It’s an election year in the United States. And so far, the media’s focus has not been on working people and what policies they want to see from their leadership. But our guest on today’s program has travelled across America interviewing working class voters — and she shares her insights on what the media is missing. Batya Ungar-Sargon is the opinion editor of Newsweek. Her latest book is Second Class: How the Elites Betrayed America’s Working Men and Women . The audiobook is out this month. Bat...
Jul 10, 2024•33 min
Lean Out is back from our annual summer hiatus — and we have a special episode for you today. Many of you know that Tara wrote “ The Trust Spiral ,” the 2024 Massey Essay on the state of the media, a partnership between Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Literary Review of Canada . Before Lean Out went on summer break, Massey College hosted a public discussion about this essay, and Tara was lucky enough to be interviewed by someone she greatly admires. Rudyard Griffiths is co-fo...
Jul 03, 2024•1 hr 2 min
If you follow Canadian politics, you know that Justin Trudeau’s political career is now looking uncertain. He’s been polling badly for months, as a series of crises have rocked the country, including the cost of living, the opioid crisis, the housing crisis, healthcare, runaway immigration, and foreign interference. Our guest on today’s program has written a comprehensive biography of Trudeau as Prime Minister, based on interviews with more than 200 insiders, and the man himself — and today, he ...
May 29, 2024•35 min
In times of war, civilians run from combat. But war reporters have the opposite reaction — they run toward it, putting themselves in danger to bear witness to these armed conflicts, and to try to make sense of our broken world. Our guest on today’s program spent years going to the frontlines, until one day, in June of 2020, the frontlines came to him. The near death experience that followed, he says, changed him forever. Sebastian Junger is an American journalist, the bestselling author of Tribe...
May 22, 2024•41 min
2020 was a turbulent year in American politics, and in the America media. The editor of The New York Times recently conceded that the paper went “too far” during that time and said that it is now working to pull itself back from such “excesses.” Our guest on the program today was at the paper during that period — and left to report critically on what she calls “the revolution,” both for her new media company and for her new book, which is out this week. Nellie Bowles is an American journalist an...
May 15, 2024•32 min
The failure of our elites to manage society has been a topic since at least the financial crash of 2008. But it is very much on the minds of many Canadians these days, as we face a series of cascading crises, from housing and opioids to the cost of living and heath care. A decade ago, our guest on today’s program wrote a searing indictment against the system of elite education — and now, with the release of its 10th anniversary edition, his critique is more relevant than ever. William Deresiewic...
May 08, 2024•43 min
Canadian politics have hit new low point. According to a recent poll , 70 percent of Canadians now believe that everything is broken in this country — and 59 percent said they are angry about how the country is being managed. Our guest on the program today has a new book about our Prime Minister, and the chaotic times we live in. Paul Wells is a Canadian political journalist, a frequent commentator on radio and television, and a fellow Substacker . His latest book is Justin Trudeau on the Ropes:...
May 01, 2024•38 min
The Lean Out podcast has covered lots of books in recent years. We have never covered a poetry book. But all it took was one read of a striking new collection of poems for us to know that we had to have its author on the show. The Canadian writer Stephen Marche said it best when he described this collection: “Like supremely eloquent graffiti written on the wall of a magnificent palace, except the palace is the world, and the world is on fire.” Michael Lista is a Canadian essayist, investigative ...
Apr 24, 2024•21 min
As regular readers of this Substack will know, this spring Tara has been writing the Massey Essay on the state of the media — a partnership between Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Literary Review of Canada. You can read it here . The annual essay honours the legacy of the long-time CBC producer Vincent Massey Tovell . This year’s essay explores the collapse of public trust in the media. To mark the occasion, we are presenting a series of encore interviews with some of the jou...
Apr 17, 2024•41 min
As regular readers of this Substack will know, this spring Tara has been writing the Massey Essay on the state of the media — a partnership between Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Literary Review of Canada. You can read it here . The annual essay honours the legacy of the long-time CBC producer Vincent Massey Tovell . This year’s essay explores the collapse of public trust in the media. To mark the occasion, we are presenting a series of encore interviews with some of the jou...
