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Welcome to the first ever episode of Channels with Peter Kafka. That's me. I am the chief correspondent of Business Insider where I cover tech and media. And this podcast is about how those two things keep mashing up and connecting and tearing things down and making new stuff for better and for worse. If you listen to the show I used to host, it was called Recode Media. Welcome back. And thanks for writing and texting and email.
I'm Emily and tweeting and threading at me about when this thing will return for here. Thank you. And if this is new to you, God bless. I hope you keep coming back. I'll have more to say about the show and its format, how things might change and evolve over time. But we can wait on all that because I've got a very cool interview to kick things off today. It is a chat with David Remnik, the legendary editor of the New Yorker.
We'll discuss about what a magazine is in 2024 and what the business of running a magazine is 2024. And David and I had a similar chat back in 2016 when I first started podcasting. So I wanted to know what has and hasn't changed. Also discussed here.
Tech Barons, Steve Bannon and Music for Old Men. Not discussed here in much detail. Exactly who was going to replace David Remnik when he retired. He's been at this job since 1998. I thought he might tell me who the successor might be. Spoiler alert, he did not. Okay. That's the preamble. Now here's me and David Remnik.
I'm here again with David Remnik, he's the editor in chief in New Yorker. It's also very important that I tell you he's the host of the New Yorker public radio hour. Did I do a good job? Yeah, the New Yorker radio. We've been added Peter for it's incredible to say I think eight years more something like that. I'm worried that you you scaled the heights. You got editor in chief in New Yorker premier publication. Now you're podcasting. I want to do all night call in. That's my goal. That's a brilliant idea. Thank you.
I also I was doing some brief Googling slash research on the way on the way to this interview and saw the New Yorker described as the official source of quality liberal journalism in the United States. How do you feel about that? Appalachia which part?
Official source I think that sounds a little so does that to me. No, do you know what that interviewer was trying to get at when you call to the official source of liberal journalism. I wouldn't I wouldn't know. I really wouldn't know. I think it's a little silly to be honest with you. I think of the New Yorker as something a little more complicated than that. It's a it's a publication of deep reporting deep deep reporting fact checked thorough fair.
And does comment which is where opinion Ross resides at the New Yorker lean to the liberal. Yeah, it always has it has for decades and decades wrong preceding me. The magazine should be funny when it wants to be funny. It's decisive in its criticism and we've obviously added lots and lots of components to what is the New Yorker over time. We're taking part in one right now podcasting but also video and you know just all kinds of. We've got a conference coming up.
We've had the New Yorker festival now for 25 years Peter 25 years next year is the 100th anniversary. It is it is it is and it had to me. The challenge is not just to jump up and down and celebrate your past but to ensure that the New Yorker is this kind of deeply unusual thing in the culture which is something that is great over a long period of time. I mean in the history of the press will show you that there are lots of publications that have a moment. Life magazine had an incredible moment.
It's coming back I read. Yeah, well you know we'll see don't count your chickens but we'll hope for the best or the partisan review for us you know small number of. Liberals post war that was the essential thing and it was essential to the culture for a little while for a little while the trick with the New Yorker is that it's had its place for a century.
And I want to see it have a second century and that is my deepest deepest conviction and hope for for what this centenary years was in New Yorker readers today. Who are you writing for when you're writing in that any. Anybody that will receive us yeah but who do you think is receiving one point two million subscribers yeah Harold Ross used to say we don't want to be for the little old lady in Dubuque and I thought that was wrong.
That if the little old lady in Dubuque wants to read us just as a young person in Brooklyn or and everybody in between we want to be available to them and as a result you know even though we're often writing about things that you would think are high-minded.
They should be clear they should be available they shouldn't just be for a faculty member they when my mother was alive I always hope that she would read it and and get something out of it and she was not the most and God bless her and her memory was not the most sophisticated reader. But I wanted things to be available to her is that a question you're asking yourself a lot especially in the last few years is the way people are creating media receiving media is changing.
And where you fit in a tech talk world in a world where people like my kids are watching YouTube film explainers and not reading film criticism. I think sooner or later a lot of people come around to wanting depth we're all prey to an open to things that are not deep that are that are different kind of experience.
