The Kicker
The Kicker is a podcast about the media and the world today, produced by the Columbia Journalism Review. Hosted by Megan Greenwell, it releases new episodes twice a month. The show is available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
Episodes
Why Do You Have to Run from Us? Local reporters are struggling to get answers from the politicians they cover.
Generations of local journalists mostly took for granted their ability to access elected officials. Talking to the local newspaper or TV station was one of the only ways to get the word out, so politicians didn’t have much choice—even if they were mad at the coverage.It’s not quite so simple these days. A mayor can talk directly to constituents through social media, or through influencers friendly
No Fanboys Need Apply: Wired bares real teeth.
For a certain type of tech executive, and a certain type of fan of tech executives, the point of technology journalism is to cheerfully show off the cool new toys Silicon Valley creates.For the staff of Wired, the point of technology journalism is to hold the most powerful companies and people in our society accountable for the decisions they make. That has made the magazine remarkably unpopular w
Sports Illustrated’s Emma Baccellieri on covering the changing world of women’s basketball.
One of the most fascinating sports business stories of the moment is the explosive growth of the WNBA. TV viewership is up dramatically, multiple teams sell out regularly, and stars like Caitlin Clark and A’ja Wilson have become household names. This year, the players’ union won a groundbreaking new contract, including their first-ever revenue share and a 4x jump in minimum salaries.The league’s r
How Documented is reinventing immigration coverage.
Some of the most interesting journalism experiments aren’t taking place on the websites of publications. Instead, they’re happening on Facebook and WhatsApp and Reddit and WeChat and even Nextdoor, which I didn’t realize was anything other than a place for Karens to complain about loitering.Documented, an eight-year-old digital outlet that covers and serves immigrants in New York City and beyond,
The Old Playbook of Power and Influence Is Different Now
When Ronald Reagan won the presidency, in 1980, it was a victory long in the making. For almost half a century, conservatives had plotted ways to cut taxes and undo workers’ rights. Their playbook for political influence went something like this: create a think tank, publish reputable reports, build relationships with journalists and politicians, and disseminate free-market ideas to the public, cr
The Globe’s Emily Sweeney breaks out of Boston.
“WHOA. Ohhhh. Freaking huge,” one of my favorite recent news videos opens. Emily Sweeney, a Boston Globe reporter, stands in the Museum of Fine Arts, gazing up at a thirteen-foot-tall, thirteen-thousand-pound Roman sculpture. Sweeney can’t hide her awe at seeing the statue the museum calls Juno, but that Sweeney knows from her teenage years as Gloria.Until a month ago, Sweeney was a rank-and-file
How Elon Musk is colonizing the future.
Before Elon Musk, there was Henry Ford: an attention-seeking car manufacturer, newspaper owner, and media celebrity who pushed reactionary views on the public and transformed society around his business interests. “Fordism” was more than a mode of production, it was a way of organizing society, involving large factories, nuclear families, stable employment, and affordable cars, refrigerators, and
Taking Back Saturday: “We’re sports people. We like to score.”
I have a galaxy-brained theory that the most effective fundraisers in the country aren’t politicians or the heads of major foundations, but a pair of Atlanta-based college football bloggers.Two decades ago, Spencer Hall—best known as the creator of Every Day Should Be Saturday, a site covering college football with a mix of analytical skills and many inside jokes—decided to raise money for refugee
Student, Teacher: Eric Gustafson on fighting for journalistic integrity at every level.
I’ve spent my entire professional career in journalism, but student publications are still my favorite news outlets. I broke the biggest story of my life for my high school newspaper, and I find something so infectious about the energy of students who aren’t yet jaded about the industry or the job market, who just want to write about topics that matter to their peers. Us pros can learn a lot from
The Inside Look: Chatting with the New York Times’ trust editor.
