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)
57 min
202
Episode 425: Stephanie Clifford
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)
44 min
203
Episode 424: Kenneth R. Rosen
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
48 min
204
Episode 365: Carvell Wallace, author and podcas...
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
69 min
205
Episode 378: Ashley C. Ford, author and podcast...
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)
59 min
206
Episode 423: Ed Yong
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)
49 min
207
Episode 422: Nilay Patel
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
53 min
208
Episode 421: Wright Thompson
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)
57 min
209
Episode 420: Melissa del Bosque
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)
66 min
210
Episode 419: Reggie Ugwu
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)
36 min
211
Episode 418: Stephanie McCrummen
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)
53 min
212
Episode 417: Olivia Nuzzi
Olivia Nuzzi is the White House correspondent for New York.“I don’t think that, broadly speaking, this a group of redeemable people. … But I do think there is tremendous value, in this first draft of history, trying to understand why the fuck they are like this. … There is value in understanding why these people are like this because they are the reason why we are here in this situation. And I think it’s a [question] that historians will try to answer years from now. … I view my job as providing fodder for that.”
Thanks to Mailchimp and SAIC for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
@Olivianuzzi
Nuzzi on Longform
Nuzzi's archive at New York
13:00 "The Final Gasp of Donald Trump’s Presidency" (New York • Nov 2020)
24:00 "Steve Bannon and Reince Priebus Want You to Know They’re Actually Friends" (New York • Feb 2017)
25:00 "My Private Oval Office Press Conference With Trump, Pence, Pompeo, and Kelly" (New York • Oct 2018)
25:00 "How John Kelly Failed to Tame the West Wing" (New York • Dec 2018)
25:00 "The Chaotic, Desperate, Last-Minute Trump 2020 Reboot" (New York • Aug 2020)
36:00 "The Mystifying Triumph of Hope Hicks, Donald Trump’s Right-Hand Woman" (GQ • Jun 2016)
39:00 "An Anonymous Republican on Power vs. Contempt for Trump" (New York • Oct 2020)
56:00 "Listen to Children Who’ve Just Been Separated From Their Parents at the Border" (Ginger Thompson • ProPublica • Jun 2018)
1:06:00 "Does Governor Andrew Cuomo Have His Nipples Pierced?" (New York • Apr 2020)
1:08:00 Nuzzi's archive at The Daily Beast
1:08:00 "The Entire Presidency Is a Superspreading Event" (New York • Oct 2020)
71 min
213
Episode 416: Reeves Wiedeman
Reeves Wiedeman is a reporter at New York and the author of the new book Billion Dollar Loser.
“You get inside these companies and … you assume everything is running based on models and numbers and then you get inside and it’s just people. And sometimes they have MBAs and sometimes they don’t. … At the end of the day, whether you’re running a media company or an office space company, it’s all people making these decisions and they often do very strange, contradictory, and ultimately unsuccessful things.”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
@reeveswiedeman
reeveswiedeman.net
Wiedeman on Longform
Wiedeman on Longform Podcast
Wiedeman's archive at New York Magazine
01:00 "The Watcher" (New York • Nov 2018)
01:00 "What's Left of Condé Nast" (New York • Oct 2019)
01:00 "A Company Built on a Bluff" (New York • Jun 2018)
01:00 "The I in We" (New York • Jun 2019)
02:00 Billion Dollar Loser (Little Brown • 2020)
17:00 "Is Uber Evil, Or Just Doomed?" (New York • May 2017)
25:00 Cambridge Analytica coverage at The Guardian