And I look at YouTube constantly I've never smoked the way I take a break when I'm at my computer late at night is to click off the piece I'm reading or put down the book I'm reading and watch music YouTube or some guy cooking an omelette or something we all have you dabbled in tech talk yet. Yeah it's pretty addictive. Yeah it is.
Like YouTube it faster. Yes it is. It can be really interesting and it could be really dangerous and noxious but I think you said the exact thing same thing about Twitter eight years ago. And what was I right you pulled it off so I wanted to do this just some basic got a whole lot better Twitter didn't it. Yeah fantastic right now and it just raises the level of the discourse to untold heights especially through defeating the woke mind virus.
So we did this eight years ago some things were a lot different Donald Trump was kind of a curiosity. Yeah. He's one of the Republican probably take talk didn't exist. Some things were consistent right. We had a lot of talk about what's the future of a magazine what's the role of a magazine. What is the biggest change in your job over the last eight years.
Well a lot's changed a lot's changed remember even when we were having that conversation eight years ago and some years before we were just coming out of a period where the main task the almost singular task of the New Yorker was to publish 12 things a week with a cover and cartoons and that was hard enough. That was hard to get it right to get it make it beautiful to make it deep to make it what you want it to be so right now.
Right now for example we published this morning as we sit here a huge trove of documents and information about American war crimes. And it comes out of journalism did not appear in the pages of the New Yorker appeared in a podcast called in the dark. That became part of the New Yorker a year ago. And I'm as proud of in the dark as any piece I can think of that we published in the past year or the past many years.
So that's new and how to do things like that on their own terms and not keep thinking about them in terms of a New Yorker piece. New Yorker written piece is a challenge. And it requires real attention and imagination the willingness to make mistakes and try new things and reach people I hate this phrase because it's so common now but reach people where they are.
You beat me to the quiche. I got it. I'm I'm fast. So the reason we use that cliche is because they have to right it's it's a thing you have to do. I'm also want to. They want to. I'm not you know I'm not to hear for planned obsolescence I'm here to make it new as the poet once said and and and we have.
And you find a lot of media companies who said we want to meet people where they are and then they don't they don't are they said oh we thought it was going to be Facebook whatever and we have to pivot out of that.
Or simply we can't do all those things we have to do them poorly we have to read what I don't want to do I don't want to do new things take on new media simply because I feel I have to for business purposes I want to do them well I'm I I I can I'm going to confess to you my hand is up I'm an idealist about this activity I'm an idealist and I want so much for the New Yorker to contribute to the knowledge understanding
and pleasure of our readership I want that readership to expand but I want to be I want to mean something I want to have be worth it's true to its values whenever we do anything new if it's just if it's just splashing the New Yorker name on something new that's mediocre I am so not interested do you think you're consumers is your consumers distinguish between this is a New Yorker piece.
New Yorker piece that runs in print and this is something I read on a website and this is a podcast and they have different value because of the form I think that's more of a fair question X years ago than now that there's a huge effort and conversation within the New Yorker to make that a much more fluid understanding I think first of all you know that what's so obvious is that a lot of our readers and some of our most
ardent readers read everything online and if that's the way it's going to be that's the way it's going to be I can be moan the loss of certain readers holding the thing in their hands and having a beautiful paper you know the cover
and all the way to get on the air train back to work. Yeah although I still see it a lot a lot more than I see newspapers on the train my train is the one but but boning is not something that's that's useful for an editor or anybody on the staff so we're talking about that all the time look Ronan Farrow's pieces some of them did not appear in print at all they appeared online because they had to for
deadline reasons because they were ready to go and we judge that everybody had read it already what's the point of then putting it in print weeks later sometimes we did sometimes we didn't but it's not a hard and fast rule I was trying to remember if I'd read any of his like Weinstein reporting in print some of them were there but I would bet by the time it got into the hands of readers in print a lot a lot of people had already had already read it and that print versus
digital again this is kind of hurry but but that is a shift for the staff as well you guys I think recently sort of consolidated your staff there's no longer a web staff and a magazine staff for the most part in the very beginning and this is many years ago there was the sense of the 18 in the B team that is long long in the past and it was it was probably
