Judith Regan: Okay, well, the most important thing to know is that I love you. You’re one of my dear friends.
Pearl Lam (林明珠): You are a writer, a creator. You do talk show, you produce. You really have done a lot of things. But what makes you most famous is this OJ Simpson book.
Judith Regan: Infamous.
Pearl Lam: Infamous. It’s really infamous.
Judith Regan: I received a phone call many years ago from an attorney saying, OJ wants to come confess. Individuals have agendas. Corporations have agendas. We’re flawed, right?
Pearl Lam: I mean, it was so shocking.
Judith Regan: It was really shocking. And what happened behind the scenes is even more shocking. And you texted me and said, you’re not safe in America. China.
Pearl Lam: Yes. Okay. Hello, this is the Pearl Lam Podcast. I am so happy and delighted to have my very dear friend Judith Regan joining the podcast today. And Judith, can you tell the audience something about yourself?
Judith Regan: Okay, well, the most important thing to know is that I love you. You’re one of my dear friends. You’re the most incredible woman, I think, on the planet. The most interesting, the most exciting, the most beautiful, the most everything. But we know that I spent almost 50 years in the media business. I have run several publishing companies. I have published thousands of books, from Gregory Maguire’s Wicked, which became a big Broadway musical, to Howard Stern, to literary geniuses. Wally Lamb, Jess Walter, so many history professors, diet books, food design.
Pearl Lam: Literally, we met each other because you were public shame books.
Judith Regan: Exactly. So I read about you and I said, this woman has quite, quite a story. And I said, I have to meet her. I want her to do a book. That’s how my office called. Your office?
Pearl Lam: Yeah. But then I wanted to meet you because of other things.
Judith Regan: Oh, yeah. Many vanity fair faces many scandals. Hello? Hello.
Pearl Lam: Yeah, I read Vanity Fair about Judah Regan’s scandal. I said, this lady, I have to meet her. So we met in LA. That’s how we met.
Judith Regan: That’s how we met. And, you know, I produced and hosted a television talk show for ten years.
Pearl Lam: And radio.
Judith Regan: Radio for 14 years. Produced television, produced interviews, produced television content. I’ve done sort of it all in the publishing and television space.
Pearl Lam: When you were studying and in college, you were from Vesa, right?
Judith Regan: Yeah.
Pearl Lam: And then did you realise that you are going to become a publisher, a creator, and doing media business?
Judith Regan: Well, all my life I’ve loved the arts. So as a child, I was artistic, I was creative, I was musical. I played the violin.
Pearl Lam: Oh, didn’t you sang?
Judith Regan: Oh, yeah, I sang. You know, I just. The arts were in my heart forever and ever and ever. And I think as I’ve evolved as a human being and as the media business has evolved over the last seven years, it’s all multimedia. Now. Everything is multimedia. So, you know, my heart belongs in the art world. And, you know, having a creative vision has always been my thing, and it’s gotten me through life. And I think it’s. I used to think it was a curse because why couldn’t I be a banker or a lawyer or do things that other people do? But at the end of the day, being a creative person stays with you your whole life.
Pearl Lam: But when you first started, was it difficult to just get into this media business?
Judith Regan: It was very difficult. And I came in as an outsider. I didn’t know anyone. I was, you know, the girl who came off the boat to New York, and I didn’t have any contacts, and I just figured out how to kind of find my way in and make my way up the food chain of the media business.
Pearl Lam: But as a woman, being as a media executive must be tough.
Judith Regan: You know, it was tough for a long time. And I’d say I’ve never thought of myself in any way as a victim. It’s just not how I view anything. And whatever the hardship was and whatever the challenge has been or still exists, I love a good challenge, and I’ve always found a way to kind of work around it. So as a woman, I basically used it to my advantage. Right. So there were those people who felt that I was less than or they wouldn’t notice me or they didn’t take me seriously. And in some ways, that made me work harder, and it made me enjoy the challenge of getting around them and trying to figure out how to win, because I love to win.
Pearl Lam: I know.
Judith Regan: I love to win. It’s my favourite thing.
Pearl Lam: And how did you pick up, I mean, how among all the books, right. I was told that your first published book and under your imprint is wicked, right? Yeah.