I must confess that initially I was a bit skeptical of the concept. The New York Times was promoting a Q&A with two technology reporters, Mike Isaac and Sheera Frankel, and their editor, Pui-Wing Tam. The headline, in 2014 BuzzFeed style, was “Reporters Seek Comment. What Happens Next May Surprise You.” Over the course of several hundred words, Isaac, Frankel, and Tam explained how they ask so
Lessons from an Early-Career Journalist
When I took over the Kicker host chair, one of the things I was most excited to do was to interview early-career journalists, who see the changes to our industry from an entirely different perspective from those of us who’ve been around since the days when Twitter was king, or before social media existed. I’ve always loved working with young people—among my many freelance gigs, I help run a progra
A Look Back at Covering Gaza for the Post
Since October 7, 2023, Miriam Berger has been on assignment in Jerusalem, covering Israel, Palestine, and war. A few weeks ago, she learned she and hundreds of colleagues were being laid off.One perk of hosting an interview podcast is having the opportunity to talk to journalists whose work I’ve admired for years but might never have met otherwise. Miriam Berger is one such journalist. She’s writt
Profit or Nonprofit? A Debate over Journalism’s Future
While the newspaper industry continues to contract, nonprofit news outlets have proliferated over the past decade. But dismissing profitable models for journalism is premature. How can journalism survive? Perhaps the question would once have sounded unduly panicked, but it has only grown more pressing over the past twenty years. Between 2004 and 2019, newspapers lost an astonishing 77 percent of t
The Letter of the Law, and the Law in Practice
Experts discuss the risks posed to journalism as the courts test the limits of press freedom law.If I recall correctly, the original news peg for a live Kicker recording about threats to the free press was a raid on the home of Hannah Natanson, a Washington Post reporter. By the time Amanda Darrach, The Kicker’s producer, and I were finalizing logistics for the event, which took place in CJR’s off
Outlier Media Reimagines What Local News Can Be
In 2016, Sarah Alvarez, a former civil-rights lawyer and reporter, reimagined what journalism could be. Rather than break news or publish stories on a website, her project, Outlier Media, promised to provide the people of Detroit with information on any property they wanted, via text message—all they had to do was ask. Alvarez hoped that with vetted information, locals could hold landlords to acco
A Veteran of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette—and its Long Strike—Prepares for What’s Next
At first, January 7 felt to Bob Batz Jr. like a triumphant day. The U.S. Supreme Court had declined to consider an appeal from Batz’s longtime employer, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the latest in a long string of legal victories for the paper’s union. After more than three years on strike, Batz and twenty-four colleagues returned to work in late November. Now, the P-G was legally obligated to rein
How the Gawker Trial Was the Gateway to Trump: Examining a political legacy, ten years on.
In 2007, Valleywag, Gawker’s gossip column devoted to Silicon Valley, published a short piece about a then-little-known venture capitalist and tech founder, under the headline “Peter Thiel is totally gay, people.” Thiel’s sexuality wasn’t a secret, nor was the piece mocking. “Peter Thiel, the smartest VC in the world, is gay,” it read. “More power to him.” But it was the first time this informatio
Defector’s Jasper Wang and His Unvarnished Truth
Annual reports are generally pretty boring documents, bogged down with numbers taken out of context and marketing-speak about “thriving in the face of unprecedented challenges.” Not Jasper Wang’s. At the end of 2025, the cofounder and vice president of revenue and operations at Defector—the pioneering worker-owned sports site that grew from the ashes of Deadspin—managed to reinvent the genre, writ
Why You Should Never Marry a Journalist—and Other Lessons from Decades in Media
The Kicker returns with our former host, Josh Hersh, and our new one, Megan Greenwell, in conversation.Between President Trump’s legal battles against news outlets, the defunding of public media, the rise of creator journalism, wave after wave of layoffs, and at least twelve hundred more things I’ve forgotten, Josh Hersh hosted this podcast during an eventful time for the journalism industry. Then
Jay Rosen on the Digital Revolution That Wasn’t
In 2006, Jay Rosen, the media scholar, published his influential article “The People Formerly Known as the Audience.” His medium was as important as his message. Although the essay would later appear in media-studies textbooks, it was first published on his blog, a form invented in the late 1990s that seemed, in Rosen’s words, to give everyone their own printing press. Armed with such technologies