you don't think there's any remnants left over people say well still this is this is a magazine piece it deserves a different treatment than a website thing look I think the things that run at great length and take a long time and so on you you want to we most of times are published in print as well as as well as digitally but you know I a little bit more than half of our new subscribers take a digital only subscription it's their choice that's fine
that's fine that's fine that's a set look I'm going to make it fashion I'm 65 years old I do not get the New York Times delivered to my home it stopped during the pandemic because it stopped showing up reliably and that whole business of oh you read it more deeply I which I hear older friends say all the time in print it doesn't pertain to me so fine
the one thing that I don't read the New York Times the one thing it gave you right was serendipity that you didn't know that article yeah but your habits about clicking gave you the serendipity at least it does for me works for me we'll be right back with David Remnick the first award from a sponsor for decades we've been talking about productivity all wrong that's who we ended up with the hustle bros and endless to do lists
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all that on the verge cast wherever you get podcasts hey suburb here megan repino women sports are reaching new heights these days and there's so much to talk about so megan and I are launching a podcast where we're going to deep dive into all things sports and then some we're calling it a touch more because women sports is everything pop culture economics politics you name it and there's no better folks than us to talk about what happens on the court or on the field and everywhere else too
and we'll have a whole bunch of friends on the show to help us break things down we're talking athletes actors comedians maybe even our moms that'll be a fun episode whether it's breaking down the biggest games or discussing the latest headlines we'll be bringing a touch more insight into the world of sports and beyond follow a touch more wherever you get your podcasts new episodes drop every Wednesday
and we're back so this leads to the what is a magazine in twenty twenty four question right Twitter is broken Facebook is there's lots of social distribution social media distribution that we thought it's got to be the future is kind of falling by the wayside but you still have this sort of disaggregated morass of content but lots of stuff floating out there and so your piece will run next to sports it doesn't exist anymore you know I'm getting it this stuff is atomized and flowed everywhere
this status now with some publications it neither exists nor the zombies yet exists ish yeah exists ish where one aspect of it I think in sports illustrated case swimsuit stuff exists more than sports coverage the branding play yeah yeah your stuff sits out there I'm going to I'm going to find my way to it I'm not what I'm not going to do is flip through every article that you have assembled painstakingly I'm going to I'm going to read one thing and then flip to a different publication
I I loved the old business of flipping flipping through a physical thing I still do but if other people are going to come to it in a different way in other words they're they're clicking on the big thing and then they scroll down and at the bottom there are five other things suggested and they keep going who am I to get in their way I'm not here to get in the way you know technology is the reality that you either you deal
whether you don't or you make it yours or you don't or you cheap in yourself or you enhance yourself those are the choices in front of you and you know I I think more people are now able to get the New Yorker immediately everybody's able to get it immediately and every day and that's something new that's and I think that's wonderful one of the tropes you hear today from publisher staring at the best and these sort of whistle-wicking past the gray or like my metaphors is well in the world of AI
where you can't rely on anything the brand becomes more important than ever people will come to our website they'll come to our home page my boss is say this if the brand stands for something yeah so so I mean I hate the words that sounds like a can of soup brand but you know I live in the world I live in
so I understand what it means does that does that make sense to you the New Yorker is only worth something if it if it stands for and is good on the promise it makes to the readers and the values it it purports to have if it doesn't then it'll fade away if it's good on it I think it has a very long future and a great future ahead of it the last time we talked about this there was still a question of sort of what's the business model for a magazine for the New Yorker
you guys were sort of pivoting out of advertising toward subscriptions that's worked really well I think you said 80% of your revenues now yeah that's where it is from subscriptions that is work well for the times a few other places and then there are a lot of other places trying to push into subscriptions we would be foolish to be lax about it and say mission accomplished right businesses great now forever and ever and ever
the reality is is that a lot more people have decided well advertising being what it is we better have a subscription model that works so clearly the competition increases for that subscription dollar you see you see it in streaming for example right now apparently the big play the big ambition is who's going to be number two right because Netflix has first place right and we reassemble the cable TV on the wooden that great so I'll say this too