Judith Regan: So I worked at Simon and Schuster for many years, and I was a very successful editor there. And I acquired a lot of best selling books and had a lot of number one best selling books. And it was all very exciting. And then I decided I wanted to do my own thing and have my own business. So I started my own business as a co venture with News Corp. I had lunch with Rupert Murdoch, who called and said, do you want to start a business? And I’m like, yeah, give me the money. And he did.And so I started this business. And the very first book I acquired was wicked.
Pearl Lam: Why? Why wicked?
Judith Regan: Well, you know, in that case, a lot of what I’ve done over the years I’ve developed myself ideas that I’ve cast writers into. But in that case, it was an agent who sent me a, sent me the manuscript. And I remember the day it came in, I walked by my assistant’s desk and in those days we actually had paper. People didn’t email you the manuscript. And I looked down and there was this manuscript and the title was wicked. And I said, great title. And I turned the first page and it said, this is the story of a little girl who was born green and how she grew up to become the Wicked Witch of the west. And I’m like, I’m in, it’s the wizard of Oz. And I called the agent, preempted it, did a six book deal with Gregory McGuire.
Pearl Lam: Six books.
Judith Regan: Six books. Paid him a lot of money and, you know, spent the next decades.
Pearl Lam: He flew and flies.
Judith Regan: Yeah. And that was 30 years ago. It’s taken that long. And this year the movie Wicked will be released and it will be the movie of the year. And they’re doing it in two parts.
Pearl Lam: Two parts.
Judith Regan: Two parts. Which is really interesting. Yeah.
Pearl Lam: But in theatre it’s just one. Yeah, yeah. 2 hours and two and a half hours.
Judith Regan: So the book is a unique creation, the musical is a unique creation and the movie is a unique creation, even though it’s based on the same material. And they decided, and probably rightly so, it’s probably an economic choice to do it a year apart. Oh, wow. Yes. Yes. So it’ll be really interesting. I do think it’s going to be. The previews are available now. Anyone can go online and cheque it out. It’s magnificent. Absolutely magnificent.
Pearl Lam: Trailers.
Judith Regan: The trailers. Yeah, I think it’s going to be a really magical, magical movie with, you know, huge talent and it’ll be a real experience. It’ll be the Barbie of the year. Wicked. Yeah, but it only took 30 years.
Pearl Lam: It took 30 years.
Judith Regan: You know, I don’t have time for that now.
Pearl Lam: I mean, you are a writer, a creator, and you do talk show, you produce and you really have done a lot of things. But what makes you most famous is this OJ Simpson.
Judith Regan: Infamous.
Pearl Lam: Infamous. It’s really infamous. Is this OJ Simpson book to the tv show. And I remember at that time, I think I met you like three, four years at the time.
Pearl Lam: And this OJ Simpson name, came out and I was in New York and I said to you, Judith Regan: be careful, be careful, be careful. You get into trouble. You said, no, no, no. My company is very supportive of me.
Judith Regan: Right.
Pearl Lam: And the next thing you got completely betrayed.
Judith Regan: Betrayed, right.
Pearl Lam: Betrayed.
Judith Regan: I just wrote a piece for the Hollywood Reporter.
Pearl Lam: I mean, it was so shocking.
Judith Regan: It was really shocking. And what happened behind the scenes is even more shocking, which I partially wrote about in this piece. When the day after OJ passed away, I received a phone call many years ago from an attorney saying, OJ wants to confess and he wants to do it in book form. But the only way hell do it is if he calls the book. If I did it, he wants to do it as a hypothetical. And of course, this was absurd and in bad taste and so on and so forth. And he said to me, he wants to have deniability with his children. That was his argument. And that very night, I was attending a dinner with Rupert Murdoch, Tom Perkins, who was on the board of News Corp, and Tom Perkins ex-wife, Danielle Steele, the world famous romance author. And I mentioned this. I said, I received a very bizarre phone call today. And my feeling about it is, if we can do this project, and as part of this project, get him to sit in a chair and do a television interview about what he did, what happened. No matter what he says, a skilled interviewer will be able to get him to talk about the night of the murder. And we’ll see for ourselves, you know, what we believe happened on that night. And so I proceeded. Murdoch was behind it, fully supportive. Nobody knew about the project. It was very, very confidential and kept under wraps. And Barbara Walters, who at the time was ABCs top, top, you know, interviewer, she was supposed to do the interview. She had agreed to do the interview. Her company was going to produce it. And then on a Thursday night, she called and backed out. And it was set up for that Sunday.