Ben Smith Isn’t Afraid of the Future
It has been called “the last good day on the internet”: on February 26, 2015, Americans flocked online to watch fugitive llamas in Arizona evade their captors on a live broadcast, shortly before an ambiguously colored dress—blue and black to some, white and gold to others—was uploaded online. At BuzzFeed, which sent the dress to unprecedented levels of global virality, Ben Smith watched it all unf
How Silicon Valley Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Oligarchs
When Natalia Antelava cofounded Coda Story, in early 2016, to cover democratic backsliding around the globe, she wasn’t expecting the tech industry to be such a big part of the story. It wasn’t only that autocratic regimes were benefiting from compliant Silicon Valley companies. By launching a new media organization, Antelava also discovered how entangled journalism itself had become with some of
The Future of Journalism After Gaza
Examining an ongoing crisis for press freedom—and how to manage security risks going forward.For Journalism 2050’s inaugural live event, Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin are joined by Azmat Khan, the director of Columbia’s Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism, and Anya Schiffrin, a professor at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, to discuss the consequences of the war
Douglas Rushkoff on Being the Intellectual Dominatrix of Billionaire Tech Bros
In 1992, a writer named Douglas Rushkoff signed a contract for Cyberia, his book about the internet subcultures of the West Coast. The next year, his publisher canceled it, according to Rushkoff’s recollection, on the grounds that “by the time the book came out the Internet was going to be over.” (He later found a different publisher, and the book came out in 1994.) Since then, Rushkoff has been o
Journalism 2050 - Trailer
Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin speak with the smartest minds in media to discuss the roots of today's crisis in journalism, from democracy's decline to the rise of AI, and to explore the uncertain future of journalism in the digital age. This series is brought to you by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and Columbia Journalism Review, with help from the New School's Journalism +
Margaret Sullivan Takes a New Look at Journalism Ethics
This summer, Margaret Sullivan, the executive director of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia Journalism School, and her colleague Julie Gerstein published a series of essays in CJR exploring what a new generation of journalism ethics might look like, as the media industry evolves. “It is conventional wisdom among journalists that while the world around us chang
Chicago’s Block Club Is Ready for ICE
On Thursday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring federal agents from using riot control measures like tear gas to disperse journalists seeking to cover protests outside the Broadview ICE processing center, near Chicago. The order was the result of a lawsuit filed earlier in the week by several Chicago news organizations and reporters who had been injured or detained while
Elle Reeve on the Charlie Kirk Shooting Suspect’s Inscrutable Memes
In 2017, Elle Reeve, then a correspondent for Vice News, became a household name when she reported from the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—as neo-Nazis marched with burning torches and a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters. Reeve has developed an expertise on what you might call the fringe beat, covering shadowy internet groups and right-wing pol
Garrett Graff Thinks the Press Should Be Taking Trump’s Health Much More Seriously
Last week, as DC reporters were patting themselves on the back for not falling for internet falsehoods claiming that Donald Trump had secretly died, Garrett Graff wrote an essay on his blog, Doomsday Scenario, saying, “It’s time to have a serious conversation about Trump’s health.”Graff is an author and historian who’s spent more than two decades covering American politics—more recently he’s writt
Hind Hassan Is Sorry We Didn’t Do More to Make Journalism Safe
Earlier this month, Hind Hassan, a decorated documentary news reporter who has covered everything from conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine to the bizarre underworld of the global wellness industry, spoke at a graduation ceremony for students at Columbia Journalism School. In her address, Hassan pointedly apologized for not doing more to make the job safer for the next generation—a reference to
Will the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal Break MAGA Media?
