Helen Branswell is an infectious disease and global health reporter for STAT. She won this year's George Polk Award for Public Service for her coverage of the pandemic. This is the third in a week-long series of conversations with winners of this year's George Polk Awards in Journalism.

Ryan Mac and Craig Silverman are reporters at BuzzFeed News. Together they won this year's George Polk Award for Business Reporting for their coverage of Facebook's handling of disinformation on its platform.  This is the second in a week-long series of conversations with winners of this year's George Polk Awards in Journalism.

Tristan Ahtone is the former Indigenous Affairs editor at High Country News and is currently the editor-in-chief at The Texas Observer. His High Country News article “Land-Grab Universities,” co-authored with Robert Lee, won the 2021 George Polk Award for Education Reporting. This is the first in a week-long series of conversations with winners of this year's George Polk Awards in Journalism.

Dana Goodyear is a staff writer for The New Yorker and host of the new podcast Lost Hills.“I do find people who take risks—artistic and physical or even intellectual risks—really interesting. ... There are so many people that I have written about who take a really long time with their projects, whether years or decades, and they might or might not work out. ... They just don't go along with what's received, and they—at a great personal cost—often do things that are very different. And then those things are the things in our world that are the most fascinating or feel the most human.” Thanks to Mailchimp and CaseFleet for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @danagoodyear danagoodyear.com Goodyear on Longform Goodyear's New Yorker archive 01:00 Lost Hills (Western Sound and Pushkin Industries • 2021) 32:00 "An Artist’s Life, Refracted in Film" (New Yorker • Jan 2019) 42:00 "The Gardener" (New Yorker • Aug 2003) 49:00 "The Scavenger" (New Yorker • Nov 2009) 49:00 "A Photographer at the Ends of the Earth" (New Yorker • Oct 2019) 42:00 "Man of Extremes" (New Yorker • Oct 2009) 42:00 Honey Junk (W.W. Norton • 2006)

Albert Samaha is an investigative journalist and the deputy inequality editor at BuzzFeed News. His book Concepcion: An Immigrant Family's Fortunes comes out in October.“I don’t think any child of the recession will ever not feel precarious. And being in journalism makes that even more so. ... At this point I’ve embraced the precarity of working in this industry. I’m sure at some point it’s going to be grating for people to hear me talk about how precarious and insecure I feel. … But I’ve got too many friends who are way too talented, who can’t use that talent in the ways that they are passionate about, for me to ever feel like my place in this industry is fully cemented.” Thanks to Mailchimp and CaseFleet for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @AlbertSamaha albertsamaha.com Samaha on Longform Samaha's BuzzFeed archive 11:00 Never Ran, Never Will Boyhood and Football in a Changing American Inner City (PublicAffairs • 2018) 17:00 "The Tragedy of Louis Scarcella" (Village Voice • Aug 2014) 23:00 "A Bronx Betrayal" (BuzzFeed • Jan 2015) 36:00 Concepcion 40:00 "Looking For Right And Wrong In The Philippines" (BuzzFeed • May 2017) 40:00 "My Uncle Spanky, the Rock Star Who Left It All Behind" (Pop-Up • Jun 2020) 42:00 "I Followed My Uncle’s Legend To Italy, And Found A New Way Forward" (BuzzFeed • Mar 2018) 42:00 "My Mom Believes In QAnon. I’ve Been Trying To Get Her Out." (BuzzFeed • Mar 2021)

Bonnie Tsui is a journalist and the author of Why We Swim.“I am a self-motivated person. I really don’t like being told what to do. I’ve thought about this many times over the last 16 years that I’ve been a full-time freelancer... even though I thought my dream was to always and forever be living in New York, working in publishing, working at a magazine, being an editor, writing. When I was an editor, I kind of hated it. I just didn’t like being chained to a desk.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @bonnietsui bonnietsui.com 02:00 Why We Swim (Algonquin • 2020) 03:30 American Chinatown: A People's History of Five Neighborhoods (Tsui • Free Press • 2009) 10:30 The Deep (2012) 28:00 "With His Absence, My Artist Father Taught Me the Art of Vanishing" (Catapult • Feb 2019) 41:30 "After Fires, Napa and Sonoma Tourism Industry Is Getting Back on Its Feet" (New York Times • Oct 2017) 44:30 "Child Care: What — and Who — It Takes to Raise a Family" (California Sunday • July 2019) 49:00 "The Break: Female Big-Wave Surfers Prepare to Compete on Mavericks’s 50-Foot Waves for the First Time" (California Sunday • Aug 2018) 50:00 "Meet the Women Who Are Changing What it Means to be a Mom and a Professional Athlete" (Sports Illustrated • Dec 2019) 53:30 "You Are Doing Something Important When You Aren’t Doing Anything" (New York Times • June 2019)