Apr 16, 2024•42 min
As regular readers of Tara's Substack will know, this spring she has been writing the Massey Essay on the state of the media — a partnership between Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Literary Review of Canada , where it’s published. The annual essay honours the legacy of the long-time CBC producer Vincent Massey Tovell . This year’s essay explores the collapse of public trust in the media. Leading up to its publication next week, we will be re-running podcast interviews with so...
Apr 12, 2024•31 min
As regular readers of Tara's Substack will know, this spring she has been writing the Massey Essay on the state of the media — a partnership between Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Literary Review of Canada , where it’s published. The annual essay honours the legacy of the long-time CBC producer Vincent Massey Tovell . This year’s essay explores the collapse of public trust in the media. Leading up to its publication next week, we will be re-running podcast interviews with so...
Apr 12, 2024•38 min
As regular readers of Tara's Substack will know, this spring she has been writing the Massey Essay on the state of the media — a partnership between Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Literary Review of Canada , where it’s published. The annual essay honours the legacy of the long-time CBC producer Vincent Massey Tovell . This year’s essay explores the collapse of public trust in the media. Leading up to its publication next week, we will be re-running podcast interviews with so...
Apr 11, 2024•31 min
As regular readers of Tara's Substack will know, this spring she has been writing the Massey Essay on the state of the media — a partnership between Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Literary Review of Canada , where it’s published. The annual essay honours the legacy of the long-time CBC producer Vincent Massey Tovell . This year’s essay explores the collapse of public trust in the media. Leading up to its publication next week, we will be re-running podcast interviews with so...
Apr 10, 2024•34 min
As regular readers of Tara's Substack will know, this spring Tara has been writing the Massey Essay on the state of the media — a partnership between Massey College at the University of Toronto and the Literary Review of Canada , where it’s published. The annual essay honours the legacy of the long-time CBC producer Vincent Massey Tovell . This year’s essay explores the collapse of public trust in the media. Leading up to its publication next week, we will be re-running podcast interviews with s...
Apr 10, 2024•1 hr 1 min
Canada recently reached a grim milestone — the lowest fertility rate in recorded history . We are now well below population replacement, at 1.33 births per woman. Our guest on the show today has studied this crisis in family formation in the West. And he says we need to take a look at our culture. Tim Carney is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a columnist for The Washington Examiner. His new book is Family Unfriendly: How Our Culture Made Raising Kids Much Harder Than It...
Apr 03, 2024•36 min
On the Lean Out podcast, we’ve spent much of the past year investigating the collapse of the news media and the decline in public trust. Tara's guest this week argues that the industry is at a crossroads, but media bosses are unwilling to meet the moment, and seem determined to continue on the same trajectory — even if it means the death of their institutions. Ryan Zickgraf is an American journalist and a columnist at Compact Magazine . His new essay is “ Journalism’s Slow Death Threatens Democr...
Mar 27, 2024•25 min
In March of 2020, much of the world was in lockdown. The unprecedented pandemic response closed schools, shuttered businesses, and paused public events. My guest on today’s program says it is time to evaluate the measures that were taken and consider whether the harms outweighed the benefits. The UK charity that he leads research for has now launched working groups to examine Covid policies in a number of different countries. Including his own, Canada . Kevin Bardosh is director and head of rese...
Mar 20, 2024•30 min
When it comes to race relations, many of us were raised with the ethos expressed in the famed Martin Luther King Jr. quote calling on society to judge people by the content of their character instead of the colour of their skin. Western society has moved away from that ideal — and my guest on today’s program says it’s time we get back to it. Coleman Hughes is an American writer, commentator, and podcaster, and an analyst for CNN. His new book is The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorbli...
Mar 13, 2024•37 min
Canada is embroiled in a number of high-profile political scandals , and it’s a dispiriting moment for the country. This week, we’re taking a break from the news cycle, and instead contemplating the contributions of a famed Canadian — the late philosopher Marshall McLuhan — who, my guest on today’s program says, understood our time better than many currently living through it. Benjamin Carlson is an American writer, and media strategist, and the author of the Substack newsletter, Carlson Letter ...
