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Comedian dishes on why people are flocking to podcasts for their information

Comedian dishes on why people are flocking to podcasts for their information

Fox News20-02-2025

Comedian Kelsey Cook offered her thoughts on why more and more people are flocking to podcasts for their information, as well as what has contributed to the meteoric rise of stand-up comedy in recent years.
Cook has been a stand-up comedian for over 15 years, and her most recent special, "Mark Your Territory," premiered on Hulu and YouTube on Feb. 11.
The main reason she believes people are turning to podcasts over mainstream media boils down to a lack of trust and relatability between the mainstream media and the public.
"I think people are starting to get more of their political information from podcasts because I think people want to feel like they can trust the interviewer more. And oftentimes, podcasters are people who present as just like, 'I am one of you,'" said Cook. "Especially if it's a comedian, it feels very like, this is a person who's just like us."
She also noted that people have a much easier time relating to comedians and podcasters, who typically present themselves as everyday people, than they would a politician or news anchor.
"This [podcaster] isn't another politician or maybe a news anchor that we don't necessarily relate to as much. And so I think that's kind of why people have turned more to podcasts for not just feeling like they trust the host more, but also, it's like a very different interview environment," said the comedian. "I think the things that are being talked about are a little more laid back. Feels like potentially a more authentic interview than on a major news source."
The 2024 election cycle put this idea of the public trusting podcasters over legacy media into the spotlight, with President Donald Trump and Vice President J.D. Vance allocating large portions of their time on the campaign trail to appearing on popular podcasts such as the Joe Rogan Experience and the Tim Dillon Show.
This strategy paid off, with Trump winning the popular vote in 2024 and continuing to see his approval ratings at personal all-time highs after the election.
Cook also touched on comedy becoming a freer medium than it ever has been, with comics having the ability to say whatever they want — whether they're on-stage or in the podcast studio — and find an audience who's interested in what they say. As Cook explained, there are no longer gatekeepers who are able to mediate what comics are able to convey to their audiences.
"I do think that comedy's become a more free medium. I think more than ever, people have been able to find their own fan base, and it doesn't necessarily have to be like, you don't have to be everybody's cup of tea," Cook claimed. "I think it is becoming very free where people can kind of do what they want, say what they want, and their fans will find them."
As far as stand-up comedy, Cook feels that the biggest reason for its recent surge in popularity was the COVID-19 pandemic, which resulted in people paying more attention to social media and streaming services than ever before.
"I think the thing that's probably helped comedy explode the most was probably the pandemic. You know, everybody was inside on their phones watching TV, watching their phone, and that became a time for comics to make as much content as you could because there was such a demand for it," said Cook.
The end of the pandemic was the beginning of the touring boom for stand-ups, according to Cook. Many people who found their favorite comedians via social media and streaming services during the lockdowns were finally able to see their favorite acts in person.
"I think you saw people finding their new favorite comics over the pandemic, and then once things opened back up and people could start touring again, people were like, 'great, this person's coming to my city, I've been cooped up inside for however long now, I want to go out and do stuff.' And so I think a lot of us saw a big touring boom, especially once people could go out and kind of resume normal life again."
According to Pollstar, revenue from stand-up shows had doubled from 2022 to 2024, with the combined gross revenue among the top 25 comedians during the past year being $582.7 million.

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Reasonable Doubt Duo Talk Morris Chestnut's Season 3 Return, Hype Joseph Sikora and Other Additions
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Reasonable Doubt Duo Talk Morris Chestnut's Season 3 Return, Hype Joseph Sikora and Other Additions