Jessica Lessin is founder and editor-in-chief of The Information.“It's very, very hard to predict the winners. A lot of investors try to do this. And I think sometimes where the press gets in trouble is trying to make a call.… It's not always our job to say this thing is doomed or not. I think many journalists, unfortunately, are more interested in that than in understanding, What is this company trying to do?” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes:  @Jessicalessin theinformation.com Lessin's archive at The Information 11:00 "Android’s Andy Rubin Left Google After Inquiry Found Inappropriate Relationship" (Reed Albergotti • The Information • Nov 2017) 11:00 "Silicon Valley Women Tell of VC’s Unwanted Advances" (Reed Albergotti • The Information • Jun 2017) 23:00 Paul Steiger at ProPublica 23:00 Kevin Delaney at Quartz 26:00 "Facebook Hit by FTC Antitrust Suit That Seeks to Break Off Instagram, WhatsApp" (Christopher Stern • The Information • Dec 2020) 31:00 "People are leaving S.F., but not for Austin or Miami. USPS data shows where they went" (J.K. Dineen • San Francisco Chronicle • Feb 2021)

Elon Green is a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Awl, New York, and other publications. His new book is Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York.“The murders and the murderer should not be the driver. It should simply be the catalyst for the other story. And the other story is the victims. And the other story is the political backdrop and the environment that they are walking through.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @elongreen elongreen.com Green on Longform 00:00 Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York (Celadon Books • 2021) 03:00 @DavidGrann 05:00 davidyaffe.com 07:00 Pamela Colloff on Longform 10:00 The Advocate 13:00 "The Enduring, Pernicious Whiteness of True Crime" (The Appeal • Aug 2020) 13:00 Killers of the Flower Moon (David Grann • Doubleday Books • 2017) 13:00 Missing & Murdered (CBC News) 13:00 Connie Walker on the Longform Podcast 19:00 "These Gay Men Frequented Manhattan Piano Bars. So Did Their Killer." (Christopher Bollen • New York Times • Mar 2021) 19:00 "Last Call: Behind the Terrifying Untold Story of New York's Gay Bar Killer" (Jim Farber • The Guardian • Mar 2021) 21:00 "Do Threads of Five Lives Lead to One Serial Killer?" (Ian Fisher • New York Times • Aug 1993) 30:00 "The Untold Story of the Doodler Murders" (The Awl • Dec 2014) 32:00 "The Real Lolita" (Sarah Weinman • Hazlitt • Nov 2014) 35:00 @ChrisCillizza

