Laura Shin is a journalist covering cryptocurrency and hosts the podcast Unchained. Her new book is The Cryptopians: Idealism, Greed, Lies, and the Making of the First Big Cryptocurrency Craze. “I was extremely well-acquainted with what the failings were with our traditional financial system. I was seeing through my other reporting how everything works now, and really understanding, whoa, this is not a good system. And then getting this education on what bitcoin is, I understood right away: wow,...
Mar 02, 2022•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Tara Westover is the author of Educated. “I used to be so fearful. ... I was afraid of losing my family. Then, after I had lost them, I was afraid that I made the wrong decision. Then I wrote the book and I was afraid that was the wrong decision. Everything made me frightened back then, and I just—I don't have that feeling now.” Show notes: @tarawestover tarawestover.com 00:00 Educated (Random House • 2018) 09:00 "I Am Not Proof of the American Dream" (New York Times • Feb 2022) 21:00 A Visit fr...
Feb 23, 2022•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast Matthieu Aikins is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine who has reported on Afghanistan since 2008. His new book is The Naked Don’t Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees. “I think at some point you just say, screw it. I'm gonna act like a human being and help my friend. That's the most important thing. You actually realize, yeah, now that we're in it together, the only thing that matters is both of us staying alive and staying safe and getting where we need ...
Feb 16, 2022•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Brian Reed and Hamza Syed are co-hosts of the new podcast The Trojan Horse Affair. “I had lost all faith in the reporting that already happened on the subject matter. And that was my mentality with each source and each interviewer. I wanted the debate ended in the room because I didn't want commentary beyond it. I didn't want any kind of interpretation beyond it. I wanted the situation to be resolved there and then…. And without certain answers, I thought we weren't going to be able to speak abo...
Feb 09, 2022•1 hr 21 min•Transcript available on Metacast Chuck Klosterman is a journalist and the author of eleven books, including his latest, The Nineties. ”Selling out… was very much injected into the way I understood the world…. And I am now supposed to do all of these interviews and all of these podcasts promoting this book. And because it's a book about the nineties… it feels incredibly uncomfortable to me…. I think young people assume that selling out is only about money: that if you try to do something to make money, that means you're selling ...
Feb 02, 2022•1 hr 6 min•Transcript available on Metacast Khabat Abbas is an independent journalist and video producer from northeastern Syria, and the winner of the 2021 Kurt Schork News Fixer Award. ”I can see from my experience that there is a gap between the editors, who are kind of elites in their luxury offices, and the amazing journalists who are in the field, who all sympathize with what they are seeing on the ground and want to cover [it], but they have to satisfy the editors. And this is how we end up having little gaps in the ways of coverin...
Jan 26, 2022•1 hr 14 min•Transcript available on Metacast Michael Schulman is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He recently profiled Jeremy Strong of Succession. ”There's an interesting moment that's part of this job where you’ve spent a lot of time with someone and it often feels very personal and very intimate. And then when you go to write the piece, you have to sort of take a breath and say to yourself, Okay, I'm not writing this for this person. I'm writing this for the reader.” Show notes: @MJSchulman michael-schulman.com Schulman on Longform Sc...
Jan 19, 2022•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sarah Marshall is a writer and hosts the podcast You're Wrong About. ”I love it when people tell me that listening to the way I talk about these people in the stories that we tell, and just about the world generally, has made them practice empathy more. I almost feel like I have preserved this a-little-bit-past version of myself, because I've been on this journey throughout the pandemic of becoming pretty cynical, and then deciding cynicism is a luxury and that it feels better, ultimately, to tr...
Jan 12, 2022•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Abe Streep is a journalist and contributing editor for Outside. His new book is Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana. ”The way journalists talk about, ‘Did you get the story?’—that's not how I see this. That would be extractive in this setting, I think. If someone shares something personal with me, that is a serious matter. It's a gift and you’ve got to treat it with great respect.” Show notes: @abestreep abestreep.com Streep on Longform 03:...
Jan 05, 2022•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Connie Walker is an investigative reporter and podcast host. Her latest 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 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.” Show notes: @connie_...
Dec 29, 2021•55 min•Transcript available on Metacast Parul Sehgal, a former a book critic for The New York Times, is now a staff writer at The New Yorker. “My job is I think to be honest with the reader and to keep surfacing new ways for me and for other people to think about books. New vocabularies of pleasure and disgust.” Show notes: parulsehgal.com @parul_sehgal Sehgal's New York Times archive “Mothers of Invention: A Group of Authors Finds New Narrative Possibilities in Parenthood” (Bookforum • 2015) “In Letters to the World, a New Wave of Me...
Dec 22, 2021•1 hr 2 min•Transcript available on Metacast George Saunders is the author of eleven books. His latest is A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life. ”I really have so much affection for being alive. I really enjoy it. And yet, I’m a little negative minded in a lot of ways too, like I really think things tend to be fucked up. ... To get that on the page—to sufficiently praise the loveliness of the world without being a sap, and also lacerate the world for being so goddamn mean—to ...
Dec 15, 2021•53 min•Transcript available on Metacast Emily Oster is an economist, professor, and author. Her new book is The Family Firm. ”[COVID] has been 18 months of being a person who is slightly more public, who is saying things that are somewhat more controversial, where people yell at me a lot. ... I do much less reading of the comments than I did early on because I found that eventually I just got mad and that's not a productive way to interact. And it affects how I think about what I write, and I would like what I write to be the things t...
Dec 08, 2021•52 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kelefa Sanneh is a staff writer at The New Yorker. His book is Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres. “I’m always thinking about how to not be that person at a party who corners you and tells you about their favorite thing and you’re trying to get away. It’s got to feel light and fun. And what that means in practice is writing about music for readers who don’t care about music, while at the same time writing something that the connoisseurs don’t roll their eyes too hard at.” S...
Dec 01, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast Anita Hill is a professor and author. Her new book is Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence. "I really do feel that my life now has purpose. And my responsibility really is to live out that purpose as much as possible. The reason that this isn’t entirely daunting is that I realize I am one individual. And that the issues will not depend on me entirely. … But I also realize that every person who has the opportunity should be involved, and that includes me." Show notes: @AnitaH...
Nov 24, 2021•45 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ben Austen is a journalist and the author of High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing. Khalil Gibran Muhammad is the Ford Foundation Professor of History, Race and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Together they host the podcast Some of My Best Friends Are. ”We're not pretending to have all the answers, but we are attempting to say, ‘this is a real issue and it ca...
Nov 17, 2021•1 hr 4 min•Transcript available on Metacast Casey Johnston is a journalist and editor who writes the column "Ask A Swole Woman," which now appears in her newsletter ”She's a Beast.” ”I feel more comfortable lately with a sort of beloved-local-restaurant level of success. What's nice about Substack is that we've come to this place that I hope lasts where we can have this sort of local restaurant relationship with writers, or I can have that with readers, where I don't have to be part of this big machine in order to do something that I real...
Nov 10, 2021•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mitchell S. Jackson is a journalist and author. His profile of Ahmaud Arbery, ”Twelve Minutes and a Life,” won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. ”What is 'great'? 'Great' isn’t really sales, right? No one cares what James Baldwin sold. So: Are you doing the important work?” Show notes: @MitchSJackson mitchellsjackson.com Jackson on Longform 00:00 "Twelve Minutes and a Life" (Runner’s World • Jun 2020) 01:00 Pafko at the Wall (Don DeLillo • Scribner • 2001) 03:00 "Ahmaud Arbery’s Final...
Nov 03, 2021•1 hr 1 min•Transcript available on Metacast Ben Smith is the media columnist for The New York Times. He was the founding editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News. ”I do think there's some kind of personality flaw deep in there of wanting to like, you know, find stuff out and tell people.... I'm not sure that's a totally sane or healthy personality trait, but it is definitely, for me, a personality trait…. I think that in political reporting, certainly, there's a kind of reporter who thinks that their job is basically to pull the masks off of thes...
Oct 27, 2021•1 hr•Transcript available on Metacast Jay Caspian Kang is a contributor at New York Times Magazine. His new book is The Loneliest Americans. ”I have a lot of thoughts and talk to people to make sure my thoughts are right, or change them because I think they're wrong. What more does one want out of an intellectual life? It's good work.” Show notes: @jaycaspiankang Kang on Longform Kang on Longform Podcast (Apr 2013) Kang on Longform Podcast (Aug 2017) Kang’s New York Times Magazine newsletter 5:00 "The High Is Always the Pain and the...
Oct 20, 2021•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast Mary Roach is the author of seven nonfiction books, including her latest, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. "In these realms of the taboo, there's a tremendous amount of material that is really interesting, but that people have stayed away from. ... I'm kind of a bottom feeder. It's down there on the bottom where people don't want to go. But if that's what it takes to find interesting, new material, I'm fine with it. I don't care. I'm not easily grossed out. I don't feel that there's any reason ...
