Doree Shafrir is a co-host of the podcast Forever35, the former executive editor of Buzzfeed, and the author of the new memoir Thanks for Waiting: The Joy (& Weirdness) of Being a Late Bloomer.”Right now I can make my living from podcasting, but I don’t know what the advertising market for podcasts is going to look like in five years or even one year. The blog advertising market cratered. So one of the challenges of being my own ‘brand’ is that I always do have to think about, what is the next thing? Because in my experience in media, nothing is ever good for too long.” Thanks to Mailchimp and The London Review of Books for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @doree doree-shafrir.com Shafrir on Longform 02:00 Thanks for Waiting: The Joy (& Weirdness) of Being a Late Bloomer (Ballantine Books • 2021) 06:00 "The Hipster Grifter" (New York Observer • Apr 2009) 08:00 Shafrir's New York Observer archive 16:00 "Chuck Klosterman, the Author Photos" (Slate • Aug 2006) 24:00 Startup (Little, Brown and Company • 2017) 36:00 Shafrir's Buzzfeed archive 36:00 Rerun (Buzzfeed) 36:00 Matt and Doree’s Eggcellent Adventure (Matt Mira and Doree Shafrir) 37:00 Forever35 (Doree Shafrir and Kate Spencer)

Jessica Bruder is a journalist and author of the book Nomadland.“I don’t do a hard sell. I’ll tell people what my MO is, but I don’t push people to talk with me. I want to go deep with people. I want to be able to have the time to just sit with them and to say, ‘start at the beginning.’ Sometimes going chronologically will just take you to these places that wouldn’t have come up if I’ve just done a very guided interview. So I hung out. I’m not relentless. I don’t wear people down. But I stick around. If people just want me to fuck off, I fuck off, and I talk to other people..” Thanks to Mailchimp and The London Review of Books for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: jessicabruder.com @jessbruder 01:00 Nomadland (W. W. Norton & Company • 2018) 11:30 Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man (Gallery Books • 2007) 13:00 "Snowball's Court Decision Set for Tomorrow" (The Oregonian • October 2007) 13:30 "Faith-healing Deaths " (The Oregonian • June 2009) 16:00 "Has Perky Jerky Lost Its Perk?" (New York Times • August 2011) 19:30 "Slump in construction industry creates a Sheetrock ghost town" (The Christian Science Monitor • June 2011) 21:30 "I Was a Warehouse Wage Slave" (Gabriel Mac • Mother Jones • March/April 2012)

Robert McKee is an author and screenwriting lecturer. His new book is Character: The Art of Role and Cast Design for Page, Stage, and Screen.”When I'm in conversation with others, I'm always aware—or sensitive, at least—to what they're really thinking and feeling. And writers must have that. They can't possibly create excellent nonfiction or fiction if they're not aware of what is going on inside of other people, really, even subconsciously, while they go about saying whatever they do consciously in the world. Because if you just recorded the surface, if you were just paying attention to the surface, you'd be missing the whole show.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @McKeeStory mckeestory.com Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting (Regan Books • 1997) Character: The Art of Role and Cast Design for Page, Stage, and Screen (Twelve • 2021)

Ashley C. Ford is the author of Somebody's Daughter: A Memoir.“For the first time I felt like I had so many more choices in my life than I originally thought I had. That was my first realization that I did not just have to react to the world, that I could be intentional in the world, and just curious about what came back to me.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @iSmashFizzle  ashleycford.net Fortune Favors the Bold podcast 5:00 "Roger Loves Chaz" (Roger Ebert • Sep 2012) 11:34 The Giver (Lois Lowry • Houghton Mifflin • 1993) 17:47 Ford's commencement speech at Ball State 26:09 Ford's archive at Buzzfeed 41:00 "Ashley C. Ford’s Debut Memoir ‘Somebody’s Daughter’ Finds Home at Flatiron" (Paperback Paris • 2018)

Aaron Lammer is a co-host of the Longform Podcast and the host of the podcast Exit Scam: The Death and Afterlife of Gerald Cotten.“Something I got from a number of reporters that I’ve interviewed on the Longform Podcast is letting the story guide you, and ultimately that led me to an ambiguous ending. Early on, I was like, the pinnacle achievement is to solve this case. But ultimately, I felt like an ambiguous ending was the most honest to what I actually experienced in reporting it.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: 00:30 Exit Scam Podcast 00:45 Francis and the Lights 04:30 CoinTalk™️ 04:45 Jay Caspian King on Longform 05:00 Episode #59: Flashbacks and Fake Beards, a Crypto 2018 Year in Review (CoinTalk • January 2019) 11:00 Stoner Podcast 44:00 Descript 53:00 Jean-Xavier de Lestrade on Longform

Megha Rajagopalan is a senior correspondent for Buzzfeed News. She won a Pulitzer for her coverage of the Xinjiang detention camps.“It’s not so much that I talk to [the Chinese government] to get information. It’s more that I talk to them to see how they think about things and what’s important to them and what’s their view of the world. … There are so many journalists that have been thrown out of China, so there’s very few people that are able to actually have those conversations. And in the U.S., there are these seismic decisions being made about China policy, and if you don’t talk to the people that run the country, it’s a problem.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @meghara Rajagopalan on Longform Rajagopalan's Buzzfeed News archive 21:00 "This Is What A 21st-Century Police State Really Looks Like" (Buzzfeed News • Oct 2017) 35:00 Rajagopalan’s Pulitzer-winning reporting with Alison Killing and Christo Buschek 41:00 "China Secretly Built A Vast New Infrastructure To Imprison Muslims (Part 1)" (Alison Killing, Christo Buschek, Megha Rajagopalan • Buzzfeed News • Aug 2020) 41:00 "What They Saw: Ex-Prisoners Detail The Horrors Of China's Detention Camps (Part 2)" (Alison Killing, Megha Rajagopalan • Buzzfeed News • Aug 2020) 41:00 "Inside a Xinjiang Detention Camp (Part 3)" (Alison Killing, Megha Rajagopalan • Buzzfeed News • Dec 2020) 41:00 "We Found The Factories Inside China’s Mass Internment Camps (Part 4)" (Alison Killing, Megha Rajagopalan • Buzzfeed News • Dec 2020)

Barrett Swanson is a contributing editor at Harper’s and the author of Lost in Summerland.“You just have to sit there for a long time. That lesson was indisputably crucial for me. Just being willing to talk to someone, even if the first half-hour or hour is unutterably boring, or it doesn’t seem pertinent. These little things, the deeper things, take a while to get at and they kind of burble to the surface at moments when you’re not totally expecting it to happen. So for me, it’s just making myself available for that moment to occur.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: Swanson on Longform 00:30 Lost in Summerland (Catapult • 2021) 00:30 "Lost in Summerland" (The Atavist • December 2019) 00:45 "The Anxiety of Influencers" (Harper’s • September 2020) 10:00 "The Solider and the Soil" (Orion Magazine • December 2017) 11:30 "Men at Work" (Harper’s • November 2019) 20:00 "Political Fictions: Unraveling America at a West Wing Fan Convention" (Paris Review • November 2018) 28:00 “Annie Radcliffe, You Are Loved,” (American Short Fiction Issue #56 • 2015)

Dan Rather is a journalist, author, and the former anchor of CBS Evening News.”I knew that being named to succeed Walter Cronkite would put me in a position of inhaling—every day—a kind of NASA-grade rocket fuel for the ego. And that could be dangerous…. In the end, when the red light goes on, it's just you. You're by yourself.… And the longer you're in that role, the more difficult it is to stay true to yourself and to remember who you are and who you want to be.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @DanRather 70 Over 70 (Pineapple Street Studios • 2021) 01:00 Steady Substack newsletter 04:00 Reporting on Hurricane Carla (Sep 1961) 09:00 First night as CBS Evening News anchor (CBS News • Mar 1981) 21:00 Covering the India-Pakistan war (Sep 1965) 28:00 “A Lie, Is a Lie, Is a Lie” (Facebook • Jan 2017) 28:00 "Jim Crow Is Not Dead... And Why We Should Care" (Rather and Steady Team • Steady • Feb 2021)

Katherine Eban is an investigative journalist and contributor to Vanity Fair. Her latest article is ”The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins.””You can't make a correction unless you know why something happened. So imagine—if this is a lab leak—the earth shattering consequences for virology. For the science community, for how research is done, for how research is regulated. Or if it is a zoonotic origin, we have to know how our human incursion into wild spaces could be unleashing these viruses. Because COVID-19 is one thing, but we're going to be looking at COVID-25 and COVID-34. We have to know what caused this.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @KatherineEban katherineeban.com Eban on Longform Eban on Longform Podcast 00:00 Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom (Ecco • 2019) 00:00 "The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins" (Vanity Fair • Jun 2021) 01:00 Nicholson Baker on Longform Podcast 01:00 "The Lab-Leak Hypothesis" (Nicholson Baker • New York Magazine • Jan 2021) 03:00 "The Plague Fighters: Stopping the Next Pandemic Before It Begins " (Evan Ratliff • Wired • Apr 2007) 12:00 @TheSeeker268 14:00 Eban's Vanity Fair archive 16:00 Eban’s Twitter thread 26:00 Alina Chan on Twitter 32:00 "Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19" (Peter Daszak and many others • The Lancet • Feb 2020) 34:00 "Origin of Covid — Following the Clues" (Nicholas Wade • Medium • May 2021)

We've got something a little different today from our sponsor Apple News+, a sneak peek of a new article by Joshuah Bearman and Rich Schapiro called "Last Chance Hotel." It's a wild story full of misadventure, get-rich-quick schemes gone wrong, and international intrigue. Published by New York Magazine in partnership with Epic Magazine, “Last Chance Hotel” is available right now exclusively in Apple News+. After you listen to this preview, tap here to read or listen to the rest of part one. Part two will be published on June 11, and part three will be available on June 18.  “Last Chance Hotel" is available now, only in Apple News+. Subscription required. New subscribers can try 1 month free.