Jess Zimmerman is editor-in-chief of Electric Literature. Her new book is Women and Other Monsters.“My goals are to be exactly as vulnerable as I feel is necessary. And not that’s necessary to me—that's necessary to the observer, to the reader. If [my story] is out there, it's out there because in order to make the larger point that I wanted to make … I had to give this level of access. It does kind of feel more strategic than cathartic.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @j_zimms jesszimmerman.com Zimmerman's Electric Literature archive 01:00 Women and Other Monsters (Beacon Press • 2021) 03:00 "Hunger Makes Me" (Hazlitt • Jul 2016) 04:00 Charybdis (theoi.com) 05:00 Mary Roach's website 08:00 The Furies (theoi.com) 11:00 Lindy West's website 12:00 "We Can’t Believe Survivors’ Stories If We Never Hear Them" (Rachel Zarrow • Electric Literature • Mar 2021) 16:00 "Why Are Portholes Being Used on Cows?" (BBC News • Jun 2019) 22:00 Longform Podcast #193: Robin Marantz Henig 24:00 "The Biggest Moments in xoJane History" (Eve Peyser • Jezebel • Jan 2017) 31:00 I Overcame My Autism and All I Got Was This Lousy Anxiety Disorder (Sarah Kurchak • Douglas & McIntyre • 2020) 31:00 Ace: What Asexuality Reveals About Desire, Society, and the Meaning of Sex (Angela Chen • Beacon Press • 2020) 32:00 "’Where’s My Cut?’: Un Unpaid Emotional Labor" (The Toast • Jul 2015) 33:00 "’Where’s My Cut?’: Un Unpaid Emotional Labor" MetaFilter thread 37:00 Catapult 37:00 Hazlitt 37:00 Electric Literature 38:00 "What We Learned From Meghan and Harry’s Interview" (Sarah Lyall and Tariro Mzezewa • New York Times • Mar 2021) 39:00 "Please Just Let Women Be Villiains" (Elyse Martin • Electric Literature • Feb 2021) 39:00 Circe (Madeline Miller • Little, Brown and Company • 2018) 41:00 "How to Arrange a Poetry Collection Using Mix Tape Rules" (Rachelle Toarmino • Electric Literature • Mar 2021) 41:00 "What If We Cultivated Our Ugliness? or: The Monstrous Beauty of Medusa" (Catapult • May 2017) 43:00 Zimmerman's newsletter Dead Channel 43:00 "A Midlife Crisis, By Any Other Name" (Hazlitt • Jul 2015) 46:00 Lamia (theoi.com) 55:00 "I Always Thought of Myself as a Person Who Pays Attention" (Sarah Miller • Medium • Mar 2021)  

Tejal Rao is the California restaurant critic for The New York Times and a columnist for The New York Times Magazine.“I've been thinking a lot about what makes a restaurant good…. Can a restaurant be good if it doesn't have wheelchair access? Can a restaurant be good if the farmers picking the tomatoes are getting sick? How much do we consider when we talk about if a restaurant is good or not? … If people are being exploited at every single point possible along the way, how good is the restaurant, really? … I worry that the pandemic has illuminated all of these issues and things are just going to keep going the way that they were.... That's what I worry about. That nothing will change.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @tejalrao tejalrao.com Rao's New York Times archive 01:00 "Is My Takeout Risking Lives or Saving Restaurants?" (New York Times • Apr 2020) 03:00 Rao's Atlantic archive 09:00 Rao's Saveur archive 13:00 "For Best Results, Eat This Roti Immediately" (New York Times • Oct 2020) 13:00 "Dining and Driving on the Empty Freeways of Los Angeles" (New York Times • Mar 2020) 14:00 "A Day in the Life of a Food Vendor" (New York Times • Apr 2017) 14:00 "India’s ‘Pickle Queen’ Preserves Everything, Including the Past" (New York Times • Jul 2020) 19:00 "Oysters: A Love Story" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2017) 26:00 "I Lost My Appetite Because of Covid. This Sichuan Flavor Brought It Back." (New York Times Magazine • Jan 2021) 30:00 "The Old-School Reasons to Love Los Angeles Restaurants" (New York Times • Feb 2019) 33:00 "How Kit Kat Got Big in Japan" (New York Times Magazine • Oct 2018) 43:00 "Meatpacking Companies Dismissed Years of Warnings but Now Say Nobody Could Have Prepared for COVID-19" (Michael Grabell and Bernice Yeung • ProPublica • Aug 2020) Illustration by Tony Millionaire  