Pearl Lam: Oh my God.
Judith Regan: Fox wanted it for sweeps. Now. It still hadn’t been made public. So I talked to Fox. They wanted it. And it was decided that since we had no time, it was a Friday at this point, and the interview was going to happen that Sunday, that I would do it, because I had spent ten years as a television talk show host and many years as a radio host. And so I quickly scrambled. I did the interview. And in the 5 hours that I interviewed him.
Pearl Lam: 5 hours?
Judith Regan: 5 hours, yeah. He didn’t want to come out. He was pacing in the green room. He was changing his mind. He was getting nervous. He didn’t want to sit for the interview. He was getting very nervous about it. And then he came out and we spent. I had to convince him to walk out of the green room and sit in the chair. But in the first hour or so it was basically talking about football. And he was comfortable. And at some point he leaned over and he said to me, when you came here today, you didn’t think you’d like me, but I changed your mind, didn’t I? And I thought, okay, you know, now we have a rapport and he’s comfortable. And then over the next several hours, we talked about what happened, and he was a textbook abuser. He absolutely blamed her for everything. Everything was her fault. He was just going over there that night to scare her because he liked going over to her house to terrorise her, and he thought that was acceptable. And it’s a really revealing interview. After the interview, which was a five-hour interview, they were cutting promos in a truck outside, sending them to Fox News. Roger Ailes, who ran Fox News at the time, who was later famously fired for sexually harassing women.
Pearl Lam: Sexual abuse, yeah.
Judith Regan: He told the hosts basically to kill me. It was Roger who put the hit on me at that moment. Destroy her. So the spin was that I had done something wrong. As I’m doing the interview and they’re cutting the promotions and sending them to Fox News, I walk out. One of the hosts called me and told me what was happening, which I couldn’t believe. And then over a two-week period.
Pearl Lam: Do you mean that Rupert Murdoch did not tell Roger els, who’s running the tv, that you’re doing this?
Judith Regan: You know, there’s a whole thing about what happened behind the scenes, which I’ll have to say for another day. Cause it’s political and scary and, you know, it’s terrifying. But the long and the short of it is they started killing me. The New York Post ran a story smearing me, and they just started destroying my reputation.
Pearl Lam: Exactly.
Judith Regan: Yeah, they just set out to destroy me and gagged me at the same time and then fired me. And then when they realised in my contract with them, because I had sold them my interest in the company and was now an employee, they had no right to fire me. They had to have grounds to fire me. So they made something up and smeared me some more and I sued them and I won and they retracted it, and they had to pay me a lot of money and blah, blah.
Pearl Lam: Oh, I know there was one point, you were in China, we were running around eating one tonne, and then from Shanghai to China.
Judith Regan: So during this time, and you may not remember this, when this all went down and it was international headlines, it was on the front page of every media company in the world, every newspaper, every television, radio, it was huge news. And I’m being smeared and people are sending me death threats and all the rest of it. And you texted me and said, you’re not safe in America. Come from China.
Pearl Lam: Come from China.
Judith Regan: Yeah. And I said, okay. So I got on a plane and Pearl Lam: , who was the most magnificent friend a human being could ever have again, brilliant, beautiful, loving, adoring, loyal and good to the poor. No, I mean really. And I really want to tell you once again how much I appreciated your reaching out to me as a true friend and saying, come here. And you took care of me.
Pearl Lam: Yeah, I took. But it’s funny because we were in the car and there was these phone calls calling you. He said, I’m talking to lawyer, I’m talking to this, the journalist. It was.
Judith Regan: Yeah, it was unbelievable.
Pearl Lam: You did not even have 1 minute of quiet time.
Judith Regan: I know, it was insane.
Pearl Lam: Bombarding you. I mean, it’s pretty horrible.
Judith Regan: Yeah. Well, now I want to do it as a musical, the whole thing.
Pearl Lam: Because it’s really funny.