38 min
214
Episode 415: Latif Nasser
Latif Nasser co-hosts Radiolab. He also hosted The Other Latif and the Netflix documentary series Connected.“It’s so easy to hate everything and be cynical. There’s a kind of ease to that. It takes a lot more courage to go up in front of everybody and be like, This is awesome. I love this. That takes a lot of guts, I think.”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
@latifnasser
02:00 The Other Latif (WNYC Studios • 2020)
02:00 Connected (Netflix • 2020)
09:00 "Dust" from Connected (Netflix • 2020)
09:00 "Digits" from Connected (Netflix • 2020)
18:00 "A Clockwork Miracle" (Radiolab • 2012)
22:00 "Smile My Ass" (Radiolab • Oct 2015)
28:00 "The World’s Biggest Scavenger Hunt: A Guide To Finding Stories" (Transom • Nov 2018)
54 min
215
Episode 414: Barton Gellman
Barton Gellman is a staff writer for The Atlantic. and was previously a Pulitzer-winning reporter at The Washington Post. His latest book is Dark Mirror: Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State and his latest essay is "The Election That Could Break America."“I have found that I have a talent for accidentally pissing people off. ... I’m interested most in accountability and the use and abuse of power. So naturally it’s going to annoy people sometimes. And sometimes they take it like grown-ups and sometimes less so.”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
@bartongellman
bartongellman.com
Gellman on Longform
Dark Mirror (Penguin Press • 2020)
10:00 Gellman's early Washington Post archive
37:00 Gellman's Time archive
39:00 Gellman's NSA stories at The Washington Post
57:00 "The Election That Could Break America" (The Atlantic • Nov 2020)
65 min
216
Episode 413: Latria Graham
Latria Graham is a writer living in South Carolina. Her work has appeared in Outside, Garden & Gun, The Guardian, and The New York Times. Her latest essay is "Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream."
“My goal as a person—not just as a writer—is to be the adult that I needed when I was younger. That’s why I go and talk to college classes. That’s why I write some of these vulnerable things, to let people that are struggling know that they’re not on their own. … I have to be unmerciful to myself, I think, in order to do it. I really do try to dissect myself and my mistakes. And just kind of say, Here’s the full deck of my life. Take from it what you need. But I’m not holding out on you.”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show Notes:
@LatriaGraham
latriagraham.com
10:00 Going Hungry (Kate M. Taylor • Anchor • 2008)
32:00 "The Dark Knight Unmasked" (SB Nation • Jan 2016)
37:00 "We're Here. You Just Don't See Us." (Outside • May 2018)
37:00 "Out There, Nobody Can Hear You Scream" (Outside • Sept 2020)
48:00 "How an E-Bike Got Me Riding Again After 20 Years" (Bicycling • Jul 2018)
1:03:00 "A Dream Uprooted" (Garden & Gun • Apr/May 2020)
69 min
217
Episode 412: Nicholson Baker
Nicholson Baker is the author of 18 books of fiction and nonfiction. He has written for The New Yorker, Harper’s, and many other publications. His latest book is Baseless: My Search for Secrets in the Ruins of the Freedom of Information Act.
"In the end, I don’t care how famous you get, how widely read you are during your lifetime. You’re going to be forgotten. And you’re going to have five or six fans in the end. It’s going to be your grandchildren or your great-grandchildren are going to say, Oh, yeah, he was big. … So I think the key is, write what you actually care about. Because in the end, you’re only doing this for yourself. … So maybe do your best stuff for yourself and for the three, four, five people who know in the coming century that you ever existed. That’s all you need to do."