For the past few weeks, MAGA media and conservative podcasters have been torn apart over President Trump’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein saga.Anna Merlan, a senior reporter at Mother Jones, joins The Kicker to talk about right-wing media’s efforts to change the subject—and whether their audiences will go along with it. Read more:*Anna Merlan on what happened the last time Trump’s team tried to s
What’s the Matter with the BBC?
Recent weeks have not been very comfortable for the BBC. A documentary about Gaza it refused to broadcast was aired instead by a competitor, to critical acclaim. A livestream of the Glastonbury Festival turned into a political nightmare, after a performer led the crowd in a chant of “Death to the IDF”—leading the network to ditch plans for future “high risk” live shows.But Alan Rusbridger, who spe
The Kicker Live: Branko Brkic Wants Journalists to Wake Up
Last year, Branko Brkic, the founder of the Daily Maverick, a South African news outlet, left his day job to launch an advocacy campaign in defense of journalism. Called Project Kontinuum, the organization aims to sound the alarm about the global threats facing the institution of journalism—and to begin to mount a defense.In this conversation, Brkic speaks about the admittedly “bleak” picture that
The Kicker Live: Arwa Damon on Leaving CNN and Telling Stories from Gaza
For nearly twenty years, Arwa Damon worked as a journalist covering conflict zones across the Middle East—much of it as a prominent correspondent for CNN. But in 2015, amid the unending horrors of the Syrian civil war, Damon had enough. She left the network and founded Inara, a charity that helps provide treatment to children facing some of the most difficult medical conditions. Her new role has a
The Kicker Live: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad on American Misadventures in the Middle East
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is an award-winning Iraqi journalist for The Guardian and the author of A Stranger in Your Own City (2023), a reported memoir of his life as an architect turned journalist during the American war in Iraq.In this wide-ranging conversation, Abdul-Ahad shares his journey to becoming a reporter, what he was surprised to learn about his own country, and how he approaches depicting the
What’s the Point of Investigating Trump?
David Fahrenthold won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2016 reporting on how Donald Trump’s lifetime of charitable giving was largely a mirage.Nine years later, he’s still reporting on how Trumpworld’s claims about financial matters don’t always add up—this time, looking closely at the cost-cutting from DOGE for the New York Times. But does this kind of facts-first reporting still land? With Trump doing
‘I Try to Find the Question That People Cannot Squirm Out Of’: An Interview with Nashville’s Phil Williams
For more than thirty years, Phil Williams has been the steadying voice of investigative reporting at NewsChannel 5, in Nashville. His deep dives into toxic wastewater and lobbyist access to state politicians have earned him a slew of major journalism awards, including five Peabodys and five duPont-Columbia Awards.But in recent years, his most viral moments have been his unflappable encounters with
‘The Threat Is Very Real’: NPR’s Katherine Maher on the Fight to Save Public Media
Last week, Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the end of funding for NPR and PBS. It’s the latest attempt by conservatives to cut back on support for public media, and in particular target NPR, which they view as having a liberal bias.Katherine Maher, NPR’s CEO, says that perception is deeply unfair—and notes that the vast majority of the funding for public media goes to local stat
Inside El Salvador’s Dystopian Prison Network
A few years ago, El Salvador was one of the most violent nations in the world, with gang killings taking the lives of dozens of people every week. Nayib Bukele, elected president in 2019, changed all that—today, violence is way down. But his brute-force approach to the problem has involved mass arrests, secret deals, and forced disappearances into a harsh prison system—which is apparently the envy
Kai Ryssdal Was America’s Economic Voice of Reason This Week
Kai Ryssdal has been the host of Marketplace, a leading daily radio show and podcast about the economy, produced by American Public Media, since 2005. He delivers the news—from the bitter latest on our 401(k)s to unexpected interviews about the modern-day resurgence of train robberies—with an affable, direct tone.And when he has something he wants listeners to know—as he did all this week, while t
Carlos Watson Goes Free: A Surprising Coda to the CJR Podcast