I think that we are only doomed to success if we're great if we if we attract and publish the very best writers if we attract and publish the very best we possibly can in other media that we try if we kind of slacken on that if we ever relax if we ever rest on our laurels if we start making phony promises to ourselves and compromises on quality then I'm not optimistic but my optimism resides in the people in the on the floor that you're sitting on now
and the New Yorker writers themselves are absolutely committed to coming through on those values and promises full freight subscription of the New Yorkers $169 what what I can get it for you for 168 here comes people might even give me a steep discount well we don't have to discuss that what's your competitive set who do you think do you think people are deciding between you and New York magazine or the times or is it you in Spotify and HBO and Netflix and anything they can
spend their money yet in the old days some if you were sitting here with the editor of news week the editor of news week would say time magazine now I think it's much more complicated question you know the the banal answer would be parts of the times the Atlantic this this one and that one I think the competition is for just for people's time and attention what can you provide them and in what are you setting out to do and I think people we live in a country of what 330 million not
not surely there even more people than this than the subscriber base that we have that want the depth and the quality and the width and the sense of argument and beauty that the New Yorker offers and it's up to us and our business people to help find those people and make it available to them and make them aware of that so I think there's a huge
audience ahead of us if we're smart about it look the New York Times used to believe they were locked into whatever their subscribers were a million or whatever and because of the internet and because of a very smart way of
investing in quality and maybe expanding the aperture and what they were calling the New York Times in their case food, games all that stuff they expanded their audience and I think that's all to the good do you look at that and go oh we should have a games play obviously we do you have game but what can we do we do I I made many mistakes over time here's here I'm going to reveal to you the stupidest one in the last few years just on
business level my wife kept playing this game and telling me that every morning she's a queen bee I know what the hell she was talking about I said of course you're a queen bee and then and then we move on with our day and then I discovered that she was playing this game wordle and she was addicted to it and have the people she knew to do it and I was I swear to God Peter on just about to tell Roger Lynch who runs the company maybe way out of look at this thing and buy it
and then I open I lost wordle I lost wordle to the New York Times so I it was a lesson it was a lesson lesson listen to your wife is the lesson hey there's a lot more stuff we can be the lesson listen to my wife I yeah when I don't I lose because you we start
of this conversation saying we don't want to get in these stupid brand extensions and slapping your name on step on the same token you want more revenue either other ways you can reach that audience other ways to reach people who aren't reading a Ronan fair article but would play wordle or we do both ideally or we do both I don't think so the New York Times went from roughly a million million have to to what 10 to 10 I don't think those additional subscribers just play wordle or make a lasagna
Sunday okay fine some come from the athletic right and then they're like happy to have them all in the bundle but yes and it also allows them to do the important thing but I think it also I think a lot of those people are also reading news maybe not as obsessively as you Peter or me but they're they're they're exposed to New York Times journalism and you know the New Yorker is a different kind of thing we're not the number one news source for anybody
and we will never be I not under any illusions I assume that the reader of the New Yorker also reads either good news paper or or had some news diet daily news diet that they also are reading we're the other thing but we're distinctive
we're not a fake newspaper we're not a kind of pallid version of a newspaper I've been in a newspaper I was at a very great one for 10 years I know what that is that was washing the post the Washington post and we can't be that and shouldn't be that our way of covering
anything from the Middle East to domestic politics has to be different deeper more creative and distinctive we'll be right back but first a word from a sponsor what's everybody I'm Cam Hayward NFL man of the year six time pro-bola hopefully more pro-boles and Steelers team cap tap in and listen now to my podcast is not just football every week will break down everything from and if I rumors to low island while sitting down with guests like Michael
Keaton and little Wayne it the football is show that you should listen to now subscribe now on YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back we're recording this on Tuesday the 10th there's big debate tonight and I've heard that people hear this podcast hopefully Wednesday morning 11 do you want them to turn to go to New Yorker.com to see what you guys have to show it not only to go to it the next morning to go to it that night where we'll have a live blog with voices