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
@nicholsonbaker8
nicholsonbaker.com
The Mezzanine (Grove Press • 1988)
Baseless (Penguin Press • 2020)
10:00 Human Smoke (Simon & Schuster • 2009)
10:00 "Wrong Answer" (Harper's • Sept 2013)
11:00 Room Temperature (Grove Press • 2010)
11:00 U and I (Random House • 2000)
11:00 The Fermata(2000)
12:00 "The Projector" (New Yorker • Mar 1994)
12:00 The Size of Thoughts (Vintage Contemporaries • 1996)
13:00 "The Author vs. the Library" (New Yorker • Oct 1996)
19:00 Double Fold (Vintage • 2002)
30:00 Lab 257 (Michael Carroll • Willam Morrow Paperbacks • 2005)
33:00 Longform Podcast #192: Seymour Hersh
33:00 The Killing of Osama Bin Laden (Seymour Hersh • Verso • 2017)
33:00 Longform Podcast #321: Nicholas Schmidle
33:00 "Getting Bin Laden" (Nicholas Schmidle • New Yorker • Aug 2011)
46:00 Baker's New Yorker archive
65 min
218
Episode 411: Elizabeth Weil
Elizabeth Weil covers California and the climate for ProPublica. She has written for The New York Times Magazine, California Sunday, and more.“As a journalist you’re endlessly asking people to tell you really personal, really vulnerable stuff about their lives. And I feel like you have to be willing to be in that conversation too—or really think about why you’re not willing.”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
@lizweil
elizabethweil.net
Weil on Longform
03:00 "Why He Kayaked Across the Atlantic at 70 (For the Third Time)" (New York Times Magazine • Mar 2018)
04:00 "What the Photos of Wildfires and Smoke Don’t Show You" (ProPublica • Sept 2020)
08:00 "The Climate Crisis Is Happening Right Now. Just Look at California’s Weekend." (ProPublica • Sept 2020)
13:00 "The Lost Boys of Sudan; The Long, Long, Long Road to Fargo" (Sara Corbett • New York Times Magazine • April 2001)
17:00 Off the Sidelines (Kirsten Gillibrand • Penguin Random House • 2015)
20:00 "In the Ashes of Ghost Ship" (New York Times Magazine • Dec 2018)
24:00 "Mary Cain Is Growing Up Fast" (New York Times Magazine • Mar 2015)
31:00 "Kamala Harris Takes Her Shot" (Atlantic • May 2019)
32:00 The Girl Who Smiled Beads (Clemantine Wamariya • Penguin Random House • 2019)
36:00 No Cheating, No Dying (Scribner • 2012)
36:00 They All Laughed at Christopher Columbus (Bantam • 2010)
39:00 "Married (Happily) With Issues" (New York Times Magazine • Dec 2009)
42:00 "Raising a Teenage Daughter" (California Sunday Magazine • Nov 2017)
48 min
219
Episode 410: Jiayang Fan
Jiayang Fan is a staff writer for The New Yorker. Her latest article is a "How My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda.""I think considering the unusual shape of our lives—the lives of my mother and I—from bare subsistence to one of the richest enclaves in America … it made me think about what the value of existence is. ... It made me wonder, What should a person be? And how should a person be? And being a writer has been a lifelong quest to answer those questions."
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes
@JiayangFan
Fan on Longform
Fan at The New Yorker
02:00 "How My Mother and I Became Chinese Propaganda" (New Yorker • Sept 2020)
09:00 "Hong Kong's Protest Movement and the Fight for the City's Soul" (New Yorker • Dec 2019)
40:00 "China's Selfie Obsession" (New Yorker • Dec 2017)
41:00 "China's Mistress-Dispellers" (New Yorker • June 2017)
43:00 "How E-Commerce is Transforming Rural China" (New Yorker • July 2018)
62 min
220
Episode 409: Claudia Rankine
Claudia Rankine is a poet, essayist, and playwright. She is the author of the new book, Just Us: An American Conversation.“I began to wonder, why am I maintaining civility around things that are actually very important to me? This might be the only chance I get to stand up for myself. As Claudia. As a Black person. As a Black woman. As an American citizen. So what am I waiting for? What am I preserving when the thing I am supposedly preserving is also the thing that is on some level killing me?”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