Judith Regan: Yeah. I mean, the story I wrote for the Hollywood Reporter when they called about OJ, you know, what do you think? And all these years later and that interview was cancelled at the time.
Pearl Lam: Yeah.
Judith Regan: And then twelve and a half years.
Pearl Lam: Later I thought that the book was then given it to the Goldman, so. To the Goldman? Yeah, because they was trying to sue.
Judith Regan: And everything and then they fired me. They cancelled the project. They said they destroyed the tapes of the interview, which they later discovered. They later discovered and they cancelled everything and they cancelled me. Right. And then the Goldmans sued for the rights, got the rights. And even though they had in essence smeared me on television and said, this is not a confession, this is a horror, this is a disgrace that she’s publishing this. They then got the rights to the book and published it and had a chance to read it and said, oh, this is a confession. And they published it as a confession.
Pearl Lam: And they was a bestseller. They didn’t pay you?
Judith Regan: No, no, no. And they were trying to collect money from OJ and they did in the form of that book. This is probably the only money they collected. And then the interview, many, many years later, I then get a call saying, oh, we’ve decided to air the interview.
Pearl Lam: Which was supposedly lost.
Judith Regan: Right. I mean, and then they asked me to be part of it and to go on a panel and to do commentary about the interview that somebody else then introduces it was a very bizarre experience. But they did air it twelve and a half years later and to acclaim, you know, the New York Times thought it was fascinating many people thought it was amazing, and everyone thought it was a confession, including Christopher Darden, who was one of the prosecuting attorneys whose book I had published, who condemned me when it was falsely announced that I was, you know, doing this horrible thing. The way the media was spinning it and the way Roger Ailes was spinning it. And he said, I wish I had seen this twelve and a half years ago. And he apologised to me. He said, you know, it was a rush to judgement. No one had seen this. This is a confession. That interview is his only confession. And it’s pretty remarkable that it took all those years, but it finally did come out and once again, you know, I was on top. You just wait long enough.
Pearl Lam: But that must be really hurtful for all those years, because I remember you were brutal in a lawsuit and it was so unfair, so mean, that formation, defamation, you will be defamed.
Judith Regan: But it shows the power of the media organisation to destroy people’s lives. You know, they tried to destroy my life. I don’t let anybody destroy my life.
Pearl Lam: You are a tough cookie. So, you know, then you still continue to publish books. And I remember when Amazon came in, most of the bookstore publishing houses, they were losing money, and then you were the only one who was surviving.
Judith Regan: I survived for a long time.
Pearl Lam: Yeah. How do you, how did you do it? How did you, how did you do it?
Judith Regan: I. You have to change. You know, my philosophy is change or die. I think it’s very, very difficult now in television, in film, in book publishing, traditional media is dying. It’s dying. There’ll always be those projects and those media properties that no matter what, are going to sustain and are going to be amazing. But as the media business has changed and more and more people are kind of media entrepreneurs, whether it’s a podcast like this or YouTube shows or TikTok personalities, you know, there are kids on TikTok who create content, who are making millions and millions of dollars, and now a lot of the power and the money is in the hands of individuals who are creating their own content. So you don’t really need per se to go to somebody else to create it for you. You can do it yourself if you have that skillset.
Pearl Lam: Okay, so there’s so many. Let’s talk about the printing first. Okay. There’s so many writers today, they are doing self publishing, but self publishing, if you don’t have the means to market, or if your IG doesn’t, they don’t have enough followers.
Judith Regan: No, no. So what can you, I mean, what.
Pearl Lam: Can one do, can you advise some of the writers?
Judith Regan: Well, it’s very challenging to do any kind of media project unless you understand marketing because there is so much free content now. Yes, a limitless supply. It just goes on and on and on and on and on. And you have so many consumers of content now who are on social media, who are creating their own social media, who have specific interests and they find the material that suits their interests. Right. And so marketing is really about knowing who your audience is, where they live, and connecting with them in some meaningful way. If you don’t do that, you’re not going to have an audience.
Pearl Lam: Yes.
Judith Regan: You know, and so more and more and more people can’t get published. They can’t find publishers to take on their projects because it’s too expensive to take on someone who’s a total unknown and to build a marketing plan with them because publishers publish far too many books to launch basically new products all the time. And so if you’re an established author and you already have an audience, you’re going to get, those are the people that get all the money, and then there’s nothing left over for new people unless you have a completely amazing vision and a marketing plan to go with it. And that’s unfortunate because so many of the people that I published over the years, who were new voices and new talents, you could market them now it’s pretty much impossible.
Pearl Lam: So, and so if you see a very talented writer, they come to you and he, I mean, he came to you and asked you to represent him to publish his book. Will you do it?
Judith Regan: You know, it depends on the subject. And some I take on as a labour of love and, you know, really put my heart and soul into it. But increasingly that becomes a big challenge. There are lots and lots of people who have enormous gifts as writers, but they’re never going to find a market because the marketplace is just too crowded. It’s like trying to find that one star in the sky at night. And it’s impossible. It becomes impossible unless they figure it out ahead of time and have some audience to begin with. It’s just too difficult to challenge.
Pearl Lam: So, and even if they have a very strong following in the IG, it won’t.
Judith Regan: It’s still difficult.
Pearl Lam: It’s still difficult.
Judith Regan: It’s still an incredible challenge. And also the economics are very difficult for publishers now. It’s much more expensive to print books, to distribute books, but the cost of books hasn’t gone up and Amazon takes such a big chunk and charges the publishers an enormous amount of money and they essentially have a monopoly. They definitely have a monopoly no matter what. I know that there was the lawsuit when Simon and Schuster and Random House were trying to merge. Amazon fought it and said they’d have a monopoly. But the real monopoly is held by Amazon. They have the monopoly because they control a lot of publishing and they control audio. You know, when people subscribe to audio on Amazon, they pay a monthly fee and they get all the audio they want. So buying individual audio becomes far more challenging. Getting people to buy those individual audios becomes more challenging. And that’s what a monopoly is. They control it.
Pearl Lam: You know what is interesting is you find new voices, new varieties, and if this is going on, how could we have something topics which is refreshing.
Judith Regan: This is the problem because original voices are being cut out of this conversation. And so if you have an original.
Pearl Lam: Voice because it’s like market lead, the whole thing.
Judith Regan: Absolutely. It’s a really unfair system now. It’s less democratic than it’s ever been. It’s much more challenging for people who are outsiders to come into the equation now and to build a career. It’s not impossible. You have to be infinitely more creative in terms of the marketing and you have to try to figure it out. It’s a bigger challenge than ever. I don’t think it’s totally impossible, but you have to have not only the writing skills, you have to have the marketing skills.
Pearl Lam: The marketing is so. I mean, it’s like art. I mean, the art is the same thing. You really need to do the marketing.
Judith Regan: And that’s a lot conceptual. You know, you have to have some unique hook, right? I mean, my developing my story as a musical, the interview with OJ and what happened behind the scenes, there’s a natural marketing hook, right. Which is OJ, because there’s a huge. Yeah, so that’s what you have to think about when you’re creating material. So how are you going to sell it? That should be your first question.
Pearl Lam: Yeah, so let’s. Because we’re touching that then let’s talk about the corporate owned and ownership of. And of the media. So how are you seeing this? Because, I mean, I see that there’s no space for. For any new media entrepreneur or the control is so big that there’s nothing new. Everything is getting very boring. It’s very boring. Nothing is exciting.
Judith Regan: Yeah. No, the originality has been taken out of the equation. So in large part, a lot of the traditional media organisations do the same thing over and over again. But what’s interesting is if you study it like in Italy last year, it wasn’t Barbie that was the big hit. It was a black and white film about domestic violence. That was the number one movie in Italy. So you’re gonna.
Pearl Lam: Which one was that? Because I was. I watched Barbie and I watched Oppenheimer.
Judith Regan: Oppenheimer.
Pearl Lam: The Oppenheimer. So good. Barbie. Sorry, I fell asleep. I fell asleep for ten minutes or 15 minutes. I’m sorry. I’m not really. I’m not really a Bobby person. But I thought it was interesting because they, you know, they give a contemporary feud to Bobby and Bobby is looking at women’s. Right. And all that. That was interesting.