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Once Upon a Time, They Considered Giving Up. Now They're 2025 Tony Nominees (Exclusive)
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Five years ago on March 12, 2020, the show did not go on. As COVID-19 spread like wildfire throughout the United States, Broadway was ultimately forced to go dark. It was a devastating blow to New York City's vibrant and beloved theater community, putting thousands of performers and creative artists out of work for 18 months — the industry's longest shutdown in history. Thespians, however, pushed forward, and the creation of new art never ceased. 'There were so many works that were cooking,' Gypsy's Tony-nominated featured actressJoy Woods exclusively tells Parade, 'and now they're finally out of the oven.' In fact, 'this is like a post-pandemic Golden Era,' LaTanya Richardson Jackson says as she proudly dons her Tony Awards nominee pin at the annual meet and greet with this year's star-studded honorees. 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PERSEVERING THROUGH IT ALL It takes courage to work in live theater. Rejection is part of the gig, and even when an artist is lucky enough to land a job, they must bare their soul for all to see — and be prepared if the reviews are not in their favor. Long before Conrad Ricamora starred on the ABC series How to Get Away with Murder and was Tony-nominated for playing Abraham Lincoln in Oh, Mary!, he was just another up-and-coming actor taking a stab at Shakespeare. 'I was doing Romeo and Juliet in Philadelphia, and I was in my early 20s,' he explains. 'I was playing Romeo. I got this scathing review in the Philadelphia Inquirer. And it was the first time I'd ever been reviewed, and I made the mistake of looking at the review, and I then was in a depression for, like, two months. And I [thought], 'Well, if everyone hates you, do you still want to do this?' … And I told myself, 'Yeah.' The answer was yes.' 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Gypsy's Woods, who plays Louise opposite Audra McDonald's Momma Rose, never thought she had a chance to play the woman who would become Gypsy Rose Lee, a real-life burlesque entertainer in the 1920s and 30s who was white. 'When we're taught [the musical] in school, you are shown clips, and you don't see anybody in those clips that looks like you,' Woods explains. 'So, no, I didn't think [I'd play this role]. And when I saw the day that they announced that they were doing Audra [in] Gypsy, I remember leaving a matinee of The Notebook [in which she previously starred] and seeing the sign and saying, 'Oh my God, I can't wait to see that. That's going to be so good. Whoever plays Louise, they're going to kill it.' I did not think it was going to be me.' The stories themselves are varied as well. 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Darren Criss, Tony-nominated for his performance as a robot named Oliver in the endearing new musical Maybe Happy Ending, reveals to Parade that he has a group chat with his former Glee pals, which includes Groff — whom he is up against for best lead actor in a musical. 'We got a whole group thread going, man,' Criss says. 'It's the nice thing about working on Broadway. We're all on the same campus. We're all within several blocks of each other. We all know each other. We all know each other's work. We've all, you know, been in rooms together before. We're not all separated. There's a real fraternity there, and that's not just some canned line. It's true. We're all working [in the] same village. It's such a fun, amazing thing. We all grew up loving this so much. The fact that we get to do it is already such a huge 'W,' so getting to be in a category together for a fancy party is just a fun little bonus.' ParadeParade With additional reporting by Garid Garcia. See photos of the Tony Award-nominated creative team members below: View the 41 images of this gallery on the original article

Former O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do headed to prison for COVID relief bribery scheme
Former O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do headed to prison for COVID relief bribery scheme

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Former O.C. Supervisor Andrew Do headed to prison for COVID relief bribery scheme

