Longform
628 episodes - English - Latest episode: 3 months ago - ★★★★★ - 1.7K ratingsInterviews with writers, journalists, filmmakers, and podcasters about how they do their work. Hosted by Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky, and Evan Ratliff.
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Episodes
Episode 441: Theo Padnos
May 26, 2021 17:41 - 40 minutesTheo Padnos is a journalist and author of the book Blindfold: A Memoir of Capture, Torture, and Enlightenment.“I'm trying to tell a story about a person who's attracted to dangerous places and people. I think we all have that within us. I wanted to bring my readers along. So I selected details that we all have in common... I'm trying to invite you along on a journey that you yourself might have taken.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @TheoPadnos 00:30 Bli...
Episode 440: Donovan X. Ramsey
May 19, 2021 17:42 - 1 hourDonovan X. Ramsey is a staff writer for the Los Angeles Times. His work has appeared in GQ, WSJ Magazine, The Atlantic, and many other publications.“I actually got into writing about criminal justice ... because I was curious about Black life. But that meant the only way I was able to do that was I had to kind of do this really often depressing slice of Black life. And there’s so much more. And there’s so much beauty in the lived experiences of Black people. … There are so many stories that j...
Episode 439: Adam McKay
May 12, 2021 15:08 - 54 minutesAdam McKay is a film director, writer, and host of the podcast Death at the Wing.“Sometimes you do a project and then you look back and you’re like, Ah, shit. I let some of myself get in the way of that. It sucks, but it’s also a part of it. And there are so many times where you’re excited that the story did take off, the wind did catch the sail and it went off on its own. And that just feels so good that it far outweighs the times when you make a mistake, or let something go wrong, or too lo...
Episode 438: Anna Sale
May 05, 2021 18:13 - 52 minutesAnna Sale is the host of Death, Sex & Money. Her new book is Let’s Talk About Hard Things.“What hard conversations can do is—you can witness what's hard. You can be with what's hard. Admit what's hard. That can be its own relief. … Some hard conversations … are successful when they end in a place that's like, Oh, we're not going to agree on this. … I think you can get used to the feeling of feeling out of control and that makes them less scary.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's...
Episode 437: Brooke Jarvis
April 28, 2021 18:26 - 50 minutesBrooke Jarvis is a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine.“Obsession is inherently interesting. We want to know why somebody would care so much about something that it could direct their whole life. ... When people care about something a lot, what can be more interesting than that to understand what drives those powerful emotions? ... Part of why I do this work is that I am able to get temporarily obsessed with a lot of different things and then move on to the next thing that I'm...
Polk Award Winners: Michael Grabell and Bernice Yeung
April 23, 2021 16:20 - 27 minutesMichael Grabell and Bernice Yeung are investigative reporters at ProPublica. They won the George Polk Award for Health Reporting for their coverage of the meatpacking industry's response to the pandemic, including their feature "The Battle for Waterloo." This is the final part of our week-long series of conversations with winners of this year's George Polk Awards in Journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Polk Award Winners: Roberto Ferdman
April 22, 2021 14:30 - 26 minutesRoberto Ferdman is a correspondent at VICE News. He and his colleagues at VICE News Tonight won the George Polk Award for Television Reporting for their coverage of the killing of Breonna Taylor and the investigations that followed. This is part four in a week-long series of conversations with winners of this year's George Polk Awards in Journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Polk Award Winners: Helen Branswell
April 21, 2021 14:32 - 25 minutesHelen Branswell is an infectious disease and global health reporter for STAT. She won this year's George Polk Award for Public Service for her coverage of the pandemic. This is the third in a week-long series of conversations with winners of this year's George Polk Awards in Journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Polk Award Winners: Ryan Mac and Craig Silverman
April 20, 2021 16:21 - 23 minutesRyan Mac and Craig Silverman are reporters at BuzzFeed News. Together they won this year's George Polk Award for Business Reporting for their coverage of Facebook's handling of disinformation on its platform. This is the second in a week-long series of conversations with winners of this year's George Polk Awards in Journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Polk Award Winners: Tristan Ahtone
April 19, 2021 14:48 - 24 minutesTristan Ahtone is the former Indigenous Affairs editor at High Country News and is currently the editor-in-chief at The Texas Observer. His High Country News article “Land-Grab Universities,” co-authored with Robert Lee, won the 2021 George Polk Award for Education Reporting. This is the first in a week-long series of conversations with winners of this year's George Polk Awards in Journalism. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices
Episode 436: Dana Goodyear
April 14, 2021 15:55 - 57 minutesDana Goodyear is a staff writer for The New Yorker and host of the new podcast Lost Hills.“I do find people who take risks—artistic and physical or even intellectual risks—really interesting. ... There are so many people that I have written about who take a really long time with their projects, whether years or decades, and they might or might not work out. ... They just don't go along with what's received, and they—at a great personal cost—often do things that are very different. And then th...
