#318 | Vic Faust; Canceled Radio Host

About this episode

An interview with Vic Faust, a former #1-rated St. Louis TV news anchor and radio host who was fired after a leaked recording of him yelling at a colleague went viral internationally. Faust is candid and self-critical about his own culpability ("I canceled myself"), while distinguishing this from what he calls the ongoing mob pursuit after his firing — strangers filming him in public, one acquaintance distancing himself for reputational reasons. He describes the lead-up (a month of reporting concerns to HR/management before losing his temper), the immediate aftermath (fired with no severance despite 24 years and consistently ranked #1), and his pivot to launching an independent live news/politics podcast, Cancel the Show, built explicitly around examining cancel culture from multiple angles. The conversation broadens into wider cultural territory: Vance draws a contrast between Western "redemption culture" and Eastern "honor/shame culture," both discuss Jordan Peterson's cancellation in Canada, and Vic offers a detailed account of being blocked by news management from airing a doctor's data-backed claim that cloth masks don't stop COVID particles, being told doing so was "disingenuous." They also discuss corporate ESG-driven marketing decisions (Bud Light/Anheuser-Busch, Target) as a related but distinct phenomenon from personal cancellation, and Vic details his new business model — live daily politics/news programming with a diverse advertiser base and stated aim of bipartisan-appealing, multi-angle coverage.

Key moments

• ~0-4%: Cold open — Vic's own framing that he canceled himself, but what came after wasn't on him.
• ~4-17%: The incident itself — what happened on-air, the month of prior reported concerns to management, and getting fired with no severance after 24 years.
• ~17-25%: Cancel-culture-as-mob framing — the "snowball/avalanche" metaphor, Vance's "stoning"/scapegoat analogy, and the Western redemption-vs-Eastern honor-culture discussion.
• ~28-38%: Personal aftermath — friends who stayed, one acquaintance who distanced himself, and launching Cancel the Show as his post-firing pivot.
• ~57-68%: Broader cultural territory — corporate ESG dynamics (Bud Light, Target, Anheuser-Busch) and Faust's account of media suppression of dissenting COVID mask-efficacy data.
• ~68-95%: Business-model details for Cancel the Show — audience metrics, advertiser roster, editorial philosophy of "give all the information and let people decide."
• ~95-100%: Closing reflections and where to find the show.

Notable quotes

“If you get yourself fired, that's on you. That was on me. Nobody canceled me. I canceled myself. But after I've lost my job, the people still coming after me. That's not on me, that's on them.”

“It's the mentality, it's the mob jumping... it's almost as if it's the snowball that starts to go down the hill... before you know it, it becomes that avalanche.”

“One of the things that made Western culture different than other cultures was we had this concept of redemption... whereas eastern culture... if you are defaced, you're totally shunned and pushed out.”

“I wasn't allowed to go speak and get the interview from a doctor who said that masks didn't work... he sent me the data... I was told that was quote disingenuous of me to suggest that we give that side of the story.”