Sure.

And so then by the time I came to it again in 2016, I was like, "I don't know quite what this book's gonna be." In the interim, I had talked with Sam Elworthy at Auckland University Press, who were beginning, I think at that point, to work on Matt Goody's Needles and Plastic.

And Sam was really enthusiastic about it, and we started talking, and I started doing some initial research, and that's when I realized, "Oh, no, no, no.

This has to be a biography." Like, you know, I can still do my little bit of social history and, or cultural history in there, but it's gotta be, um, a biography.

Mm

... and saw what Roger Shepherd was doing with Flying Nun.

And there's no doubt that, that, like, without Chris it's really ...

Like, Flying Nun would've happened.

How do you explain these kind of differences that we see across regions and markets? Are there any two or three very clear indicators of why?

So there are a few very uncomplicated things going on, all sort of intertwined with each other.

One important thing might be sort of the confluence of cheap data plans, high rates of mobile phone usage, and people coming to the internet mostly through their phones.

In a lot of Global South context, for instance, there are cases where Facebook was the internet.

It was the gateway into the internet for a long while.

And of course, that's going to boost usage of social media, but also social media for news and online news video usage.

These are also markets, you know, for example, Thailand have very, very high social media platform usage compared to some of their European counterparts or even in Asia Pacific.

Where's the consumption, you know, kind of moving at a really fast clip?

Are there concerns around that, or are they getting the same quality of information from those sources?

Yeah, so this is probably one of the main questions we get asked about regularly, of course, especially by the industry 'cause this is an industry concern.

You know, is this a zero-sum game? Is the, is attention going to them, uh, detracting from attention coming to us? Um, you know, time is a finite resource.

Um, but what we tend to find is that these content creators, these, these people on social media are, tend to be more additive than subtractive.

The, the kinds of people consuming news from content creators are also the ones more likely to be consuming news from mainstream media.

It's sort of the same information, but translated differently.

Maybe you heard the story on the BBC or The New York Times, but you want someone to unpack it for you and help you understand and explain this thing that you've just heard about.

But what should news outlets be doing to make the news more accessible, s- less overwhelming, kind of more inviting?

a bold way to start a conversation.

And then once I'm done, I'm going to go away and let you think about it.

So I said, I've got an idea for a book.

It's set in California.

It's about a middle-aged mom whose daughter has gone missing.

And the daughter was on a road trip.

No one knows where or why she was going.

It's

no.

Quite seriously.

And if there's any members of the popular press out there looking for a line, then they can jump onto this one.

No, we said in our wedding vows that we would never, ever, ever write a book together.

At that point, Alex had written 14 and I was, yeah, 11 or 12.

I can't remember now.

And we said we'd never do it for all the obvious reasons that we were happily married and wanted to keep it that way.

Yeah, it

[laughs] What a title.

Uh, with Tim Sullivan and C.M. Yoon- Interesting ... and they're all train related crime novels.

One's on the Eurostar.

One actually takes place mostly on a platform, but- Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Ooh.

So this is a, a another new venue this year.