Andrew Do, the former Orange County supervisor who took more than $550,000 in bribes over COVID-relief money meant to buy meals for needy, elderly constituents, was sentenced Monday to five years in federal prison. 'I just do not believe a sentence anything less than the maximum reflects the seriousness of the crime,' said U.S. District Judge James Selna. "Public corruption brings damage far beyond the monetary loss to the county." The judge expressed displeasure that the law allowed him to sentence Do to only five years. Do fled war-torn Vietnam with his family as a child to become an attorney and one of Southern California's most powerful Vietnamese American politicians. As part of a plea deal, Do admitted last year that he funneled more than $10 million in federal pandemic funds to a nonprofit that in turn steered money to his two daughters. The scandal was uncovered in 2023 by the news site LAist, which reported that Do approved contracts worth millions to the nonprofit, which promised to provide meals to the poor, elderly and disabled residents of Little Saigon but could show scant evidence of its effort. Do approved the contracts without disclosing that his 23-year-old daughter Rhiannon, a law student at UC Irvine, had signed documents identifying herself as the nonprofit's president or vice president. As accusations mounted, Do claimed he was the victim of slander, responding with defiant vitriol against the reporter who broke the story, Nick Gerda, and demanding his firing. When the Orange County Register called for Do's resignation, he accused the newspaper of spreading 'gross misinformation.' Late last year, however, Do agreed to resign from the Board of Supervisors and pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery. Federal prosecutors said the Viet America Society gave Rhiannon a job, and paid her as an employee, after her father voted in favor of the lucrative contracts. Prosecutors also said the organization steered money to Do's other daughter through an air conditioning company. 'I'm very grateful that the judge saw the case for what it is,' said Janet Nguyen, the current First District Supervisor. 'He benefitted while people suffered. He took advantage during the pandemic, when no one was watching.' She said the county is conducting an audit to better understand how Do's scheme was allowed to occur. Prosecutors accused Rhiannon Do of making a false statement on a loan application, but agreed to defer the charge, allowing her to enter a diversion agreement in exchange for her cooperation. The elder Do, a Republican, worked as a deputy public defender and a prosecutor before he won a special election in 2015 to represent Orange County's 1st Supervisorial District, which covers Cypress, Fountain Valley, Garden Grove, Huntington Beach, La Palma, Los Alamitos, Westminster and Seal Beach. He became the second Vietnamese American ever to serve on the board, and was later elected to two four-year terms. He was known for his efforts to combat homelessness and for his sponsorship of a Tet Festival in Fountain Valley that drew thousands of people annually. At a time when Vietnamese immigrants face increased threats of eviction and deportation, the disgraced supervisor's behavior 'erodes the already precarious level of trust our community has in the government,' said Mai Nguyen Do, the research and policy manager for the Harbor Institute for Immigrant and Economic Justice, a community group. 'After he's released, it wouldn't surprise me if he goes about his life, and meanwhile so many working-class people in the community don't have the resources to pick themselves up again after they're incarcerated,' said Do, who has no relation to the former supervisor. Jodi Balma, a professor of political science at Fullerton College who has followed the Do scandal, wondered how the bribery scheme somehow passed through the checkpoints of the county bureaucracy. 'There are really good and smart though somewhat annoying procedures in place to verify all contracts with the county,' Balma said. 'Somebody had to say, 'Approve that payment' without any receipts or verification or services. And those people have not been held responsible.' Balma also wondered whether it was fair that Rhiannon Do was allowed to enter a diversion program. 'If there is no punishment for his daughter, that feels unfair to all the other law students who might not be accepted to the California Bar Association because of misconduct,' Balma said. 'This is huge misconduct for someone who wants to be a lawyer.' Andrew Do's defense attorneys asked that he be sentenced to 33 months in prison. In a court filing, they said he had been volunteering at a maritime institute that teaches sailing to underprivileged teens, adding that the head of the program had praised Do's 'unwavering ethical compass.' The defense attorneys said that Do had expressed 'shame' and 'deep sorrow' for his crimes, that his license to practice law had been suspended and that his life has been 'destroyed by his own acts.' Do had 'received no actual payment to himself—all significant funds were provided to his daughter Rhiannon Do,' the defense wrote in a court motion, claiming he had been 'willfully blinded to the violations by the desire to see benefit to his adult daughter.… He now recognizes how completely wrong he was in this catastrophic self-delusion.' The plea deal called for restitution between $550,000 and $730,500, with the sale of the family's forfeited house in Tustin credited against that figure. 'This episode of poor judgment stands out as unique in his otherwise commendable life,' the defense wrote. 'He had a catastrophic lapse of judgment when he failed to stop payments to his daughters, and because VAS was helping his family, he failed to see the red flags of these illegal acts.' Pleading for leniency, defense attorneys invoked Do's backstory as a man who rose to public service after a childhood in war-ravaged Vietnam. But prosecutors said his background only amplified his guilt, considering many of the constituents he victimized had similarly difficult pasts, and he was aware of their vulnerability. Do 'made the decision to abandon the elderly, sick, and impoverished during a national emergency so that he could personally benefit,' prosecutors wrote. 'When the County and nation were at their most vulnerable, defendant saw an opportunity to exploit the chaos for his own benefit and, in so doing, betrayed the trust of hundreds of thousands of his constituents,' prosecutors wrote. 'The scheme was far-reaching and premeditated, and defendant had no qualms about pulling others into his criminal enterprise, including his own children.' Do's crimes, the prosecutors wrote, were 'an assault on the very legitimacy of government.' Calling his conduct 'despicable' and his attempt to minimize his crimes 'absurd,' prosecutors said that of the more than $10 million he steered to the Viet America Society , much of it supposedly for meal programs for the elderly and disabled, only $1.4 million went to that purpose. Do's willingness to involve his family in his scheme pointed to his 'moral indifference,' prosecutors said, while his campaign of invective against the press aggravated his culpability. In connection with the Do case, the U.S. Attorneys office announced charges last week of bribery against the founder of the Viet America Society, and for wire fraud against a man affiliated with another Orange County relief group. The judge ordered that Do surrender himself to federal custody by Aug. 15 and recommended he be incarcerated in the federal prison in Lompoc. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

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