The Rest of the Story, 2023
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There are celebrity interview shows and then there's wild card. It's a podcast for M P, R that the new york times just named as one of the ten best of twenty twenty four IT hosted by me, rhea Martin, I ask, guessed like isa ray and bond yang, revealing questions like, what's a place you consider sacred? Has ambition ever let you restrain? And i'm telling you, IT is such a good time. Listen to wild card wherever you get your podcast.

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Hey, there it's AManda. Ironic, before we get back to the show a bit of year and reflection in twenty twenty three, planet money followed the wild arc of inflation of interest rates. We've brought you a series about ai and an episode produced by A I, and we served up another extremely infotainment season of planet money summer school.

Of course, we have big plans for lots more cool stuff like that in twenty twenty four, but that stuff will not be possible without your help. This is where we want to say a big thank you to our planet money plus supporters and anyone listening who already donates to public media and to anyone out there who isn't a supporter yet right now is the time to get behind the entire network, especially with a big election year coming up. So please join N P R plus at plus dot M P R dot ord or make a tax deductable donation now at donate dot N P R dot orgues slash money. And thanks.

One of our most popular .

episodes from this past year was one about vacations paid time off and why americans have less of IT than pretty much the rest of the world. The reporter on that story with Sarah and sollas, who joins me now, hi Sarah, reminds us what prompted this episode because it's a fun story.

Actually is the fine okay? I guess IT started off as like A A personal, uh, question that I had, which was that I I had all of this vacation, a crude so so vacation that I had worked for, that I earned this this paid time off. IT was two hundred hours of vacation.

I never used IT. I was going to lose IT and I didn't even like attempt to fight for IT. I was just like, babe, vacation and IT is not just me.

A lot of people in the U. S. Leave vacation on the table.

And so the larger story became about, like, why is that? Uh and also why does the U S. Get such little vacation generally compared to a lot of other countries.

right? Then you sort of go through some of the main theories for why this is the one that I remember is the protestant work ethic.

And we debug that one pretty quickly. Um there's also a theory that that other rich countries take more vacation because their taxes are higher. So there's like less desire to work more when more of your wages are gonna get taken right? That one was also hard to prove. Uh but then this one economist kind of pointed the finger at labor unions for never even fighting for vacation as a right in the U.

S. The episode is great. And IT ends in this amazing way, which is basically, you say, i'm matter here. I'm about to go take a two week vacation here.

The idea is we're never gone to get more vacation as workers. If we don't like, ask for IT and take IT. So I was just like, i'm gonna do my part to take vacation.

So you go on vacation, you come back and you told us something that I actually found kind of hard to comprehend.

I'm not going to lie. I said I was too much location. I was too long. I was ready to come home.

So what happened? Such a tragedy.

Okay, I mean, obviously super uber fortunate to go on a two week vacation. But like, I don't know, by day five, day six, IT just felt too much is way too indulgent. IT felt like really selfish. And I was just ready to be home doing things I was like, I got things to do. Yes.

this was actually one of the themes of the show that people in the us. Really struggle with not being productive with all of their time.

We don't know how to not be productive uh right so I actually try to change my return flight home. Tried to move the trip up. We chose not to because I was going to be like ridiculous ly expensive. Um so we have the last few days I just was feeling like what a waste of my time. I don't know I don't know how to say IT. I do think that the right mix for me would be like a week of time off where you can like relax and be with your families, spend time together all that and then another week to like, get stuff ed done. Like deep, clean my closet, organized my draws, maybe like, plant some flowers.

May you have many productive days off.

And twenty, no, wish me the opposition, wish me that learn. Had I like, chill out and take vacation where I don't accomplish anything.

That is what I for myself, of course, that thank you next.

See you next year. thanks. See you next year.

Next up, planning money producer dave bencher.

hey, if hey.

nik, you were out there covering one of the biggest stories of the year, one of the biggest labor actions of this very labor action a year, the hollywood strikes. And specifically, you are looking at how they are all these rules to follow for striking. And there's this kind of gamesmanship over how to .

westernize those rules, right? yes. So this kind of back and force. So in the hollywood strike, we saw the classic protected labor action, the picket.