Connie Walker is an investigative reporter and podcast host. Her new show is Stolen: The Search for Jermain.“For so long, there has been this kind of history of journalists coming in and taking stories from Indigenous communities. And that kind of extractive, transactional kind of journalism that really causes a lot of harm. And so much of our work is trying to undo and address that. There is a way to be a storyteller and help amplify and give people agency in their stories.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @connie_walker Walker's CBC News archive 00:00 Missing & Murdered (CBC News) 04:00 "The Injustice to Pamela George Continues Long After Her Murder" (Heather Mallick • Toronto Star • Jan 2020) 08:00 Street Cents (CBC) 12:00 "Alicia Ross: Everyone’s Daughter" (Catherine McDonald • Global News • Apr 2020) 14:00 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 19:00 8th Fire, Ep. 1: "Indigenous in the City" (CBC • 2012) 19:00 8th Fire, Ep. 2: "It’s Time" (CBC • 2012) 19:00 8th Fire, Ep. 3: "Whose Land Is It Anyway?" (CBC • 2012) 19:00 8th Fire, Ep. 4: "At the Crossroads" (CBC • 2012) 22:00 "Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women: A National Operational Overview" (Royal Canadian Mounted Police • 2014) 24:00 "Missing and Murdered: The Life and Mysterious Death of Leah Anderson" (CBC News • Mar 2015) 26:00 Serial 27:00 "Amber Tuccaro's Unsolved Murder: Do You Recognize This Voice?" (Marnie Luke and Connie Walker • CBC News • Jun 2015) 27:00 "Unresolved: Patricia Carpenter" (Holly Moore • CBC News • Jun 2016) 27:00 Missing & Murdered Season 1: Who Killed Alberta Williams? (Connie Walker and Marnie Luke • CBC News) 27:00 Missing & Murdered Season 2: Finding Cleo (Connie Walker and Marnie Luke • CBC News) 35:00 Ochberg Fellowship 37:00 "Duncan McCue on Reporting in Indigenous Communities" (Ryerson Today • Apr 2018) 37:00 Reporting in Indigenous Communities Guide (Duncan McCue) 39:00 Stolen (Gimlet • 2021) 39:00 "Jermain Charlo Missing Two Years on Tuesday" (Seaborn Larson • Missoulian • Jun 2020) 44:00 "Monday's Montanan: Lauren Small Rodriguez Helps Native Trafficking Survivors " (Patrick Reilly • Missoulian • Feb 2020)  

Vinson Cunningham is a staff writer for The New Yorker.“I think the job is just paying a bunch of attention. If you're a person like me, where thoughts and worries are intruding on your consciousness all the time, it is a great relief to have something to just over-describe and over-pay-attention to—and kind of just give all of your latent, usually anxious attention to this one thing. That, to me, is a great joy.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @vcunningham vinson.nyc Cunningham on Longform Cunningham's New Yorker archive 04:00 "’The Suit’ at BAM" (Brooklyn Paper • Jan 2013) 04:00 "Label Maker: Edward Buchanan" (Nylon Guys • Mar 2015) 09:00 circlejerk.live 11:00 Jeremy O. Harris’ plays 11:00 "How Are Audiences Adapting to the Age of Virtual Theatre?" (New Yorker • Oct 2020) 18:00 "The Season of Russell Westbrook and a New Era in N.B.A. Fandom" (New Yorker • Apr 2017) 25:00 Cunningham's McSweeney’s archive 25:00 "The Flies in Kehinde Wiley’s Milk" (The Awl • Jun 2015) 25:00 "Can Black Art Ever Escape the Politics of Race?" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2015) 25:00 "How Chris Jackson is Building a Black Literary Movement" (New York Times Magazine • Feb 2016) 27:00 "Stephon Marbury Has His Own Story to Tell" (New Yorker • Apr 2020) 28:00 "The Playful, Political Art of Sanford Biggers" (New Yorker • Jan 2018) 29:00 WTF with Marc Maron 32:00 "Tracy Morgan Turns the Drama of His Life into Comedy" (New Yorker • May 2019) 36:00 Redd Foxx party albums 38:00 Alexandra Schwartz’ New Yorker archive 41:00 Simon Parkin on Longform 41:00 Adrian Chen on Longform 42:00 "The Many Lives of Steven Yeun" (Jay Caspian Kang • New York Times Magazine • Feb 2021)