Judith Regan:
Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, they were the two big movies at the end. Right. But not in Italy. In Italy, it was a black and white unique film based on a story, I think it took place in the fifties or sixties, about a domestic violence situation.
Pearl Lam: Wow.
Judith Regan: And that was the movie of the year. That was the movie that captured the imagination of the italian people. That was the movie they wanted to see. I do believe that if you tell a great story, if you create something that people can respond to in that sense, and with that movie, it was an emotional response. Right. It connected with people in a meaningful way. That was really how that film became successful, because there was an emotional connection and it was a powerful movie and very well done. So there is a way. There is a way. And this corporatization of everything is the annihilation of everything.
Pearl Lam: Exactly.
Judith Regan: Because you’re just doing the same thing over and over and over again. And that’s certain death.
Pearl Lam: Because they want to assure profit.
Judith Regan: Yeah, but it doesn’t work.
Pearl Lam: No, because people get bored. Because it’s the same format. The same thing. Same thing. Same thing. Everything is about the same thing.
Judith Regan: So in my career, I always tried to be the first one to do something, and then people imitated me and would copy it. Right. But for me, as a creative person, creating something original is the beauty and satisfaction of this business. It’s where you get your fulfilment, creating something amazing. That’s why we do what we do.
Pearl Lam: Now AI is coming in.
Judith Regan: Oh, yes.
Pearl Lam: With the AI.
Judith Regan: Aye, AI. AI.
Pearl Lam: So they write. You just give them. I mean, sometimes, I mean, I really don’t like to write letter of condolences. So I gave two sentences, they write three paragraph. So it’s writing that sounds the same. So it’s writing.
Judith Regan: Well, here’s the thing about AI, right? Now, the stuff that I have read, they’re very good at analytical thinking.
Pearl Lam: Yes.
Judith Regan: So they can take existing material and analyse it and critique it and give you some good suggestions. They’re good at structure, right. They’re not necessarily good at creating something original or doing something they cannot do.
Pearl Lam: Original because it’s not in the data.
Judith Regan: They could not have written the piece that I just wrote for the Hollywood Reporter about the OJ thing, because in it I described the people who betrayed me as animals and talked about the musical that I’m writing in my head about these events. There was the weasel, there’s the sharpay, there’s the aye aye. They would never have come up with that because that’s a totally original, creative idea that came out of my brain. They would never have come to that conclusion. So there is, in the future, maybe AI will come up with, you know, more creative things as it gets smarter and smarter. But right now, there are certain things that AI can be used. Like to write a press release.
Pearl Lam: Yes, absolutely.
Judith Regan: Give him a press release, a standard condolence letter. But if you want to do something with personality and flair that is reflective of who you are, you have to do it yourself.
Pearl Lam: You just so. Thank God, you know?
Judith Regan: Yeah.
Pearl Lam: Right. I mean. I mean, AI cannot substitute a writer.
Judith Regan: No. And also the.
Pearl Lam: However, if you follow the corporate ownership, they have the same format, the same policy. AI can create the books.
Judith Regan: No. AI can create a lot of stuff, but it’s still not.
Pearl Lam: But not the original. Original. And so therefore, these companies should be thinking about more original books.
Judith Regan: Yeah. Well, I think, you know, in the future, individuals are going to control everything. I don’t think the media businesses, the way they’re moving right now, have a great future.
Pearl Lam: Okay, so let’s talk about that.
Judith Regan: And so there are other models, you know, who always has the most original model. If you want to do any kind of business in media, porn, that’s where you have to look. They’re always the most innovative. They’re always ahead of everyone else. So only fans, they have the porn stars, you have direct contact with them, you think they’re talking to you. It’s that one on one. That’s where the original thinking is and where the technology needs to be followed, because they make the most money and they’re the ones that are the most original. Irony of ironies.
Pearl Lam: This is. Yeah, this is tips for everyone.
Judith Regan: Tips for everyone.
Pearl Lam: Tips for everyone, yeah. And what do you think about now? Most, I mean, we’re talking about these people. I mean, the media consumption habits. All right. Most of the people, a lot of people now, especially these Gen Z, they don’t read newspaper. They read news.
Judith Regan: They read TikTok, they read TikTok, they.
Pearl Lam: Look at Instagram and all from social media.