that have been covering politics and culture in a very distinctive way look it's very telling that the table of contents of the New Yorker emphasizes not only the subject of the piece but the the by line the average reader of a newspaper is not remembering violence except for columnists except for columnists the writers here the creators are are given quite a lot of latitude to distinguish their voices in a way that's not just a random shining adjective as in a newspaper piece but
it's something really distinctive so the geotolentino is somebody you want to read no matter what she's writing about or Vincent Cunningham but you want people to be in the habit in the frame of mind of there's a thing happening now
that's a big deal the New Yorker is going to weigh in on it in close to the way in on it and what is Vincent Cunningham have to say about it what is Evan Osnos have to say about it or or or these creators I kind of winstead I don't know I don't think I'm a term you're using
I feel like I just sprained my ankle you mentioned Roger Lynch yes your new wish see I guess he's been there for a while now for he's been doing consolidating cost cutting for a long time the sort of story about the New Yorker was it was this island within Condaine asked and had its own special treatment and indignities that other parts of the other parts of the media company just had to deal with you didn't have to is that still a case do you feel like that
I don't think it was ever really the case and you don't think it was a separate I think it's incumbent upon me or I was sitting in this chair to run sensible business and we are fortunate enough to both run a sensible business and have the readership we do in the loyalty that we do so that we can go to the company and say we're doing a pretty good job of it but like there's a shared photo thing right within Condaine asked that's not even too quickly remember we we
share copy you just don't do that no we don't because the sheer amount that we publish weekly daily you have a tabloos and that's separate from the rest of the party yes and that's it's interesting because you know 50 years ago you would have thought about the metabolism of the New Yorker as
rather homing bird whatever the opposite of the hummingbird and we have both now in other words we have we have pieces that are just dating for six months in the dark is a story that the work for which was four years in the making four years and that's a very hard economic model to support and we also have pieces that are written quite quickly you know it varies it varies enormously but the the fastest thing the New Yorker used to do back in the day was Pauline Kale working for a week on
or maybe two on a movie essay but do you feel like you are part of Condaine asked or sort of a little bit of a side we were in the context yes yes I report to Roger Lynch and happily and he's been an honest intelligent decent partner in crime I like I like him and he asked for your console beyond
with the publication you're running mid-a day what's in a while yeah and vice versa what's the last piece of advice you gave him I would never give Roger unass for advice except what I do is I go to him when I have something I want to discuss about the New Yorker and if he has something to discuss about Condaine asked then we do I met his service if I can be helpful I tried to ask him I mean simply because I guess I've been around a while but you know there are I guess two editors here
have been here quite a while me and Anna went to her we're different and yet we have a terrific relationship you're the last of a breed right the celebrity big deal magazine editor look at me Peter celebrities at the first word this pop into your mouth and see loafers and some call for socks
look at these things I've had them for a long long time there are very few other editors I could say I'm going to see David Remnick and there would be any flash of recognition well it's nice of you to say but look I don't think of it that way yeah I have the power to say authority to say yes and no that is true but there are lots of subjects that I know far less about than other editors here you know whether it's Dan Zalewski and Henry Fender talking about science
or other people Rob Fisher talking about politics it's a constant discussion here I you know I grew up yes I grew up in the newsroom of the most imperial editor imaginable Ben Bradley and it was it was the force of his charisma and his history as well as his intelligence that made him who he was but you can't behave like Ben Bradley anymore for all kinds of reasons world has changed what people expect in how they're managed has changed
and I think a lot of it's for the good they're also not making big blockbuster movies where someone plays Ben Bradley or David Remnick well who knows I was in a movie it was it was it was the movie there was a you know the French movie from five to seven which in France is when you're supposed to have an affair I suppose there was an American version of that and I played myself giving an award to some young writer
who would want an award and I had a scene with Glenn Close I was really terrible I did like Adam Gopnik that's right he was in tar he's interviewing Kate Blanchett in the beginning in New Yorker like it's good 2018 the New Yorker festival you had you'd invited Steve Bannon to come yeah Hugh Joproir
you eventually rescind your invitation if I remember correctly play that one back did you air in inviting him did you air in either you had what I did in the morning or you had what I did later in the day in other words to this day I play that one in my mind I like to think that I can interview anybody and there's no harm in it I think where where it came to to sadness for some people on the staff
