burke  

Today, August 12, is the birthday of a friend of the pod, Delegate Holly Siebold of Vienna. 

Michael Pope  

Friday, August 16, is the birthday of Delegate Carrie Coyner of Chesterfield.

Lauren Burke  

Sunday, August 18, is the birthday of David Brown, the Director of the Office of Diversity, Opportunity, and Inclusion.

Michael Pope  

Wait a minute. I thought that was the Office of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, right?

Lauren Burke  

Not in the Youngkin era. And we're not gonna get into it, because dog on it it's his birthday! 

Michael Pope  

Happy birthday!

Lauren Burke  

Give him a break because it's David Brown's birthday. We also should mention the passing of Roxanne Gilmore and wish in our thoughts, as well as in my thoughts, the Gilmore family. It's very hard when somebody passes away. My mother lives in Suffolk, and Miss Gilmore, our former First Lady of the Commonwealth of Virginia, was from that area, so I just want to mention her as well. That's it for this episode of Pod Virginia. Transcripts are on the website. Follow us on more social media for more chatter on Virginia politics.