Prosecutors weren’t notified in advance, witnesses are in shock—and Watson’s family celebrates his freedom.On the day that Carlos Watson, the founder of the digital media company Ozy Media, was due to turn himself in to prison last week, to begin serving a nearly ten-year sentence for fraud and identity theft, he and his family received some unexpected good news: President Donald Trump was commuti
Molly White Knows You Don’t Understand Crypto
If you thought “DOGE” only stood for the “Department of Government Efficiency”—well, you’re not alone. The world of crypto is full of double meanings and inside jokes, making the recent arrival of these alternative currency markets—and their attendant “crypto bros”—into the seat of power in Washington all the more mystifying.Enter Molly White, a longtime crypto researcher (and skeptic) whose work
The Legal War on Journalism
Over the past several months, Donald Trump has mounted a series of legal attacks against the media, including a libel case against ABC, an FCC investigation into CBS, and a lawsuit accusing an Iowa pollster (and the newspaper that publishes her) of “election interference.”The sometimes far-fetched claims in these cases notwithstanding, the maneuvers are having an effect. The parent company of ABC
The Kicker, the Masseuses, and the Price of Doing Sports Journalism
In January, the Baltimore Banner released an investigation into the star kicker of the Baltimore Ravens, in which multiple women accused him of sexually inappropriate behavior during massages, dating back years. (The player denies the accusations.)It was an example of a rare kind of journalism these days: hard-hitting accountability reporting on sports. Over the past several years, numerous invest
A Warning from a Hungarian Journalist: ‘Brace Yourself for the Worst’
András Pethő is a Hungarian journalist and a cofounder of Direkt36, an independent investigative news outlet.Over the past decade, he’s watched as the government of Viktor Orbán—the world leader whom Steve Bannon once praised as “Trump before Trump”—has systematically eroded the freedom of the press in his country, in ways that may feel familiar to Americans watching corporate news leaders succumb
CJR’s Jon Allsop on the Return of the Trump Whirlwind
Jon Allsop writes and edits The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. There, he’s closely watched as the American press has struggled to respond to, and cover, the barrage of news that pours out of Donald Trump.As a frenetic new term begins, Jon joins The Kicker to share his thoughts on what the media gets wrong—and how the political press might begin to chart a new relationship with the presidency
Coda’s Natalia Antelava on Meta, Trump, and How Journalism Can Survive 2025
Natalia Antelava spent many years as a correspondent for the BBC, before starting her own media company, Coda Story, in 2016. She’s covered wars in the Middle East and the rise of authoritarianism across Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. For the past year, she was a Knight Fellow at Stanford, where she examined how journalism might survive in an era of AI and tech supremacy.Antelava joins The Kicke
The Unraveling of Ozy Media: Episode 3: The Verdict and the Pain
In the finale, Carlos Watson takes the stand—and the jury reaches a verdict.“The Unraveling of Ozy Media” is a special three-part series of The Kicker, on the trial of Carlos Watson and the excesses of the digital media age, presented by the Columbia Journalism Review.Hosted and coproduced by Josh Hersh and Susie BanikarimProduced and edited by Amanda Darrach
The Unraveling of Ozy Media: Episode 2: Built on a Bluff
How inflating traffic data went mainstream in digital media—and a key witness takes the stand.“The Unraveling of Ozy Media” is a special three-part series of The Kicker, on the trial of Carlos Watson and the excesses of the digital media age, presented by the Columbia Journalism Review.Hosted and coproduced by Josh Hersh and Susie BanikarimProduced and edited by Amanda Darrach
The Unraveling of Ozy Media: Episode 1: Truth and Mythmaking
Carlos Watson’s media startup arrives on the scene—and insiders reveal a dark reality under its glossy veneer.“The Unraveling of Ozy Media” is a special three-part series of The Kicker, on the trial of Carlos Watson and the excesses of the digital media age, presented by the Columbia Journalism Review.Hosted and coproduced by Josh Hersh and Susie BanikarimProduced and edited by Amanda Darrach
Coming Soon: The Unraveling of Ozy Media
Starting on December 9, the Columbia Journalism Review presents a special three-part series of The Kicker: “The Unraveling of Ozy Media,” on the dramatic rise and fall of Carlos Watson, the cofounder of the digital media company Ozy. In 2023, Watson was charged with fraud after it was revealed that one of his partners had masqueraded as a YouTube executive, during a call with potential investors.