Mar 06, 2024•19 min
It’s not unusual for well-heeled people to try to imagine what it might be like to grow up without money. But my guest on today’s program says it is uncommon for them to try to imagine what it might be like to grow up without a family. And his new book chronicles exactly that life — his childhood in foster care — but also, his journey from a working-class town in California to the military, Yale University and beyond. Rob Henderson is the American writer who coined the term “ luxury beliefs .” H...
Feb 28, 2024•52 min
We hear a lot of grim predictions about the future of local news, both in the United States and in Canada. But my guests on today’s program are feeling optimistic. For their new book, the pair did a deep dive into innovative local and regional news startups across America, and they say these startups are changing the media landscape, one outlet at a time. Ellen Clegg spent more than three decades at The Boston Globe. She’s co-founder of a non-profit local news outlet in Massachusetts, Brookline....
Feb 21, 2024•29 min
On the Lean Out podcast, we’ve talked a lot about plummeting birth rates in the West, about high rates of unhappiness among modern women , about the loneliness epidemic in our society , and about the crisis unfolding among men , with large numbers of suicides and overdoses. Our guest on the program today says there’s a factor we should consider with each of these issues — and that is low marriage rates . And he thinks it’s time to have a conversation about the state of our unions. Brad Wilcox is...
Feb 14, 2024•32 min
What does it take to speak out against orthodoxies in an age of outrage? This is something that our guest on today’s program has spent years contemplating, interviewing people from all walks of life who have managed to stick to their principles in the face of an online mobbing, and not back down. Katherine Brodsky is a Canadian writer and commentator, and the author of No Apologies: How to Find and Free Your Voice in the Age of Outrage — Lessons for the Silenced Majority . You can find Tara Henl...
Feb 07, 2024•33 min
Canada has, once again, made international headlines . The Federal Court has ruled the government’s invocation of the Emergencies Act, in response to the trucker protests, was illegal. My guest on today’s program argued during the crisis that the government had done something that it had no constitutional power to do — and he joins me on the program today to talk through this historic court decision. Ryan Alford is a constitutional law expert, a law professor at Lakehead University, and a senior...
Jan 31, 2024•25 min
For decades now in Canada, there has been a bipartisan, pro-immigration consensus. But in recent weeks, we have watched that consensus fall apart. Our guest on today’s program has been covering this development in his columns for The Globe and Mail. He argues that it was the Liberal government that broke the consensus — and it must be the Liberals who restore it. Tony Keller is a veteran Canadian journalist and a columnist for The Globe and Mail . (This podcast was recorded before Immigration Mi...
Jan 24, 2024•26 min
In Ontario, where Tara lives, schools were closed for 135 days during the pandemic. Both there and in the United States, there was very little critical media coverage on this unprecedented public policy. But our guest on today’s program was reporting on those left behind by school closures from the very beginning . Now, he’s covering an element of the aftermath that’s not getting much attention — the crisis in absenteeism. Alec MacGillis is an author and an award-winning investigative journalist...
Jan 17, 2024•23 min
2024 is an election year for the United States. And one of the stories so far is the political realignment that we’re continuing to witness — with the working class moving to the right. This is something that is also happening here in Canada. My guests on today’s program have written an entire book about the phenomenon, and what it might mean for the future of politics. John B. Judis is editor-at-large at Talking Points Memo, a former senior writer at The National Journal, and a former senior ed...
Jan 10, 2024•38 min
The Lean Out podcast kicked off two years ago this week , aiming to push back on mainstream media conformity, to reaffirm old school journalistic values like viewpoint diversity and curiosity and respect — and, in some small way, to help widen the Overton window of ideas considered acceptable for discussion and debate. Happily, this approach seems to be resonating with a lot of you. We’re pleased to say that we now have listeners in 150 countries and close to 5,000 cities worldwide. For our anni...
Jan 03, 2024•42 min
This year has not been an easy one for a lot of people. Not only are many coping with economic instability , but our culture is polarized and often extremely hostile. But our guest on today’s program — the last episode of the year — wants to leave us with a vision of unity. And of hope for a better, and more harmonious, 2024. Monica Harris is the author of The Illusion of Division . She’s also the executive director of the Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism. You can find Tara Henley on Tw...
Dec 20, 2023•32 min
