Longform
Lauren Hilgers is a journalist and the author of . “You just need to spend a lot of time with people. And it’s awkward. I read something when I was first starting out as a journalist in China, ‘Make a discipline out of being uncomfortable.’ I think that’s very helpful. You’re going to feel uncomfortable a lot of the time, and just decide to be okay with it and just keep going with it.” Thanks to , , and for sponsoring this week's episode. [01:10] (The New Yorker • Oct 2014) [02:00] (Crown • 2018) [39:55] (Harper’s Magazine • March 2013)
info_outline Episode 291: Charlie WarzelLongform
Charlie Warzel is a senior tech writer for BuzzFeed. “Part of the big tech reckoning that we’re seeing since the election isn’t really about the election, it isn’t really about Trump or politics. It’s more about this idea that: Wow, these services have incredibly real consequences in our everyday lives. I think that realization is really profound and is going to shape how we try to figure out what it means to be online from here on out. To keep stories relevant, we have to keep that in mind and try to figure out how to speak to that audience and guide them through that reckoning.”...
info_outline Episode 290: Michelle DeanLongform
Michelle Dean is a journalist and critic. Her new book is . “There isn’t one answer. I wish there was one answer. The answer is: You just have to wing it. And I’m learning that — I’m learning to be okay with the winging it. ... I guess the lesson to me of what went on with a lot of women in the book is: You have to be comfortable with the fact that some days are going to be good, and some days are going to not be good.” Thanks to for sponsoring this week's episode. [00:45] (Grove Press • 2018) [01:35] (Buzzfeed • Aug 2016) [08:10] [08:50] (Irin Carmon • Jezebel •...
info_outline Episode 289: Craig ModLongform
Craig Mod is a writer and photographer. His podcast is . “You pick up an iPad, you pick up an iPhone—what are you picking up? You’re picking up a chemical-driven casino that just plays on your most base desires for vanity and ego and our obsession with watching train wrecks happen. That’s what we’re picking up and it’s counted in pageviews, because—not to be reductive and say that it’s a capitalist issue, but when you take hundreds of millions of dollars of venture capital, and you’re building models predicated on advertising, you are gonna create fucked-up algorithms and...
info_outline Episode 288: Tom BissellLongform
Tom Bissell is a journalist, critic, video game writer, and author of . His latest book is . “I kind of have come around to maybe not as monkish or fanatical devotion to sentence idolatry as I was when I was a younger writer, earlier in my career. I think I’m coming around to a place where a lot of middle-aged writers get to, which is: I tried to rewire and change the world with the beauty of language alone—it didn’t work. Now how about I try to write stuff that’s true, or that’s not determined to show people I am a Great Writer. Like a lot of young writers, you’re driven by...
info_outline Episode 287: Will MackinLongform
Will Mackin is a U.S. Navy veteran who served with a SEAL team in Iraq and Afghanistan. His debut book is . “I wanted to write nonfiction and I started writing nonfiction. And the reason I did that was — first of all, I felt all the people did all the hard work, and who was I to take liberties? And the second reason was, I just felt an obligation to the men and women who I served with not to misrepresent them, or what they’d been through, or what it had meant to them, or how they felt about it. I kept piling these requirements on to myself: Well, if I present this particular event...
info_outline Episode 286: Nitasha TikuLongform
Nitasha Tiku is a senior writer at Wired. “I’ve always been an incredibly nosy person—not nosy, curious. Curious about the world. It just gives you a license to ask any question, and hopefully if you have a willing editor, the freedom to see something fascinating and pursue it. It was just a natural fit from there. But that also means I don’t have the machismo, ‘breaking news’ sort of a thing. I feel like I can try on different hats, wherever I am.” Thanks to and for sponsoring this week's episode. [04:25] (Gawker • Oct 2013) [15:50] (Georgia Wells, Robert McMillan •...
info_outline Episode 285: Chana Joffe-WaltLongform
Chana Joffe-Walt is a producer and reporter at This American Life. Her latest story is “I felt like there was more to learn from these stories, more than just which men are bad and shouldn’t have the Netflix special that they wanted to have. And I was interested, also, in that there were groups of women, and that somehow, in having a group of women, you would have variation of experience. There could be a unifying person who they all experienced, but they would inevitably experience that person differently. And that would raise the question of: Why? And I feel like there is this response:...
info_outline Episode 284: Joe WeisenthalLongform
Joe Weisenthal is the executive editor of news for Bloomberg Digital and the co-host of and . "If I don’t say yes to this, then I can never say yes to anything again. Because when else am I going to get a chance in life to co-host a tv show? Even if it’s terrible, and I’m terrible at it, and it’s cancelled after three months, and everyone thinks it’s awful, for the rest of my life, I’ll be able to say I co-hosted a cable TV show. And so I was like, you know what—I have to say yes to this." Thanks to , , and for sponsoring this week's episode. [02:30] (New York Times Magazine...
info_outline Episode 283: Sean FennesseyLongform
Sean Fennessy is the editor-in-chief of The Ringer and a former Grantland editor. He hosts . "What I try to do is listen to people as much as I can. And try to be compassionate. I think it’s really hard to be on the internet. This is an internet company, in a lot of ways. We have a documentary coming out that’s going to be on linear television that’s really exciting. Maybe we’ll have more of those. But for the moment, podcast, writing, video: it’s internet. [The internet] is an unmediated space of angst and meanness and a willingness to tell people when they’re bad, even when...
info_outlineMara Shalhoup was until recently editor-in-chief of LA Weekly. She is the author of BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family.
“I’m so fearful about what it will look like for cities without an outlet for [alt-weekly] stories. And for young writers, who need and deserve the hands-on editing these kind of editors can give them and help really launch careers … it’s a tragedy for journalism. It’s a tragedy for young people, people of color. It’s a tragedy for the subjects of stories that won’t get written now. That’s just the reality.”
Thanks to Mail Chimp, Mubi, and Skillshare for sponsoring this week's episode.
- @mshalhoup
- Shalhoup on Longform
- [01:15] Creative Loafing
- [01:20] Chicago Reader
- [01:35] "Rich People Demolished L.A. Weekly To Build The Future They Want For Journalism" (Patrick Redford • Deadspin • Dec 2017)
- [06:55] "Brian Calle Wants to Turn LA Weekly into 'The Cultural Center' of the City " (Lauren Raab • LA Times • Nov 2017)
- [11:00] "LA Weekly Reveals Its Secret Owners: Mostly Men with Orange County Ties" (David Pierson, Lauren Raab • LA Times • Dec 2017)
- [12:25] @LAWeekly
- [13:10] "Armstrong Williams Wants to Buy Washington City Paper: Report" (Brett Samuels • The Hill • Dec 2017)
- [30:45] "A Touch of Gastronomic Magic Spices Up Voltaggio's ink.well" (Javier Cabral • LA Weekly • Dec 2017)
- [30:55] "James and Dave Franco Make a Great Film About the Worst Movie Ever: The Room" (April Wolfe • LA Weekly • Dec 2017)
- [36:15] "Hip-hop's Shadowy Empire" (Creative Loafing • Dec 2006)
- [36:15] BMF: The Rise and Fall of Big Meech and the Black Mafia Family (St. Martin's Griffin • Jan 2011)