Katie Engelhart is a journalist and the author of the new book The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die.“Billions of dollars of government money goes to the nursing home industry every year. And nobody has a nursing home correspondent. Nobody has an assisted living correspondent…. That's wild to me. As a journalist, someone tells me, Oh, there's an industry. It's hugely underregulated. It's getting billions of dollars a year. It is not super-accountable for that money. Who wouldn't want to cover that?” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @katieenglehart katieengelhart.com Engelhart on Longform 00:00 The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die (St. Martin’s Press • 2021) 00:00 "What Happened in Room 10?" (California Sunday • Aug 2020) 02:00 "Her Time" (California Sunday • Mar 2019) 03:00 "Time to Die" (Vice) 18:00 "Adam Maier-Clayton's controversial right-to-die campaign" (Stuart Hughes • BBC News • Jul 2017) 34:00 Engehart's Maclean’s archive 35:00 "Papal Chatter in Vatican City" (Maclean’s • Feb 2013) 35:00 "Why the Higgs Boson Discovery Changed Everything" (Kate Lunau and Katie Engelhart • Maclean’s • Jul 2012) 35:00 "Behind the Lines in Ukraine" (Maclean’s • Jan 2014) 35:00 "Royal Baby Dispatches: 'It's a Prince!'" (Maclean’s • Jul 2013) 37:00 Engelhart's Vice archive 39:00 "How France Has Changed One Year After The Paris Terrorist Attack" (Vice • Nov 2016) 39:00 "Lithuania Thinks the Russians Are Coming — and It's Preparing with Wargames" (Vice • May 2015) 39:00 "Why Record Numbers of Ukrainian Jews Are Fleeing to Israel" (Vice • Mar 2016) 39:00 Left Field (NBC) 44:00 "The Coronavirus’s Rampage Through a Suburban Nursing Home " (Jack Healy and Serge F. Kovaleski • New York Times • May 2020)  

Luke Mogelson is a journalist and fiction writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications. His latest feature is ”Among the Insurrectionists.”“Get to the front and document as much as you can. ... I think my approach is much more similar to photographers than other writers. I spend a lot of time with photographers and ... I feel like I've gotten pretty good at getting myself into situations where there's few or maybe no other writers around, but there's always a bunch of photographers…. I try to get in right behind the first photographers.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: 06:00 Paul Ford on Longform Podcast 07:00 "Death of a Mountain" (Erik Reece • Harper’s • Apr 2005) [pdf] 11:00 "Prison break: How Michigan Managed to Empty Its Penitentiaries While Lowering Its Crime Rate" (Washington Monthly • 2010) 16:00 "A Beast in the Heart of Every Fighting Man" (New York Times Magazine • Apr 2011) 26:00 Mujib Mashal's New York Times archive 27:00 "The Impossible Refugee Boat Lift to Christmas Island" (New York Times Magazine • Nov 2013) 38:00 "Jesus Plus Nothing" (Jeff Sharlet • Harper’s • Mar 2003) 38:00 "My Four Months As a Private Prison Guard" (Shane Bauer • Mother Jones • Jul 2016) 38:00 "Guarding Sing Sing" (Ted Conover • New Yorker • Mar 2000) 39:00 "Among the Insurrectionists" (New Yorker • Jan 2021) 47:00 "In the Streets with Antifa" (New Yorker • Oct 2020) 49:00 "Armed Protesters Demonstrate Against Covid-19 Lockdown at Michigan Capitol" (Lois Beckett • Guardian • Apr 2020) 50:00 "America’s Abandonment of Syria" (New Yorker • Apr 2020) 50:00 "The Shattered Afghan Dream of Peace" (New Yorker • Oct 2019) 51:00 "In Minneapolis, Protesters Confront the Police—And One Another" (New Yorker • May 2020)