Judith Regan: Yeah.
Pearl Lam: So are we talking about the traditional legacy media and that you have, you actually look and to make sure that everything is authentic. That will be God.
Judith Regan: Well, first of all, a traditional media, is it authentic? Cause certainly things that have been written about me false.
Pearl Lam: Me too. Me too. Me too. Me too.
Judith Regan: So who decides, you know, who knows, knowing what’s been reported just about my own life, which is 90% fiction and just not even based on anything. That’s true. You know, we view traditional media as having more credibility. And maybe in some respects it gets vetted a bit, but it all depends on who wrote it, what the agenda is. And now with the corporatization of media companies, people have their agendas, the owners have their agendas, the owners are promoting their agenda.
Pearl Lam: You’re right, you’re right. I do believe that.
Judith Regan: And then with AI, you know, the media landscape in terms of political reporting, let’s say there’s so much propaganda, there’s so much false information. There are something called deep fakes.
Pearl Lam: Yes, yes.
Judith Regan: You see the politicians talking, but it looks real. But it’s not real.
Pearl Lam: No. And even they can have the voice now.
Judith Regan: Oh, yeah. I mean, there’s so much technology now to create all propaganda all the time. Which is why I view so much of what I read, what I see, what I ingest on a daily basis as suspect. Having been in the media business for 50 years, I don’t trust any of it unless I see it myself, unless I experience it myself. I’m very skeptical.
Pearl Lam: Because what I find is today, like journalism, they’re no longer objective. No, it’s only one side story. They don’t give you the two side.
Judith Regan: No, no, everyone has an agenda.
Pearl Lam: Yeah.
Judith Regan: Individuals have agendas, corporations have agendas. We’re flawed. Right. We all have our own point of view. And now with social media, it’s nonstop screaming and yelling and hateful behaviour and vicious. The vitriol has been raised so much, the lack of any decency or manners way out the window, you know? And you know, my central question about being a human being today is how do you maintain your dignity in such an undignified world? No, I mean, I really think about this because I try to be a dignified person.
Pearl Lam: I try to tell values has evolved.
Judith Regan: Oh yeah, I mean, devolved. No, it’s horrible. It’s so hateful and so mean. And I look at my children and my grandchildren and I think, this is the world that they have to live in every day, you know, and, like, what do we value as human beings? These are essential questions we should be asking ourselves on a day-to-day basis. How do you still have affection and love and care and a sense of community in a world of such hatred? You know, because you look at the Internet, you look at social media, it’s nonstop screaming, people hating each other, disagreeing with each other, calling each other names, look at the politics, look at Congress, the behaviour of some of these people is shocking to me. It’s so repulsive, you know, and you want people who at least behave in a dignified fashion, even if you don’t agree with their politics, they should at least behave in some kind of diplomatic republic.
Pearl Lam: Be civil. Be civil. Be civil and set an example.
Judith Regan: Yeah, I find it so repulsive. I really, really do. And I think it starts at the top and goes all the way down.
Pearl Lam: So do you think that there will be changes?
Judith Regan: I think there’s going to be changes everywhere and I think technology is going to make things more and more difficult. And I think that the essential challenge we’re all going to have is how do I behave in a world where there’s chaos, lawlessness, war, hatefulness, selfish, how do I behave? For me, my decision is in my circle, in my business, with my friends, with my family, I have integrity, I behave with kindness and thoughtfulness and care. That’s it. I can’t. I can’t save the world all alone. You know what I mean? I can’t. I could just do it in my day-to-day behaviour. And that’s what. That’s how I try to live my life, because otherwise you lose your mind.
Pearl Lam: And also, when I look at globalisation, you know, globalisation, what globalisation does is they always promote homogeneity.
Judith Regan: Yes.
Pearl Lam: They always come up with the same message. I mean, what I’m against is homogeneity. I mean, I want differences, I celebrate differences. So how do you see our future is going to be? What is in the future world? What does now Gen Z is going to look at? I mean, what world are they going to live in?