How Trump Won the Latino Vote: A Deep Dive with CJR Contributor Jack Herrera
Nearly half of all Latino voters put their support behind former president Donald Trump this week, according to exit polls—a 14 percent increase from 2020.Those results surprised many, but not Jack Herrera, who has been reporting on the shifting voting habits of Latino communities across the country for years.Herrera joins The Kicker to talk about what he’s learned from his journalism in Pennsylva
Martin Baron on Jeff Bezos, the Post, and the role of presidential endorsements
Martin Baron was the executive editor of the Washington Post from 2013 until his retirement, in 2021—which meant he was there for the arrival of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as owner and publisher of the paper.He’s long praised Bezos for taking a firm line against any interference with the paper’s journalism, but Bezos’s sudden decision, announced last week, to torpedo the paper’s planned endorsement
How Trump’s team could craft ‘the narrative’ after the election: NBC’s Ryan Reilly on 2020, and the road ahead
The so-called Big Lie—that the 2020 election was stolen out from under Donald Trump—was more than just a series of individual false facts and misleading videos. It was a narrative, carefully constructed by people affiliated with the Trump campaign, and disseminated through friendly news outlets and social media channels.Four years later, that story still convinces millions of Trump’s supporters. A
Hell Gate's Chris Robbins on a manic news cycle in New York
New York City is the media capital of the world, but the number of people and outlets covering the city locally has taken a hit recently. Over the past few years, the Wall Street Journal dropped its independent metro section, the New York Times announced it would stop endorsing local races, and the all-news radio station WCBS went off the air. But a number of scrappy upstarts have started filling
The power of uncomfortable ideas: Jina Moore Ngarambe on her time at Guernica
In March, the digital literary magazine Guernica published a personal essay by a British Israeli writer and translator, about her experiences in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas terror attacks.It was raw and honest and painful to read. The writer, Joanna Chen, had spent years before the attacks and subsequent war on Gaza volunteering for an organization that transported Palestinian children in
‘That’s how you run a debate!’: 9News’s Kyle Clark on holding politicians accountable
In late May, Kyle Clark went viral after he moderated a debate featuring six Republican candidates for Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District, including Rep. Lauren Boebert.He refused to allow the candidates to evade his direct questions with waffling, rambly answers, instead repeatedly cutting them off: “You didn’t make any attempt to answer the actual question,” he said at one point.Over the n
The long, destructive path of fire: Talking to Source NM’s Patrick Lohmann about a never-ending wildfire season
In early 2023, Patrick Lohmann, a reporter for the nonprofit Source NM, moved to the small town of Las Vegas, New Mexico, to learn how residents were coping with the aftermath of the largest wildfire in state history.What he learned there was that the destruction brought on by wildfires doesn’t end when the fire itself goes out. It can take years for people to extract benefits from the federal bur
1968 all over again? Heather Hendershot and Ted Koppel on a year for the media to remember.
The Democrats are gathering in Chicago next week, and the sitting president has dropped out of the race. But as the guests on today’s podcast remind us, that doesn’t mean history is repeating itself.In 1968, Ted Koppel was just back from a tour covering the war in Vietnam, and assigned to the comparatively tame—if, as he reminds us, not without its moments—presidential campaign of Republican Richa
Kamala Harris steps up: Politico’s Eugene Daniels on a wild month of news
Eugene Daniels is a White House reporter for Politico, with a special focus on Kamala Harris. That’s put him front and center for a month of news that few people in politics saw coming.On this episode of The Kicker, Daniels shares what he’s learned from nearly four years of covering the vice president, how her relationship with the press will differ from the president’s, and why you can’t blame th
Spanish-speaking journalism…in Iowa: A conversation with Lorena Lopez
Lorena Lopez came to the United States from her home country of Nicaragua, where she was an investigative reporter, in 1992. But it wasn’t until 2016 that she managed to return to her passion, as the founding editor of La Prensa, a Spanish-language newspaper serving Western Iowa.On this week’s Kicker, Lopez talks about her long journey back to journalism, why reliable, trusted information availabl
What did we know and when? Alex Thompson on investigating Biden’s mental decline
Alex Thompson, a national political correspondent for Axios, first reported that President Biden had started wearing special sneakers, in part to reduce the risk of tripping, last fall.But until the debate last week, he was still one of a small handful of reporters who was aggressively pursuing direct evidence that Biden’s age – regular fodder for political talk shows – was actually having an impa
Not even a ‘no comment’: Paul Farhi on the media’s historic struggles with relevance
Paul Farhi was a media reporter for the Washington Post until the end of last year. But instead of retiring, he’s been busier than ever, chronicling the seemingly endless stream of bad news stories about the media business, for outlets like The Atlantic and here at CJR.He joins The Kicker to talk about traditional journalism’s struggles to stay relevant amid the boundless other means companies and
Staying “scrupulously neutral”: Steve Herman on covering the White House in the age of Trump
Steve Herman was the White House correspondent for Voice of America during the Trump administration. He joins The Kicker to talk about his new book on what it was like to cover a deeply unpredictable president—and why he believes it’s essential, even under extreme circumstances, for reporters to stay out of the political fray.This podcast is part of “Covering the Election,” CJR’s spring special is
How Israeli Journalists Cover Their Own Country
Haaretz is one of Israel’s most respected newspapers. It’s also one of the few willing to openly criticize the government for its treatment of Palestinians. The Kicker speaks with Hagar Shezaf and Omer Benjakob, two journalists with the paper, about what it’s like to do accountability journalism in Israel these days—especially in the aftermath of the devastating Hamas attacks of October 7th. Read
Crisis at Columbia: A Conversation with Jelani Cobb
Jelani Cobb is the Dean of the Columbia Journalism School. He is also a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine. For much of the past few weeks, he has been enmeshed in Columbia University’s efforts to grapple with a protest movement on campus over the war in Gaza – one that culminated in the takeover of a building, and finally, on Tuesday, April 30th, a police raid.The Kicker talks to Cobb about
'Inside Wagner': Video journalism unmasks Russia’s secretive mercenary group
This week, host Josh Hersh dives into the world of documentary news. Amel Guettatfi and Julia Steers just won the Polk Award for Inside Wagner, their hourlong Vice News documentary on the Wagner Group—Vladimir Putin’s private army of militiamen. They discuss their unprecedented access to a military training operation in the Central African Republic, the unique challenges of doing this kind of repo
Josh Fine: How to Revive Investigative Sports Reporting in the Age of the Athlete
In recent years, numerous beloved sports news institutions have been shut down, or dramatically reduced their operations, while digital shows hosted by professional sportspeople, current and retired, have become ubiquitous, Meanwhile, traditional sports journalism—particularly of the type that asks uncomfortable questions of what is, ultimately, a huge and powerful business—has been in decline. La
Alissa Quart: on reimagining reporting on a recession
News of stubborn inflation, increasing unemployment, and the housing crisis dominate headlines of late. Alissa Quart is trying to improve that reportage, in content and form. Quart is the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, which challenges traditional narratives of economic class and issues through funding original reporting, done by independent journalists from diverse