The picket line is a way to basic pressure people not to go into work, and that helps inflict as much economic damage as the striker is possibly can. Which in this case, when you know, these unions were picketing at giant holly's lots. And so they were just trying to pick IT that as many of the entrances onto the lots as they possibly could.

But then the studios used another part of labor law, which says that picketers can't necessarily pick IT everywhere. The studies can designate certain entrance to their lot, certain gates for people who have nothing to do with the strike. So on, these lots said, be like people working on commercials or things produced by companies the hollywood unions weren't striking against. They call these unpick table entrance neutral gates.

In your story, which was so much fun, was about this strike captain who was singularly obsessed with proving that the studios were abusing the system, this neutral gate system.

Yeah, his name is bill. Walk off. And yeah, he was obsessed because on the very first day of the strike, he, at this moment where he was just watching cars stream onto a lot through this supposed bly neutral gate, and he just had the sense the studios were violating the system.

IT was a little bit like a habs. Seeing the White whale for the first .

time felt like a chAllenge immediately. Yes, you're like, this is my quest now. O his quest was to prove they were abusing the system, because if they did that, the law said, then they could start to pick IT there they could flip the gate to turn IT from neutral to not neutral. And in our episode, he ends up succeeding. He flips the gate and expands his strikes reach.

right? So that was the story we heard during the strikes. I know that the strikes have ended, right? That's the big update, right? What other updates do you have for me?

Well, I called bill to just see what his experience of the end of the street. Ke, because he was so obsessed with idea of flipping as many gates as he possibly could. And I was just curious to know if he'd had like one less job that he was able to pull off before the strike ended.

Well, a lot of activity happened, uh IT toward right at the end of the strike.

Bill says the writers had their eye on one particular show that they suspected of cheating, of using the neutral gate when they weren't supposed to. And I could see that like strike cap and fire light up in bil's eyes as he began .

talking about IT. We even had one very dances piece of evidence we saw um all sorts of equipment that you need to create a stage and there was a big piece of ducks tape across IT ah with the letters D W T.

S dac with the star.

Yeah, you got IT, yes, dancing with the stars was planning this huge live extra. Agence, a IT was this big deal. And ferber, this is the opportunity.

Because if the strikers could create a delay here, it's not like the studio can just push back the live taping. I could I really screw ped the entire broadcast. So who who were the stars in this episode of dancing with the stars who keeping an eye for there was going in? Now.

Alice and hand again was a big one. SHE place SHE played willow and buffet, the vampire slayer. And there's others that i'm forgetting.

but I was made, I just want to look IT up. So this was dancing with the stars. See, I can tell if looking at the cast of daily stars shows how out of touch I am or out of that they are. You don't like .

any of these.

That's on me on them.

Look within dave, it's you.

That's almost certainly true. But either way, this broadcast was planned for a tuesday night and then the weekend before they started hearing rumors of a deal being made, which edo is very exciting in the big picture of the writer strike. But also, like bill had been so obsessed with gate flipping for months. And I just wondered if maybe like the smallest part of him, was a little bit conflicted with the news. Was there part of you that was like, I just let us get this done and and then come .

to a deal I wanted to deal faster? I know, yes, I can wish we had gone through because we made a lot of plans, but I am really, really, really glad that we we came to a deal.

They came to a deal, strike ended dancing with the stars, went on as planned. And I do as much as bill did get obsessed with like this gate flipping work. In the end, of course, he was more than happy to go back to the job. He's spent his entire life working towards being a screenwriter of all.

So he's back to work. He's back in the writers room.

exactly. Yeah, he was lucky enough to be working on a show before the strike. And so he just went back to the same show is the latest star truck series is called strange new worlds, but he didn't know what things would be like when he got back after this really acrimonious and long strike.

And there's kind of one moment, the first time he was face to face with the network exec on the zoom call with some other writers. And IT felt like the return to working together, they could still kind of go either way, the exacts we're going to give their notes on a script that bill had coreen. So the meaning started .

and there was a real pregnant pause. How is this going to go? It's going to .

be howk.