Judith Regan: A chaotic one. I believe that. And that they can’t listen to each other, they can’t appreciate each other, they can’t accept each other. You know, these are. This is the end game. It devolves to chaos, violence and madness. That’s the direction we’re going in. And where are the leaders? Where are the leaders who can come forward and inspire people, inspire people to care, inspire people to view things in a different way, I think that’s so important. You know, whether you’re an artist or a politician or a business leader, you should inspire people to be better, you know, and to do things in their community that help each other. I mean, as I’ve gotten older and now I’m in my seventies, I try to help and give back as much as I can. You know, I think we have an obligation to.
Pearl Lam: That’s intuitive, you know, I think capitalism is all about money, money, money.
Judith Regan: It’s about eating everything for dinner.
Pearl Lam: I mean, yeah, profit margin and all that. So all that is.
Judith Regan: We’re devolving.
Pearl Lam: Yeah, it’s a conflict, I know. And the media is playing such a big role because it influences everyone. And look at the, the Gen Z now. They sit at the, they sit down, they look at the screen, they do. Everything is from the media.
Judith Regan: I know, I know. It’s difficult, you know, when there’s absolutely not one speck of decency or morality or integrity in any business venture, whether it’s a bank or dealing with lawyers, dealing with politics or dealing with, you know, book publisher, you have to have some kind of moral code of decency or everything falls apart. Whether it’s a family unit or a business unit, there has to be some consideration for the greater good. If you’re only interested in yourself, which is what we now have, everything falls apart. Everything falls apart. You cannot men, no man is an island unto himself. You cannot live a life where your only focus is getting more for yourself. It ends in the destruction of everyone.
Pearl Lam: But how can we see these corporate companies, this corporate, I mean, these companies, media is controlled by a few.
Judith Regan: That’s true.
Pearl Lam: Especially in USA.
Judith Regan: That’s true.
Pearl Lam: So how can it be moved?
Judith Regan: I mean, now media is moving way beyond those corporate interests, right? Because we have individuals who are creating content. Oh, yeah, right. Most of that content is not necessarily politically oriented and is a different kind of content. It’s more entertainment oriented or it’s people screaming and yelling at each other over politics. But, you know, to me it’s a big mess and it’s all ugly and I don’t participate in that kind of stuff anymore because it’s so demoralising. And you can’t just have corporate interests that control the message. Obviously. Dangerous, dangerous, dangerous, dangerous. And, you know, people believe the propaganda that they read and that creates. They do, they do, they believe it and it creates more hostility.
Pearl Lam: They love these propaganda.
Judith Regan: Yeah, I know, but if you’ve been in the media business for 50 years, you know, so much of it is propaganda.
Pearl Lam: So, I mean, the world is a little bit awkward now. So what do we see in the future? What can we address in the future?
Judith Regan: Well, I mean, you know, from my point of view, I try to be a responsible person day to day in my community, in my life, in my family and friends, in my business. Everyone else can do what they’re doing. I am going to sit here, maybe wage a one woman war against all the craziness that I see. I’m a fighter. I fight back. You know, I’m going after Morgan Stanley now after my money evaporated. I fight the fight. I do. I’m still a fighter. I still have it in me. I still like to right the wrongs. But I also like to behave with some kind of integrity and dignity on a day-to-day basis. And I think if you choose to do that in your life, in your business, in your community, it’s one step at a time. And if everyone decides to do that, I also think it’s to their benefit to do that.
Pearl Lam: Absolutely. Integrity in business, so important.
Judith Regan: It’s better for your business. Right? So this idea that you lie to people to sell them something, to get a big commission is short term thinking.
Pearl Lam: But don’t you think the muslim people today, they only think short term? They don’t have the patience.
Judith Regan: Yeah, I know. And that’s to their detriment and to the detriment of the world.
Pearl Lam: Judith Regan: , it’s always the greatest pleasure to talk to you because you’re direct. No. No B’s.
Judith Regan: I don’t know how else to do no B’s.
Pearl Lam: And we talk to each other, so much laughter, so much joy. But, you know, but it’s important that people, you know, whoever is listening to this podcast is. Remember what Judith Regan: said, we have to keep our moral values. Without that, I mean, our next generation, what are we going to leave for the next generation? That’s the most important thing. Thank you, Judith Regan: , for joining me today.
Judith Regan: Thank you. I love you.
Pearl Lam: Thank you.