Svitlana Oslavska: On Documenting a War on Her Home Front
Before Russia invaded her home country, Ukrainian journalist Svitlana Oslavska was reviewing books for Krytyka, a Ukrainian magazine, and writing nonfiction books. Now, she’s documenting war crimes committed by the Russians against Ukrainians for the Reckoning Project. Since joining the Project, Oslavska’s reporting serves two purposes — to provide detailed witness testimonies for court cases agai
How Authoritarians Erase the Past
The Columbia Journalism Review recently invited journalists, academics, and experts to convene at a conference called "FaultLines: Democracy." In this episode, taped at the FaultLines conference, Masha Gessen, of The New Yorker; Jodie Ginseberg, president of the Committee to Protect Journalists; and Sheila Coronel, an expert in global investigative journalism, discuss how authoritarian r
Hearts and Minds Media
For decades, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have broadcast into countries all over, in dozens of languages. Yet in some places where the United States has invested the most soft power, authoritarianism has only gotten stronger—and journalists remain at risk. That may be especially true in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s takeover. For CJR's latest digital issue, Emily Rus
Feven Merid: On Jacaranda Nigeria Limited
In 1982, about twenty Black journalists quit their jobs at American networks, banded together under the name Jacaranda Nigeria Limited, and flew to Nigeria, where they would work under the country’s newly elected president to revamp a state-funded journalism network. On today’s episode of the Kicker, Feven Merid, a Columbia Journalism Review staff writer, tells their story.She explains the many un
Jeff Gerth on the press versus the president
Last week, the Columbia Journalism Review published a four-part investigation into the media’s fraught relationship with Donald Trump. In this episode of the Kicker, Jeff Gerth, who authored the report, talks to Kyle Pope, CJR’s editor and publisher, about the origin of the investigation and the intense responses to it, with which Gerth admits he is still “grappling.”On the podcast, Gerth says he
FT's Rana Foroohar: What the Davos Crowd Doesn't See
After two decades of attending the World Economic Forum's annual gathering of business elites in Davos, Rana Foroohar, associate editor of the Financial Times, stayed back this year. In this week’s episode of The Kicker, Foroohar tells Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review, why the annual meet-up of global technocrats imparts “icky” feelings, and why the Davos crow
Jon Allsop Returns. Plus, What We’re Watching in 2023
At the start of January, Jon Allsop, chief writer of Columbia Journalism Review’s newsletter, The Media Today, tuned back into the news after a two-month hiatus. On this week’s Kicker, Allsop discusses what he found upon his return: a “ghostland” of a Twitter feed and a keen awareness of the “trivial” nature of the news cycle. In conversation with Kyle Pope, CJR’s editor and publisher, Allsop also
The Tow Center’s Emily Bell: Musk’s Twitter is “openly hostile” to journalists. What should we do?
Elon Musk’s ownership of Twitter has inspired news headlines once unimaginable (see New York Magazine's "Elon Musk is Selling Off Twitter’s Cafeteria and Furniture"). It has also created serious problems for journalists who rely on the platform for developing sources, finding stories, and driving readership. It’s not safe to do journalistic business on the platform anymore, Emily Be
Introducing Red Pen: A Grammar Podcast
Welcome to the weird, wild, scintillatingly stylish, and syntactically sound world of RED PEN—the grammar podcast that won't put you to sleep. Brought to you by the Columbia Journalism Review and hosted by old buds Ryan Davis and Mike Laws, RED PEN plucks examples from the news (as well as from novels, music, movies—wherever!) to answer all those questions you were too afraid to ask in Engli
The Guardian’s David Smith: Covering a new chapter of Trump
Writing for The Guardian last week, Washington bureau chief David Smith recalled that Donald Trump, announcing his run for presidency at Mar-a-Lago, appeared an “ousted dictator, drained of power and surrounded by a dwindling band of loyalists in his last redoubt.” Many in the media similarly reported a lackluster atmosphere and an uninspired Trump, whose splintered Republican base, deepened by mi
Ross Barkan’s Notes on Election Coverage: Form, Function, and the Future
On today’s Kicker, what the media got right and wrong in the 2022 midterm election. Ross Barkan, a politics reporter for New York magazine, The Nation and more talks with CJR’s editor and publisher Kyle Pope about the media’s penchant for speculation in divisive elections.Also in the discussion: how the media grapples with writing about a democracy in peril. On today’s Kicker, what the media got r
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