Rose Eveleth is the host of Flash Forward and the author of Flash Forward: An Illustrated Guide to Possible (and Not So Possible) Tomorrows.“If I didn’t have that pretty bizarrely insatiable drive to do this stuff and understand things, I don’t know if I’d still be doing this. The curiosity index has to be high in order to make the rest of it worth it. Because otherwise, what’s the point?” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @roseveleth @flashforwardpod @ffwdpresents Flash Forward Podcast 00:30 Flash Forward (Rose Eveleth • Harry N. Abrams • 2021) 21:00 Eveleth's Sample Freelancer Spreadsheet 24:30 Meanwhile in the Future Podcast 39:30 "What If Our Cities Were Smart?" (Flash Forward • April 2021) 40:30 "What If You Could Be Immune To Everything?" (Flash Forward • March 2021) 43:00 "Bodies: This Is Not A Test" (Flash Forward • May 2021)

Theo Padnos is a journalist and author of the book Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment.“I'm trying to tell a story about a person who's attracted to dangerous places and people. I think we all have that within us. I wanted to bring my readers along. So I selected details that we all have in common... I'm trying to invite you along on a journey that you yourself might have taken.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @TheoPadnos 00:30 Blindfold (Theo Padnos • Simon & Schuster • 2021) 03:00 My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun: Adolescents at the Apocalypse: A Teacher’s Notes (Theo Padnos • Random House • 2004) 03:15 Undercover Muslim: A Journey Into Yemen (Theo Padnos • Bodley Head • 2011) 10:30 "My Captivity" (Theo Padnos • The New York Times Magazine • October 2014) 12:00 "Life as a Hostage in Syria" (Polly Mosendz • The Atlantic • October 2014) 22:15 Theo Who Lived (David Schisgall • 2016)

Donovan X. Ramsey is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. His work has appeared in GQ, WSJ Magazine, The Atlantic, and many other publications.“I actually got into writing about criminal justice ... because I was curious about Black life. But that meant the only way I was able to do that was I had to kind of do this really often depressing slice of Black life. And there’s so much more. And there’s so much beauty in the lived experiences of Black people. … There are so many stories that just never get told about Black life. One, I have a connection to being a Black person, but then being a Black person who has the benefit of a really good education, and I’ve been given some shots here and there… it feels like a duty. If I’m not going to tell these stories, then who?” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @donovanxramsey donovanxramsey.com 02:00 Exit Scam (Aaron Lammer and Lane Brown • Treats Media • 2021) 02:00 "Gossip Girls, Money Men, and 2 More Podcasts Worth Trying" (Nicholas Quah • Vulture • May 2021) 02:00 Nicholas Quah on Longform Podcast 03:00 70 Over 70 (Max Linsky • Pineapple Street Studios • 2021) 25:00 Ramsey's Atlantic archive 26:00 Ramsey's Ebony archive 26:00 "Motorcycle Club Honors, Assists Soldiers Offering Their Lives Overseas" (Black Enterprise • Nov 2012) 26:00 "Janelle Monáe: The ‘Q.U.E.E.N.’ Speaks [INTERVIEW]" (Ebony • Jul 2013) 29:00 She’s Every Woman: The Power of Black Women in Pop Music (Danyel Smith • Dey Street Books • 2017) 31:00 "Police Reform Is Impossible in America" (Gawker • Feb 2015) 32:00 Ramsey's Demos archive 35:00 Jason Parham on Longform Podcast 40:00 Ramsey's The Marshall Project archive 40:00 Ramsey's Complex archive 45:00 "A Triple Murder, a Broken Family, and the Long Tail of the Crack Era" (Vice • Aug 2016) 47:00 Black Futures (Kimberly Drew and Jenna Wortham • One World • 2020) 48:00 "Measuring Crack Cocaine and Its Impact" (Roland G. Fryer • Apr 2006) 56:00 "Bryon Stevenson’s Moral Clarity" (WSJ Magazine • Nov 2019) 56:00 "The Political Education of Killer Mike" (GQ • Jul 2020) 62:00 "NASCAR’s Unlikely Activist" (GQ • Aug 2020) 63:00 Ramsey's Los Angeles Times archive