Mirin Fader is a staff writer for The Ringer. “Nobody ever makes it makes it, right? You make it, and every day, you have to keep making it. That’s how I feel. Would I be the reporter I am if I wasn’t like that? I’m afraid to see what happens if I’m not. I’m afraid what type of reporter or writer I’ll be if I take my foot off the gas.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @MirinFader mirinfader.com Fader on Longform 03:00 Fader's Orange County Register archive 04:00 Lee Jenkins’ Sports Illustrated archive 04:00 Longform Podcast #421: Wright Thompson 06:00 Fader's Bleacher Report archive 14:00 "How Mo’ne Davis Made Her Hoop Dreams Come True: Inside Life After Little League" (Bleacher Report • Feb 2017) 14:00 "The LaMelo Show" (Bleacher Report • Feb 2018) 17:00 "Walk-on Becomes X-factor For Titans' Men's Soccer" (OC Register • Nov 2016) 29:00 "What Tyler Skaggs Left Behind" (Bleacher Report • Sept 2020) 42:00 Gary Smith on Longform 47:00 "LaVar Ball: Lakers 'don't want to play for' Luke Walton" (Jeff Goodman • ESPN • Jan 2018) 50:00 "The Life of LaMelo" (Bleacher Report • Nov 2019) 50:00 "Nothing Can Faze Davante Adams" (Bleacher Report • Aug 2018) 50:00 "Davante Adams Is Peaking in Every Way Possible" (Bleacher Report • Jan 2021) 51:00 "The Metamorphosis of Brandon Ingram" (Bleacher Report • Oct 2018) 51:00 "Brandon Ingram Through the Fire" (Bleacher Report • Nov 2019) 56:00 Giannis: The Improbable Rise of an NBA MVP (Hachette • 2021)

Stephanie Clifford is an investigative journalist and novelist who has written for The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and many other publications. Her most recent article is "The Journalist and the Pharma Bro."“I think your job as a journalist—particularly with people who are in vulnerable situations or people who are not used to press—is to explain what the fallout might be." Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes:  @stephcliff stephanieclifford.net Clifford on Longform Clifford's New York Times archive 02:00 "The Journalist and the Pharma Bro" (Elle • Dec 2020) 05:00 Everybody Rise (St. Martin’s Press • 2015) 15:00 "The Inside Story of MacKenzie Scott, the Mysterious 60-Billion-Dollar Woman" (Marker • Oct 2020) 26:00 "When the Misdiagnosis Is Child Abuse" (Atlantic • Aug 2020) 27:00 "He Cyberstalked Teen Girls for Years—Then They Fought Back" (Wired • Oct 2019) 33:00 "The First Year Out" (Marie Claire • Jun 2020)  

Kenneth R. Rosen has written for The New York Times, Wired, The New Yorker, and many other publications. His new book is Troubled: The Failed Promise of America's Behavioral Treatment Programs. “When I report, I keep two journals. … I keep my reporting notebook, which is sort of an almanac of dates, times, names, quotes, phone numbers. And then I have my personal notebook, which has all my fears and anxieties. And it invariably makes its way into the reporting … which is sort of an amalgamation of those two journals, of those two experiences, the internal and the external.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @kenneth_rosen kennethrrosen.com Rosen on Longform 03:00 "The Devil’s Henchmen" (The Atavist • Jun 2017) 04:00 Troubled: The Failed Promise of America's Behavioral Treatment Programs (Little a • 2021) 13:00 "At a Therapeutic Ranch, No Payday Until Later" (New York Times • Mar 2017) 31:00 Rosen's New York Times archive 32:00 Longform Podcast #403: Seyward Darby 35:00 Luke Mogelson on Longform 35:00 Ben Taub on Longform 35:00 May Jeong on Longform 35:00 Longform Podcast #300: May Jeong 39:00 Alicia Patterson Fellowship 41:00 Longform Podcast #135: Scott Anderson

Carvell Wallace is a podcast host and has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine. He is the co-author, with Andre Iguodala, of The Sixth Man.“So much of my life experience coalesces into things that are useful… All those years that I was obsessing over this that or the other thing, all the weird stuff that I would do, all the weird things that happened to me, all the places I found myself in that I didn’t want to be in but were interesting - this is all part of what makes me the writer that I am today.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. @carvellwallace carvellwallace.com The Sixth Man: A Memoir (Blue Rider Press • 2019) Episode One of Finding Fred Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret (Bradbury Press • 1970) Purple Rain (1984) The Karate Kid (Scholastic • 1984) “The Two Lives of Michael Jackson” (New Yorker • 2015) “How to Parent on a Night Like This” (Huffington Post • 2014) Wallace's Pitchfork archive  

Ashley C. Ford is a writer and podcast host. Her memoir, Somebody's Daughter, is forthcoming from Flatiron Books.“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. @iSmashFizzle  ashleycford.net Fortune Favors the Bold podcast 4:30 "Roger Loves Chaz" (Roger Ebert • Sep 2012) 11:00 The Giver (Lois Lowry • Houghton Mifflin • 1993) 17:15 Ford's commencement speech at Ball State 25:30 Ford's archive at Buzzfeed 40:30 "Ashley C. Ford’s Debut Memoir ‘Somebody’s Daughter’ Finds Home at Flatiron" (Paperback Paris • 2018)

Ed Yong spent 2020 covering the pandemic for The Atlantic. His latest feature is "How Science Beat the Virus." “I am trying to give readers a platform that they can stand on to observe this raging torrent that is the pandemic, this cascade of information that is threatening to sweep us all away. I’m trying to give people a rock on which they can stand so that they can observe what is happening without themselves being submerged by it. But I am trying to construct that platform while also being submerged in it.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @edyong209 edyong.me Yong on Longform Longform Podcast #386: Ed Yong Yong's archive at The Atlantic 08:00 "How the Pandemic Will End" (The Atlantic • Mar 2020) 08:00 "The Giant Pool of Money" (Alex Blumberg, Adam Davidson, and Planet Money • This American Life • May 2008) 16:00 "Our Pandemic Summer" (The Atlantic • Apr 2015) 16:00 "What the Racial Data Show" (Ibram X. Kendi • The Atlantic • Apr 2020) 18:00 "How the Pandemic Defeated America" (The Atlantic • Sep 2020) 19:00 "How Science Beat the Virus" (The Atlantic • Jan 2021) 34:00 "Q&A with Ed Yong" (Delia Cai • Deez Links • Nov 2020)

Nilay Patel is editor-in-chief of The Verge and hosts the podcast Decoder. “The instant ability—unmanaged ability—for people to say horrible things to each other because of phones is tearing our culture apart. It just is. And so sometimes, I’m like, Man, I wish our headline had been: ‘iPhone Released. It’s A Mistake.’ … But I think there’s a really important flipside to that … a bunch of teenagers are able to create culture at a scale that has never been possible before. Also, a bunch of marginalized communities are able to speak with coordinated voices and make change very rapidly. And that balance—I don’t think we’ve quite understood.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @reckless Patel's archive at The Verge 02:00 Decoder 02:00 The Vergecast 03:00 Recode Decode 08:00 Platformer (Casey Newton) 12:00 "Mark in the Middle" (Casey Newton • Verge • Sept 2020) 22:00 Patel's archive at Engadget 26:00 Processor (Dieter Bohn • Verge) 28:00 "Foxconn Is Confusing the Hell Out of Wisconsin" (Josh Dzieza • Verge • Apr 2019) 28:00 "Foxconn Says Empty Buildings in Wisconsin Are Not Empty" (Josh Dzieza • Verge • Apr 2019) 29:00 "Condo at the End of the World" (Joseph L. Flatley • Verge • Nov 2011) 45:00 Stratechery (Ben Thompson) 45:00 Kevin Roose on Longform 45:00 Charlie Warzel on Longform

Wright Thompson is a senior writer for ESPN. His new book is Pappyland: A Story of Family, Fine Bourbon, and the Things That Last. “If you’re going to write a profile of someone … you have to find some piece of common ground with them so that no matter how famous or good or noble or bad—or no matter how cartoonish their most well-known attributes are—it shrinks them. And once they’re small enough to fit in your hand, I think it changes the entire experience of asking questions about their lives.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring the show. Show notes: wrightthompson.com Thompson on Longform 01:00 Pappyland (Penguin Random House • 2020) 02:00 Bloodlines (ESPN Investigates • 2020) 18:00 "The Secret History of Tiger Woods" (ESPN • Apr 2016) 18:00 "Michael Jordan Has Not Left The Building" (ESPN • Feb 2013) 18:00 "Holy Ground" (ESPN • Jun 2007) 31:00 ”Michael Jordan: A History of Flight" (ESPN • May 2020) 47:00 "As Clayton Kershaw Waits for Baseball to Return, a Look at His Family, Legacy and Future" (ESPN • Apr 2020) 49:00 The Big Fella (Jane Leavy • Harper • 2018) 52:00 "Pat Riley's Final Test" (ESPN • Apr 2017)  

Melissa del Bosque is an investigative journalist covering the U.S.-Mexico border.“What I really want people to know is the context within which this traumatic event is happening. It doesn’t have to happen. It’s happening because certain people made certain decisions. Or they made a decision to do nothing. … There are laws, there are policies on the books that are either being ignored or could be changed.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: 8:00 The Western Edition 12:00 "Editorial: A Brief Look Back, Then Forward" (Staff • Texas Observer • Dec 2007) 14:00 The Monitor 18:00 Texas Observer 20:00 "Holes in the Wall" (Texas Observer • Feb 2008) 24:00 "Children of the Exodus" (Texas Observer • Nov 2010) 30:00 "Beyond the Border" (Texas Observer, Guardian • Aug 2014) 32:00 "They Die in Brooks County" (Mary Jo McConahay • Texas Observer • Jun 2007) 33:00 Type Investigations 34:00 "Death on Sevenmile Road" (Texas Observer • May 2015) 42:00 Bloodlines (Ecco • 2017) 50:00 Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma 50:00 "The Deadliest Place In Mexico" (Texas Observer • Feb 2012) 58:00 "The El Paso Experiment" (Intercept • Nov 2020) 1:03:00 "Army Sergeants at Fort Hood Fear for the Safety of Their Soldiers" (Intercept • Oct 2020) 1:04:00 "A Group of Agents Rose Through the Ranks to Lead the Border Patrol. They’re Leaving It in Crisis." (ProPublica • Feb 2020)  

Reggie Ugwu is an arts reporter for The New York Times. “I find that even though I talk to celebrities or popular artists, I’m not all that interested in celebrity. I’m pretty uninterested in celebrity. But I’m really interested in creativity.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @uugwuu Ugwu on Longform Ugwu's New York Times archive 10:00 The Quake (Martin Smith and Marcela Gaviria • Frontline • Mar 2010) 12:00 "Inside The Playlist Factory" (Buzzfeed • Jul 2016) 12:00 stereogum.com 17:00 "A Song No One Remembered. A Podcast That’s Hard to Forget." (New York Times • Mar 2020) 18:00 "'Song Exploder' and the Inexhaustible Hustle of Hrishikesh Hirway" (New York Times • Nov 2020) 22:00 "Francis and the Lights, Pop Star Interrupted" (New York Times • Mar 2020) 27:00 "'Black Panther' Star Chadwick Boseman Dies of Cancer at 43" (New York Times • Aug 2020) 27:00 "Overlooked No More: Robert Johnson, Bluesman Whose Life Was a Riddle" (New York Times • Sept 2019) 28:00 "How Chadwick Boseman Embodies Black Male Dignity" (New York Times • Jan 2019) 30:00 "Why Are There So Few Black Directors in the Criterion Collection?" (Kyle Buchanan and Reggie Ugwu • New York Times • Aug 2020)

Stephanie McCrummen is a national enterprise reporter at The Washington Post. “I do have to psych myself up. There’s always something awkward about it and that never goes away. … No matter how long I do this job, that part of it doesn’t get any easier. It’s always a bit awkward and you’re always sort of humbled when someone actually is willing to talk to you. Then it can be kind of thrilling, once you’re in it, once you’re actually in the conversation. ... But the moment a few seconds before that is still—to this day, it’s sort of an act of will.” Thanks to Mailchimp and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @mccrummenWaPo McCrummen on Longform McCrummen's Washington Post archive 08:00 "In Georgia, a Biden supporter realizes the power of her ballot" (Washington Post • Nov 2020) 12:00 "Miranda’s Rebellion" (Washington Post • Feb 2020) 28:00 "Judgment Days" (Washington Post • Jul 2018) 37:00 "Woman says Roy Moore initiated sexual encounter when she was 14, he was 32" (Washington Post • Nov 2017) 43:00 "A woman approached The Post with dramatic — and false — tale about Roy Moore. She appears to be part of undercover sting operation." (Shawn Boburg, Aaron C. Davis and Alice Crites • Washington Post • Nov 2017)