Rankine on Longform
Just Us: An American Conversation (Graywolf Press • 2020)
Citizen: An American Lyric (Graywolf Press • 2014)
4:00 "The Meaning of Serena Williams" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2015)
4:00 "I Wanted to Know What White Men Thought About Their Privilege. So I Asked." (New York Times Magazine • July 2019)
4:00 On Being: Claudia Rankine
43:00 "Black Newborns More Likely to Die When Looked After By White Doctors" (Rob Picheta • CNN • Aug 2020)
53 min
221
Episode 408: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an author and journalist. He served as guest editor for the September issue of Vanity Fair, titled "The Great Fire."“There’s this pressure to say something. Say something. The world’s burning, say something. But I try to stay where I’ve been or where I’ve tried to be in my career. ... Good things take time. You gotta let things cook. You can’t insta-bake something like this.”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
ta-nehisicoates.com
Coates on Longform
Longform Podcast #7: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Longform Podcast #97: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Longform Podcast #168: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Longform Podcast #225: Ta-Nehisi Coates
Longform Podcast #360: Ta-Nehisi Coates and Chris Jackson
1:00 "The Great Fire: A Special Issue, Edited by Ta-Nehisi Coates" (Vanity Fair • September 2020)
1:15 "On Witnessing and Respair: A Personal Tragedy Followed by Pandemic" (Jesmyn Ward • Vanity Fair • September 2020)
1:15 "Blue Bloods: America's Brotherhood of Police Officers" (Eve L. Ewing • Vanity Fair • September 2020)
1:30 "The Abolition Movement" (Josie Duffy Rice • Vanity Fair • September 2020)
1:30 "College Football Players are Unpaid Stars on the Field – And Have No Power Off It" (Bomani Jones • Vanity Fair • September 2020)
1:45 "Amy Sherald on Making Breonna Taylor's Portrait" (Miles Pope • Vanity Fair • September 2020)
7:00 The Apollo and The Atlantic Present Black Panther in Conversation: Featuring Chadwick Boseman and Ta-Nehisi Coates
9:30 “He Was An Epic Firework Display”: Ryan Coogler on Chadwick Boseman
15:00 Longform Podcast #363: Radhika Jones
15:45 "'I Am Still Called by the God I Serve to Walk This Out' A conversation with Lucia McBath, mother of Jordan Davis" (The Atlantic • February 2014)
20:30 "Mississippi: A Poem, In Days" (Kiese Makeba Lamon • Vanity Fair • September 2020)
23:15 "The Life of Breonna Taylor Lived, in the Words of Her Mother" (Ta-Nehisi Coates • Photography by Latoya Ruby Frazier • Vanity Fair • September 2020)
26:00 Between the World and Me
27:45 "Viola Davis: “My Entire Life Has Been a Protest" (Sonia Saraiya • Vanity Fair • July/August 2020)
27:45 "Janelle Monáe: Artist in Residence" (Yohana Desta • Vanity Fair • May 2020)
27:45 "For the Love of Lupita Nyong’o" (Kimberly Drew • Vanity Fair • September 2019)
44:00 "I’m Still Reading Andrew Sullivan. But I Can’t Defend Him." (Ben Smith • New York Times • Aug 2020)
46:15 "Myths About Physical Racial Differences Were Used to Justify Slavery — and are Still Believed by Doctors Today." (Linda Villarosa • New York Times Magazine • August 2019)
49 min
222
Episode 407: Brandon Soderberg and Baynard Woods
Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg are the co-authors of the new book I Got A Monster: The Rise and Fall of America's Most Corrupt Police Squad.“We really wanted to create some kind of leftist, anti-racist true crime story that we really haven’t seen. The conventions of the thriller often smuggle in all of this really right-wing, pro-police propaganda that all of our cops were raised on—the story of cops having to crash cars and break rules in order to get the bad guys. We wanted to take that and subvert it, using its methods to blow it up from the inside while also being rigorously reported.”