Oct 13, 2021•59 min•Transcript available on Metacast E. Alex Jung is a senior writer for Vulture and New York. ”When I'm in that space, I try to be a sponge. I'll just absorb whatever's happening or going on, and I'll be down to do mostly anything. I was actually thinking recently about what my limits would be in a profile. I was like—heroin? I don't think I would do that.” Show notes: @e_alexjung Jung on Longform Jung's Vulture archive 4:00 "Come as You Are" (The Morning News • Apr 2012) 15:00 "Real Talk With RuPaul" (Vulture • Mar 2016) 18:00 "B...
Oct 06, 2021•48 min•Transcript available on Metacast Max Chafkin is a features editor and reporter for Bloomberg Businessweek. His new book is The Contrarian: Peter Thiel and Silicon Valley’s Pursuit of Power. “I think there's like a really good way to come up with story ideas where you basically just look for people who have given TED Talks and figure out what they're lying about. And there's also a tendency in the press to pump up these startups based on those stories…. It's worth taking a critical look at these stars of the moment. Because ofte...
Sep 29, 2021•49 min•Transcript available on Metacast Hannah Giorgis is a staff writer at The Atlantic. Her latest feature is "Most Hollywood Writers’ Rooms Look Nothing Like America.” ”In general, when we talk about representation, we talk about what we see on our screens. We're talking about actors, we're talking about who are the lead characters, what are the storylines that they're getting. And I'm always interested in that. But I'm really, really interested in power ... how it operates, and process.” Show notes: @hannahgiorgis hannahgiorgis.co...
Sep 22, 2021•58 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sarah A. Topol is a writer-at-large for The New York Times Magazine. Her latest feature is ”Is Taiwan Next?” ”I think you never actually ask people head-on about what they've been through. You always ask people to just tell you what they want to tell you about anything that has happened to them…. This event that happened to you, it doesn't define you. It’s not why I'm here necessarily. Like, tell me about your childhood. Tell me about your life. Tell me about the things you think are important i...
Sep 15, 2021•54 min•Transcript available on Metacast Lawrence Wright is an author, screenwriter, playwright, and a staff writer for The New Yorker. ”There’s nothing more important about a person than their story. In a way, that’s who we are. And yet, memories fade and people die. So those stories disappear and the job of the journalist is to go out before that happens and accumulate the kinds of stories that are going to help us understand who we are, why we are, where we are right now in time, and try to thread those stories into a coherent narra...
Sep 08, 2021•47 min•Transcript available on Metacast Kirby Dick and Amy Ziering are documentary filmmakers. Their latest miniseries is Allen v. Farrow. ”We're constantly looking for those moments that happen before the story is ever told. Or those moments where someone is deciding to tell a story or is going through a process that they think is private… We think there's something about getting the moment before the first moment that people normally see.. Show notes: janedoefilms.com 00:00 Exit Scam (Aaron Lammer and Lane Brown • Treats Media • 202...
Sep 01, 2021•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Roger Bennett is a co-host of Men In Blazers and the author of (Re)born in the USA: An Englishman's Love Letter to His Chosen Home. “So much of my work is about human tenacity. That value of perseverance, of driving onwards. I believe life is about darkness and happiness. I believe that nothing is given, you fight for everything. And how you operate in moments of doubt and darkness ultimately define you. So I talk a lot as a professional about tenacity. What I've never linked that to before was ...
Aug 25, 2021•46 min•Transcript available on Metacast Sheera Frenkel and Cecilia Kang are reporters for the New York Times. They are coauthors of An Ugly Truth: Inside Facebook's Battle for Domination. “There are two types of reporters. There are reporters who date and reporters who marry. I think both Cecilia and I are reporters who marry our sources and by that I mean they are lifelong sources. It’s not a relationship that you build quickly. It’s one where you have to really let them get to know you as a journalist, show them that you are always ...
Aug 18, 2021•57 min•Transcript available on Metacast Julie K. Brown is an investigative reporter for the Miami Herald. Her new book is Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story. “No reporter wants to be a part of the story. ... But the one thing I know is that the authorities weren't going to do anything about this unless it stayed in the news and there was pressure. And I thought the only way to do pressure was to continue to write stories and to be in their face by going on TV. So I took advantage of the fact that I am sort of a part of t...
Aug 11, 2021•50 min•Transcript available on Metacast 