Adam McKay is a film director, writer, and host of the podcast Death at the Wing.“Sometimes you do a project and then you look back and you’re like, Ah, shit. I let some of myself get in the way of that. It sucks, but it’s also a part of it. And there are so many times where you’re excited that the story did take off, the wind did catch the sail and it went off on its own. And that just feels so good that it far outweighs the times when you make a mistake, or let something go wrong, or too long, or hit the wrong tone. Which is going to happen. There’s no way around it. But those times when it all just catches perfectly—it’s just so exciting that you keep doing it.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @GhostPanther 00:00 Anchorman (Dreamworks • 2004) 00:00 Stepbrothers (Columbia Pictures • 2008) 00:00 The Big Short (Paramount Pictures, New Regency Productions • 2015) 00:00 Vice (Annapurna Pictures • 2018) 00:00 Succession (Gary Sanchez Productions • 2018) 00:00 Death at the Wing (Hyperobject Industries and Three Uncanny Four • 2021) 12:00 The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America (George Packer • Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 2014) 14:00 Don’t Look Up (Hyperobject Industries • 2021) 29:00 David Grann on Longform Podcast 31:00 Anchorman 2 (Paramount Pictures • 2013) 36:00 The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine (Michael Lewis • W. W. Norton & Company • 2015) 39:00 Hustlers (Lorene Scafaria • Annapurna Pictures • 2019) 40:00 "The Hustlers at Scores" (Jessica Pressler • The Cut • Dec 2015) 41:00 "Breslin: Digging JFK grave was his honor" (Jimmy Breslin • New York Herald Tribune • Nov 1963) 43:00 Bad Blood (Excellent Cadaver) 43:00 Bad Blood (John Carreyrou • Vintage • 2020)

Anna Sale is the host of Death, Sex & Money. Her new book is Let’s Talk About Hard Things.“What hard conversations can do is—you can witness what's hard. You can be with what's hard. Admit what's hard. That can be its own relief. … Some hard conversations … are successful when they end in a place that's like, Oh, we're not going to agree on this. … I think you can get used to the feeling of feeling out of control and that makes them less scary.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @annasale annasale.com Sale on Longform Podcast 07:00 Let’s Talk About Hard Things (Simon & Schuster • 2021) 10:00 Sale's Death, Sex & Money archive

Brooke Jarvis is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine.“Obsession is inherently interesting. We want to know why somebody would care so much about something that it could direct their whole life. ... When people care about something a lot, what can be more interesting than that to understand what drives those powerful emotions? ... Part of why I do this work is that I am able to get temporarily obsessed with a lot of different things and then move on to the next thing that I'm temporarily obsessed with. ... There's always a new question that I want to follow.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @brookejarvis brookejarvis.net Jarvis on Longform 02:00 "Maryville native Brooke Jarvis wins Livingston Ward for young journalists" (Amy Beth Miller • The Daily Times • Jun 2017) 05:00 The New Kings of Nonfiction (Ira Glass • Riverhead Books • 2007) 06:00 "The Squirrel Wars" (D.T. Max • New York Times Magazine • Oct 2007) 08:00 "When We Are Called to Part" (The Atavist • Nov 2013) 11:00 Jarvis’ Yes! Magazine archive 16:00 "The Deepest Dig" (California Sunday • Nov 2014) 19:00 "Unclaimed" (California Sunday • Dec 2016) 22:00 The Heart is a Lonely Hunter (Carson McCullers • Marina Books • 1940) 25:00 "The Insect Apocalypse Is Here" (New York Times Magazine • Nov 2018) 27:00 "Who Speaks for Crazy Horse?" (New Yorker • Sep 2019) 30:00 "The First Shot: Inside the Covid Vaccine Fast Track" (Wired • May 2020) 31:00 "The Scramble to Pluck 24 Billion Cherries in Eight Weeks" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2020) 33:00 "The Launch" (California Sunday • Jul 2019) 37:00 "The Forgotten Sense" (New York Times Magazine • Jan 2021) 39:00 "The Obsessive Search for the Tasmanian Tiger" (New Yorker • Jul 2018)  

Michael Grabell and Bernice Yeung are investigative reporters at ProPublica. They won the George Polk Award for Health Reporting for their coverage of the meatpacking industry's response to the pandemic, including their feature "The Battle for Waterloo." This is the final part of our week-long series of conversations with winners of this year's George Polk Awards in Journalism.

Roberto Ferdman is a correspondent at VICE News. He and his colleagues at VICE News Tonight won the George Polk Award for Television Reporting for their coverage of the killing of Breonna Taylor and the investigations that followed. This is part four in a week-long series of conversations with winners of this year's George Polk Awards in Journalism.