So we're all waiting for somebody to say something and then the president of the production company smiled and and and said the script was great. We're so glad to have you back and .

everybody .

gets a relief.

IT was a good ice breaking.

Er, he also said that the studio exec gave them free donuts and pay strives on their first day back in the office and there's no more classic all of branch from management. Then here's some free food .

works every time.

Dave blanchard is still here. Dave, there is a very important reason for that. And IT is that I want to give my update to you. I don't want to .

do IT alone. I'm here for you. Let me be your inner right.

So by update is about a show I worked on. There was about behavioral science, or behavioral economics, and in particular, these two researchers who studied honesty, who IT looked like had used fabricated data in some of their work. And the bigger idea here, of course, was that social science, science in general, is shifting towards being more transparent about research practices, more transparent with data. But as that happens, people, these new fingle data detectives, they're digging to some really significant research in calling into question. Sometimes they're finding out right fraud.

And and you talk to one of these data detectives who had looked into the honesty researchers work, and you'd found some real inconsistencies.

Yeah, usually Simonson professor at a sada business school in barco. A you may remember him for his microsoft c self forensic skill. How could I forget?

It's like a puzo that nobody knows a solution to and then you solve that is I means like true crime. That is right. True crime is so interesting to people and trying .

to figure IT out right? And IT makes for good podcast too.

hopefully.

So the other day I got on the phone with uri, and yeah, he has a lot of updates starting from basically right after episode came out.

So we listens to your episode as a family because we were driving to get started our vacation and your episode dropped. And so we listen to IT in the highway couple minutes later.

still on vacation, he's playing cards, playing bridge with his family, and his phone starts blowing up. It's his collaborators from data kada, the blog where he and others posted their investigations. And the reason his phone is blowing up was they got suit. How much money did you get suit for?

Well, we inhabit together twenty five million.

You have twenty five million sitting around.

And this .

is because of the story reported. Old.

I hope not. No, no, no. One of the researchers whose work they looked at her name is Francesc, a genome she's going harvard for, among other things, defamation and breach of contract.

And he is doing data canada for defamation as well. And again, usually found this out. While playing cards, while playing .

bridge sucks because they obviously completely take away your focus up from anything. Um so we lost I blame .

franchise.

okay? So he lost the card game. But then I guess like how does he respond to the lawsuit?

I mean, he said he's gna fight IT, but that if IT drags on, it's going to be very expensive. Which brings us to the second year update. Some of your his friends and colleagues organized a fund raiser for data collates legal defense, and the response was overwhelming.

They ve raised something like three hundred and seventy five. Five was in dollars from a bunch of famous academics and nuo prize winner. Even some people who they publicly called out or disagreed with all all something like three thousand people have donated that so far .

three thousand people saying, I support this project that was is one of the best thing profession that happen to me like saying saying that kind of support because when you see, when you make our blog post, no, you you hear from the critics and then you hear from the people who who praise you, but you don't know they have a second mode ever, something. But when you see three thousand people like this that feels very like real celebrity part warning.

you says they're not going to stop doing what they do. They're onna keep pushing the discipline to work Better with data. And when people don't, he's going to keep trying to uncover IT.

Okay, well, things that up, nick.

no, thank you.

Daye my pleasure.

Coming up one final update, we said IT for last because it's an emotional one. It's about our inflation song project and its singer earns Jackson.

For every headline, there's also another story about the people living those headlines on week. Days up first bring you the days biggest news on sunday. We bring you closer with a single story about the people's aces and moments reshaping our world. Your news made personal every sunday on the up first podcast from in P.

R. In college, most of the sulema started a helped ine for Young british muslims.

People are just looking to find support in a language that made sense to them today.

His C E O of microsoft A, I, where he's building digital helpers.

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every day now third, some sad news print of the show, earnest Jackson has passed away. He was seventy five. Long time listeners will remember earnest and his iconic voice from the song inflation, which planet money released last year when we started a record label for more about his life and how we came to know him. I'm enjoying now by arba. Ka, you .

worked .

with earn est. A lot tells how we all started.

right? So I started when we got our hands on this song, this long last song from the thousand nine hundred seventies, there have been recorded but never released. And this song was so good, and I was also just so timely. IT was about living under high inflation.