Episode 435: Albert Samaha
April 07, 2021 18:23 - 1 hourAlbert Samaha is an investigative journalist and the deputy inequality editor at BuzzFeed News. His book Concepcion: An Immigrant Family's Fortunes comes out in October.“I don’t think any child of the recession will ever not feel precarious. And being in journalism makes that even more so. ... At this point I’ve embraced the precarity of working in this industry. I’m sure at some point it’s going to be grating for people to hear me talk about how precarious and insecure I feel. … But I’ve got...
Rerun: #390 Bonnie Tsui (April 2020)
March 31, 2021 15:43 - 1 hourBonnie Tsui is a journalist and the author of Why We Swim.“I am a self-motivated person. I really don’t like being told what to do. I’ve thought about this many times over the last 16 years that I’ve been a full-time freelancer... even though I thought my dream was to always and forever be living in New York, working in publishing, working at a magazine, being an editor, writing. When I was an editor, I kind of hated it. I just didn’t like being chained to a desk.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sp...
Episode 434: Jessica Lessin
March 24, 2021 17:43 - 38 minutesJessica Lessin is founder and editor-in-chief of The Information.“It's very, very hard to predict the winners. A lot of investors try to do this. And I think sometimes where the press gets in trouble is trying to make a call.… It's not always our job to say this thing is doomed or not. I think many journalists, unfortunately, are more interested in that than in understanding, What is this company trying to do?” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @Jessicales...
Episode 433: Elon Green
March 17, 2021 14:07 - 44 minutesElon Green is a journalist whose work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Awl, New York, and other publications. His new book is Last Call: A True Story of Love, Lust, and Murder in Queer New York.“The murders and the murderer should not be the driver. It should simply be the catalyst for the other story. And the other story is the victims. And the other story is the political backdrop and the environment that they are walking through.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this we...
Episode 432: Jess Zimmerman
March 10, 2021 20:34 - 1 hourJess Zimmerman is editor-in-chief of Electric Literature. Her new book is Women and Other Monsters.“My goals are to be exactly as vulnerable as I feel is necessary. And not that’s necessary to me—that's necessary to the observer, to the reader. If [my story] is out there, it's out there because in order to make the larger point that I wanted to make … I had to give this level of access. It does kind of feel more strategic than cathartic.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episod...
Episode 431: Tejal Rao
March 03, 2021 19:09 - 55 minutesTejal Rao is the California restaurant critic for The New York Times and a columnist for The New York Times Magazine.“I've been thinking a lot about what makes a restaurant good…. Can a restaurant be good if it doesn't have wheelchair access? Can a restaurant be good if the farmers picking the tomatoes are getting sick? How much do we consider when we talk about if a restaurant is good or not? … If people are being exploited at every single point possible along the way, how good is the restau...
Episode 430: Connie Walker
February 24, 2021 18:04 - 53 minutesConnie Walker is an investigative reporter and podcast host. Her new 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 that 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.” Thanks to Mailc...
Episode 429: Vinson Cunningham
February 17, 2021 19:50 - 55 minutesVinson Cunningham is a staff writer for The New Yorker.“I think the job is just paying a bunch of attention. If you're a person like me, where thoughts and worries are intruding on your consciousness all the time, it is a great relief to have something to just over-describe and over-pay-attention to—and kind of just give all of your latent, usually anxious attention to this one thing. That, to me, is a great joy.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @vcunning...
Episode 428: Katie Engelhart
February 10, 2021 16:28 - 1 hourKatie Engelhart is a journalist and the author of the new book The Inevitable: Dispatches on the Right to Die.“Billions of dollars of government money goes to the nursing home industry every year. And nobody has a nursing home correspondent. Nobody has an assisted living correspondent…. That's wild to me. As a journalist, someone tells me, Oh, there's an industry. It's hugely underregulated. It's getting billions of dollars a year. It is not super-accountable for that money. Who wouldn't want...
Episode 427: Luke Mogelson
February 03, 2021 18:44 - 1 hourLuke Mogelson is a journalist and fiction writer whose work has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, and other publications. His latest feature is ”Among the Insurrectionists.”“Get to the front and document as much as you can. ... I think my approach is much more similar to photographers than other writers. I spend a lot of time with photographers and ... I feel like I've gotten pretty good at getting myself into situations where there's few or maybe no other writers aroun...