Thanks to Mailchimp and The Jordan Harbinger Show for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
@baynardwoods
@notrivia
5:30 "Even After the Remaining Charges Were Dropped in Freddie Gray's Death, Mosby Received a Hero's Welcome in Sandtown While the FOP Countered SAO's Arguments" (Baynard Woods • Baltimore City Paper • August 2016)
7:00 "Freddie Gray: Judge Declares Mistrial in Case Against Baltimore Police Officer" (Baynard Woods • The Guardian • December 2015)
8:00 "What Happened to Tyree Woodson?" (Baynard Woods • Baltimore City Paper • May 2017)
8:15 "The Detective and the Rapper" (Baynard Woods • Baltimore City Paper • October 2014)
8:15 Longform Podcast #395: Wesley Lowery
18:00 The Mastermind: Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal. (Evan Ratliff • Random House • 2019)
28:30 "A Documentary About Baltimore's Notorious Urban Dirt Bike Riders" (Baynard Woods • Baltimore City Paper • March 2013)
28:30 Coffin Point: The Strange Cases Of Ed Mc Teer, Witch Doctor Sheriff (Baynard Woods • River City Publishing • 2010)
58 min
223
Episode 406: Andrea Valdez
Andrea Valdez is the editor-in-chief of The 19th*.“You know how sometimes you hear a song and you think, Gosh, it feels like that song has always existed and an artist just plucked it out of the air and played it and now it’s a part of our musical canon? I really hope that The 19th* is a news organization where it feels like it has always been, should have always been, and will always be there.”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show Notes
@andreamvaldez
00:30 The 19th*
1:30 Valdez's archive at Texas Monthly
17:50 Valdez's archive at Wired
25:15 Valdez's archive at The Texas Observer
32:00 "America’s First Female Recession" (Chabeli Carrazana • The 19th* • July 2020)
32:00 "Black Female Voters Say They Want What They’re Owed: Power" (Errin Haines • The 19th* • July 2020)
33:00 "Kamala Harris Applauds Biden’s “Audacity to Choose a Black Woman to Be His Running Mate”" (Shefali Luthra • The 19th* • August 2020)
37:45 "Breonna Taylor’s Death Looms Over Kentucky’s Primary Election (Errin Haines • The 19th* • June 2020)
41:00 "The Newsroom Where Politics Is Not About Men" (Angelina Chapin • The Cut • Aug 2020)
46 min
224
Episode 405: Jason Parham
Jason Parham is a senior writer at Wired.“I think of myself some days as a critic. Some days I think of myself as a journalist. But I essentially mostly think of myself as an essayist, somebody who is trying to bridge those two traditions. My approach to writing now is kind of simple…I’m always writing about things I like and want to hear about.”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
@nonlinearnotes
jasonparham.com
00:45 "TikTok and the Evolution of Digital Blackface" (Wired • Aug 2020)
1:00 Spook
1:45 Evan (@henrylittleboots) on TikTok
18:30 "The Reality of Dating White Women When You're Black" (Ernest Baker • Gawker • Jun 2014)
21:30 "Gawker Media's Responsibility to Diversity" (Jan 2015)
24:00 Gawker Cuts Seven Staffers as It Goes All Politics (Peter Sterne • Politico • Nov 2015)
29:15 Longform Podcast #335: Kiese Laymon (Peter Sterne • Politico • Nov 2015)
30:00 "And Lo, With Russell Westbrook, Humanity Outpaced Science" (Wired • June 2017)
30:00 "How Oprah’s Network Finally Found Its Voice" (Wired • June 2018)
39:15 Longform Podcast #157: Margo Jefferson
39:15 "Ripping Off Black Music" (Harper’s • January 1973)
43:00 "Why I (Still) Love Tech: In Defense of a Difficult Industry" (Wired • May 2019)
44:15 "When Influencers Switch Platforms—and Bare It All" (Wired • August 2019)
55 min
225
Episode 404: Jenny Kleeman
Jenny Kleeman is a journalist, broadcaster and the author of the new book Sex Robots and Vegan Meat: Adventures at the Frontier of Birth, Food, Sex, and Death.“It’s better to cover one thing in a really illuminating way than to try and explore every single aspect of a topic in a really superficial way. So if there’s one thing that particularly interests you or fascinates you, if there’s just one question you want to ask, do as much research as you can on that one question and you’ll end up with a much more illuminating interview than something that is a precis of their entire field. Because anyone can do that.”
Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show notes:
Mailchimp's By the Books
@jennykleeman
jennykleeman.com
13:15 "The Race to Build the World's First Sex Robot" (The Guardian • April 2017)
15:00 "The Murderers Next Door" (The Guardian • October 2014)
21:00 "The YouTube Star Who Fought Back Against Revenge Porn—and Won" (The Guardian • January 2018)
32:15 The Immaculate Deception Podcast
34:00 BBC Hotspot
36:00 HBO: Vice News Tonight