And then we've got to know more .

about the musicians behind the song. IT was his band called sugar daddy. In the gumbo room, we learned about the singer and song writer ernest Jackson.

And then when we reached out to him .

and we talk to him, we were so charmed by him. This is a guy who had been singing and performing from the time he was a teenager .

in nike clubs. And I was fourteen. And I mean, I used to have him jumping in alone at the table was, no.

he had a few brushes with fame, but he spent most of his career as a singing .

waiter in batteries and a with a beautiful own.

But he had also know, just raised the family and still was gigging around town. But everyone who had ever met him, whatever talk to him, was like, this is a guy that should have made IT, that would have made IT, that could have made if you .

just gotten a chance, like he had all this talented. And, you know, I haven't given up my dream. I pray on IT all the time.

So we set out to release the song, and there are all these complicated music industry things we did. But really, we knew that one's people heard inflation once people heard earnest boys that the song would just take off. And IT did. IT has two million streams and counting. And who's even on earnest .

favorite radio station back so long is called inflation.

It's forty seven years old in america. I know ernest had another big update that he was excited to talk to about, right?

Well, one of the people who heard earnest st. On our show was a television writer and producer named Scott Jacobs son. Scotch is called bob s.

burgers. IT is a huge deal animated show. And Scott had actually written a song for a future episode of box burgers. IT was supposed to be sung by this made of band called the sole breezes that had been huge in the souvenir. And he needed to .

cast someone to sing IT. I heard earnest and IT just seemed kind of san depuis. We needed a voice that I had character that sounded like somebody who had been singing for a long time, but that also had just joy to IT, you know, gravitational gravity.

gravitas. Scott says, just like us. As soon as he heard earnest boys, he could tell earnest was special. And so he brought earnest onto the show. IT was a rare kind .

of treat to be able to take something that I love and fitted into this world. Earnest vocals, like he changed the song. He inhabited the song.

The song is called gas in my car. It's about the gas crisis back in the seventies.

So I get to do, no matter when you walk in, come on on road to you, believe.

I sure I missing you. I wanted see you soon. I can get my gona. Do you be tonight? We time.

No, man, when you are there.

Earnest was so excited, he called me after the show. He was just like so hopeful that this would open more doors for him as we were putting together this update though his son qui, whom we've tn to know what working on this project, he called to tell me the news. I offered my condolences and then we just spent some time talking about his dad.

You know, my day was my best friend when you know we whenever ver with a gather, we did every time to gather. Yeah, he just a joy to be around you. Just, you like to crack jokes.

Think.

of course, I mean, we will be talking you. Yeah, had a smart I A light up room.

Yeah, what what was all of this like for him this past year?

Oh, man, he was such good experience. Man, he was so happy about that. You know, you know, he would not stop playing inflation.

He would not definitely know he, he looked at IT as a big, he was, he was a big phone. You know, he was a stead. You happy .

your father, ernest Jackson was like one of the most special people, I think, that i've ever met. And we were honored to be a record label for him. And we were, we were honor to share his great talent with the world. So thank you.

No, he, he, the type of person they need to be shared. You know, i'm glad I had him as my food, you know. So, yes, this is definitely gonna .

a be a.

uh, uh, a real rough and go like like to the first time we .

met earnest producer James need saton silas and I spent hours talking with earnest about songs. There was one in particular that we all loved.

Will you give me a little sam cook?

I get, you know, like a changes. If you come, I would. Oh, then the same music, but I changed the lira.

S how does he go?

They go. I was worn by the river and a little time who, and just like the room are the running i've been running. Everything has been a long time coming.

But I knew I change here to go or yes, he did. It's been too hard living, but i'm not afraid to that because I think I know was a there beyond new guys a long, a long time coming. But I know a change had to come yesterday. It's a change in your life when you you knew a change had to come because life was dictating to you. You know .

it's .

a good job. Yeah, it's a good time.

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