and the staff is what I was reacting to more than anything else was that the New Yorker festival is neither fish nor foul to some degree it's not nobody's saying don't interview Steve Bannon for journalism the trick comes when you're inviting him to be interviewed on stage and you're paying him an honorary I'm an in this a party afterwards and I think that's and it was very much the moment
do you feel like the pendulum is swung in terms of you know people getting criticized for platforming someone else or do you think that discussion is still relevant to ongoing yeah I don't you know I have no problem with the platforming thing and I really do replay that in my mind as a what would I have done if it was a year later I mean you may have an opportunity to do something like that again next year right you could have a
you could have a truck administration with banning himself for some some more cool there but let me be let me say what the important thing is the important thing is the journalism the festival is this other thing I think that's where it came to ahead and that's where it came to complication but in terms of journalism you're going to go interview Steve Bannon if you're writing a piece of your any buddy
sure anybody in fact I think it's incumbent upon us to do that and the minute we start not doing that I'm deeply worried I but there's no band in like creature at this year's festival like you're interviewing Rachel Mattel Rachel might have and Lynn chain and and Liz chain is now an honorary liberal
up to a point I think she's you know died in the will conservators but I think she thinks that Donald Trump is an immense an immense danger to the country and there by the way we agree yeah she the late to the game but we agree just to push a little more do you feel like the New Yorker is a little comfortable sort of this is a New Yorker point of view on the world we're not going to deeply upset our readers or our staff by bringing in a point of view or a person they find out
that we're not serious we're talking about a festival we're talking about the whole ethos I would push back on that I would disagree that we write about people that we that that particular writer disagrees with the reason things in Athens all the time all the time my last look the last two profiles I wrote one was a baby Netanyahu
when was a via sin war neither of whom do I feel like I am you're my best friend politically or otherwise when you do those pieces yeah and you as shortly after October 7th went to the West Bank to jimrissel I don't know if you went to Israel and Gaza Gaza is closed I mean the only way to get to Gaza now if you're from outside is with the idea
of an affirmative hour of the most correct that's right when you do that work you take off you're gone for a number of days or more what happens to your day job running the magazine well they do have these things called phones email and time differences and you can get a fair amount of it's your one person no but I'm deeply a deep work teacher I'm not you know I also I'm not a big fan of vacations my way of your vacation
is to go to Israel yeah yeah I wouldn't call that because that sounds silly but yeah I love this activity of journalism and when the when sine who has hired me in 1998 fear number of years ago it was clear pretty soon that writing would be at least a small part of what I do I enjoy it on a couple of subjects maybe I have something to contribute it is in the single digits
percentage of what I do as a New Yorker editor but if I can contribute and I have the time I'll do it what what's what's the guard rail and that what what do you say I want to go to I want to do this very simple but I can't the time you hear the guard reels if the time away hurts the New Yorker in any way I won't do it if somebody else wants to do that specific piece it's there's not mine you're not going to
put it nope no won't do it won't do it no one else wants to interview well look at dinner Paul McCartney no one else wants to profile our promise so when I talk to people at the times the big the problem they always have is 16 people are competing for one story there's an advantage to that sometimes because then 16 people contribute on one story and they all pour into it we don't do that very
very rare exceptions here we can't get to everything we want to get to look Paul McCartney brisk rinks and you're talking about this is geyser rock you're looking at the geyser in the office people in my office they they want to want to want grandpa you do that interview exactly exactly and when you know and when it came to Russia and I looked around and suddenly we had
masha gesson who sadly has gone off to the times or Josh yafa you didn't see me go in a rush or you crane where look mogul center spin that's that you know that's an area I know a good deal better than even the least in the middle east I've been going to for the New Yorkers since I came here as a writer in 1992 do you want to get the extra I know nothing about this subject or this part of the world that's what I want to write about next that takes too long in other words to get up to speed
and write a credible piece is is a process that's really takes a great deal of time in fact I think some New Yorker writers find that the most difficult thing about being the New Yorker when they start if they have shooting it yeah because it it'll show your parachute will show there is an advantage of actually knowing a language knowing the landscape having sources having a sense of history
and by the way on the Middle East far from the only person that's covered that for us in that piece or the guy called you the great liberal official liberal it was a Spanish journalist oh my god that came with one of the only illustration where I looked like secretariat
was fantastic it could be worse animals to be compared to great quote that the quote the struck me this is you the unfairness and inequality this is talking about tech the unfairness and inequality they've inflicted on the modern world can't be covered up by how cool the iPhone is are you are you that sort of satisfied with with our tech overlords on a day to day basis how can you not be are you supposed to just say oh my god how unbelievably cool they are
isn't it most people do on a day to day at this late day you know we look back at the robber barons in the 19th century with their top hats and their stiff collars and all the rest we have no problem critiquing their exploitation of workers and all kinds of things about industrialization and all the rest at this late day to treat the great tech barons as simply geniuses and are benevolent controlling intelligences of our society it's terrible journalism it's bad thinking and it's not real
you know we've come a long way and it's incumbent upon us as journalists and the citizens to look squarely at a figure like Elon Musk and say what's your contribution what's your genius what's your malevolence and there's a lot of that to go around is that a societal critiquer that you thinking about what it's like to put out a magazine to run a media company in 2024 it's probably both
I'm talking about what it is to be a journalist look I remember going when I was a years ago and this was all taking shape and I would get invited to kind of I don't know what to call them evenings at which we would discuss the future of the internet salon salon or something like that and I would always try to say yes because I'd be meeting people that I wouldn't ordinarily meet quite yet
who clearly knew a lot more than I did more deeply involved with tech broadly speaking and there was almost an evangelical feel to those evenings and they would look at me with infinite pity as either roadkill or about to be roadkill and a lot of what they said was true and a lot of what they said was bullshit information wants to be free remember that one that was that wasn't just something people said it was if you if you didn't accept it you were a more
I'm more going to get run over by your more on and if you mildly protested about the way tech would affect something like a free press they look at you like you were someone bemoaning what it's like to hold a physical paper in your hand or looking at liner notes on CDs yeah and the fact of the matter is it's up to the press to reestablish itself in certain ways
for example the local press yeah in the number of newspapers that have closed is unbelievable and if they had been replaced by digital equivalents or even better than fine difficult but fine that hasn't happened and so I have very real concerns about our democracy sorry to sound so I'm an idealist about all this I you know those guys don't always have that as foremost in their mind to put it mildly
you are sixty five started this job in nineteen ninety eight everyone wants to know when you're going to leave that's a lot better and the second like one knows who's going to replace you I don't know and I don't know you do you have not picked a successor you know I don't think I do have one of my first of all slow down first of all I don't get to choose
here's what I won't do the great editor of the twentieth century in my prokyl view anyway was William Sean but I think it can be argued that he stayed too long he you know he was finally kind of forced out just before he was eighty that's not going to happen here
and I don't want to overstate my welcome you don't want to get stale repetitive people get bored of you I want the New Yorker to thrive period so when it comes it'll come I my guess is that I would have something to say but in the end Roger Lynch would choose
so here's a question you can't answer sure when you leave yeah after you've left you seem in a hurry for this no what about very slowly what do you want to do after you edit the New Yorker probably right I mean that's that's what what else do I now to do I would like to pursue my career as center fielder for the Yankees but my guess is not available to me that's maybe or rhythm guitar player for a really good band
you got a book in mind you got it I don't I have the New Yorker in mind so you don't have a big like when I can clear this stuff off my desk I'm going to go do this no I don't I really don't you want suggestions sure I got nothing actually the one I want someone to do is Jewish basketball players the 1950s when that was a thing so very slender book yeah yeah
yeah yeah there's a few yeah there's a few yeah okay there's one book huge seller you could go in the JCC we'll talk about this tour yeah after tape and on that fine no I'm going to send a few thank you David Remnick Peter always pleasure let's not wait eight years all right deal that was fun right good to get the podcast muscles working again got another excellent guest like up next weekend many more down the road and I'm always happy
to hear your suggestions you can hit me up on email or social platform of your choice even on LinkedIn actually we love LinkedIn LinkedIn people like this show thanks to my old colleague Jelani Carter who is once again producing this show thanks to Brandon McFarland who made the excellent theme music for the show thanks to the Vox Media podcast network for having me back we'll see you next week