Episode 426: Mirin Fader
January 27, 2021 17:07 - 1 hourMirin 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 archi...
Episode 425: Stephanie Clifford
January 20, 2021 18:11 - 48 minutesStephanie 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.n...
Episode 424: Kenneth R. Rosen
January 13, 2021 19:41 - 51 minutesKenneth 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 amalgamat...
Episode 365: Carvell Wallace, author and podcast host
January 06, 2021 18:12 - 1 hourCarvell 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 ...
Episode 378: Ashley C. Ford, author and podcast host
December 30, 2020 16:04 - 1 hourAshley 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 pod...
Episode 423: Ed Yong
December 23, 2020 17:14 - 52 minutesEd 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 bei...
Episode 421: Nilay Patel
December 16, 2020 20:50 - 53 minutes - 49.3 MBNilay 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 mar...
Episode 422: Nilay Patel
December 16, 2020 20:50 - 57 minutesNilay 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 mar...
Episode 421: Wright Thompson
December 09, 2020 17:20 - 1 hourWright 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 li...
Episode 420: Melissa del Bosque
December 02, 2020 18:55 - 1 hourMelissa 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 ...
Episode 419: Reggie Ugwu
November 25, 2020 18:59 - 40 minutesReggie 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...
Episode 418: Stephanie McCrummen
November 18, 2020 18:54 - 56 minutesStephanie 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...
Episode 417: Olivia Nuzzi
November 11, 2020 17:18 - 1 hourOlivia 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 provid...
Episode 416: Reeves Wiedeman
October 28, 2020 16:18 - 42 minutesReeves 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 unsucces...
Episode 415: Latif Nasser
October 21, 2020 18:09 - 57 minutesLatif 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 "...
Episode 414: Barton Gellman
October 14, 2020 17:33 - 1 hourBarton 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...
Episode 413: Latria Graham
October 07, 2020 17:17 - 1 hourLatria 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...
Episode 412: Nicholson Baker
September 30, 2020 20:09 - 1 hourNicholson 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 s...
Episode 411: Elizabeth Weil
September 23, 2020 18:18 - 51 minutesElizabeth 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...
Episode 410: Jiayang Fan
September 16, 2020 22:02 - 1 hourJiayang 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...
Episode 409: Claudia Rankine
September 09, 2020 19:49 - 56 minutesClaudia 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 m...
Episode 408: Ta-Nehisi Coates
September 03, 2020 12:53 - 51 minutesTa-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 Coate...
Episode 407: Brandon Soderberg and Baynard Woods
August 26, 2020 17:43 - 1 hourBaynard 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 tha...
Episode 406: Andrea Valdez
August 19, 2020 15:21 - 51 minutesAndrea 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...
Episode 405: Jason Parham
August 12, 2020 15:56 - 56 minutesJason 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 ...
Episode 404: Jenny Kleeman
August 05, 2020 17:56 - 51 minutesJenny 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 wi...
Episode 403: Seyward Darby
July 29, 2020 16:00 - 1 hourSeyward Darby is the editor-in-chief of The Atavist Magazine and the author of Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism.“The most enlightening thing I learned in working on this book ultimately was that when we think of hate we think of animosity. Hate means I do not like someone or I do not like something. I deplore it. I despise it. But hate as a movement is actually a lot more like any social movement where it’s providing something to its supporters, members,...
Episode 402: Raquel Willis with Patrice Peck
July 22, 2020 15:53 - 1 hourRaquel Willis, the former executive editor of Out, is an activist, journalist, and writer. Guest host Patrice Peck is a freelance journalist and writes the Coronavirus News for Black Folks newsletter.“To my peers, I would just say that we have to rethink our idea of leadership. Rethink our idea of storytelling. As the media, we shouldn’t be seeing ourselves as the owners and the gatekeepers of people’s stories. We actually need to be democratizing this experience—sharing the tools of storyte...
Mailchimp Presents: “The Books That Changed Us” with Ashley C. Ford
July 20, 2020 17:21 - 30 minutesAn episode featuring Ashley C. Ford from "The Books That Changed Us," a new, short-run podcast hosted by Aaron and Max where authors discuss the books that made them who they are. The 10-episode series is part of Mailchimp's By The Books, a summer-long virtual literary festival curated by last week's Longform guests, Aminatou Sow and Ann Friedman. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices