Longform

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 often there's not as much there as we think. And if you’re talking about Theranos or something, there's some potential to do harm—but also it means that maybe more worthwhile efforts are not getting the attention they deserve.” Show notes: @chafkin maxchafkin.com Chafkin on Longform Chafkin's Bloomberg Businessweek archive 02:00 "Anything Could Happen" (Inc. • Mar 2008) 09:00 "A Broken Place: The Spectacular Failure Of The Startup That Was Going To Change The World" (Fast Company • Apr 2014) 15:00 The Contrarian: Pe

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.com 01:00 "Most Hollywood Writers’ Rooms Look Nothing Like America” (The Atlantic • Sep 2021) 05:00 "How the '90s Kinda World of Living Single Lives on Today" (The Atlantic • Aug 2018) 05:00 Longform Podcast #165: Jazmine Hughes 17:00 "Corporate America’s $50 Billion Promise" (Tracy Jan, Jena McGregor, Meghan Hoyer • Washington Post • Aug 2021) 23:00 "tattoo this article on my back." (Issa Rae • Twitter) 25:00 "One Of The World's Best Long Distance Runners Is Now Running For His Life" (Buzzfeed • Nov 2016) 27:0

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 in your community. And by the time we get to the traumatic part, I hope they've seen enough of who I am and how I interview to feel comfortable telling me that they don't want to talk about certain things.” Show notes: @satopol sarahatopol.com Topol on Longform 01:00 "Is Taiwan Next?" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2021) 03:00 "The Schoolteacher and the Genocide" (New York Times Magazine • Aug 2019) 03:00 "Trained to Kill: How Four Boy Soldiers Survived Boko Haram" (New York Times Magazine • Jun 2017) 03:00 "Her

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 narrative. In a way, you give it a kind of immortality. And that’s a big job. It’s a great privilege.” Show notes: @lawrence_wright 00:30 Longform Podcast #83: Lawrence Wright 01:00 God Save Texas: a Journey into the Soul of the Lone Star State (Vintage Books • 2019) 01:00 The End of October (Penguin Random House • 2020) 05:30 "Back in Egypt" (The New Yorker • April 2002) 18:30 "The Plague Year" (The New Yorker • Jan 2021) 19:00 "Zawahiri at the Helm" (The New Yorker • June 2011) 35:00 Remembering Satan A Tragic C

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 • 2021) 00:00 70 over 70 (Max Linsky • Pineapple Street Studios • 2021) 00:00 The Mastermind: A True Story of Murder, Empire, and a New Kind of Crime Lord (Ratliff • Random House • 2020) 00:00 Allen v. Farrow (HBO Documentary Films • 2021) 01:00 The Hunting Ground (CNN Films, Radius • 2015) 01:00 The Invisible War (Cinedigm, Docurama Films • 2012) 01:00 On the Record (HBO Max Original • 2020) 04:00 Sick (Kirby Dick • 1997) 05:00 Derrida (Zeitgeist Films • 2002) 07:00 Private Practices: The Story of a Sex Surroga

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 my own biography. What did surprise me when I read the book as not being about me, but just read it as a book, was how bloody tenacious I was in fleeting moments of real awfulness.” Show notes: @rogbennett 23:30 "The Men in Blazers Show with John Stones and Alex Caruso" (The Men in Blazers Show • March 2021) 29:30 Men in Blazers 29:30 NHL Now 29:30 Band of Brothers podcast 29:30 HBO's Succession Podcast 33:30 "Pat Maroon" (Men in Blazers on Ice) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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 going to be honest and do what you say and protect their anonymity and that you’re not biased. I think some reporters make mistakes in that they try to curry favor with sources by writing things they think the sources will like and I think sources actually respect you more when you show them: no I am accurate and I am honest and I am objective and I’m actually going to check what you tell me so that I know it’s true and you know I am doing my homework on everything.” Show notes: @sheeraf @ceciliakangf 31:30 "Delay,

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 this story in the hope that it would pressure authorities to do something about it.” Show notes @jkbjournalist 00:00 Perversion of Justice: The Jeffrey Epstein Story (Dey Street Books • 2021) 01:00 "Perversion of Justice" (Miami Herald • Nov 2018) 10:00 "Cruel and Unusual" (Miami Herald • 2014) 10:00 "In Miami Gardens, Store Video Catches Cops in the Act" (Miami Herald • Nov 2013) 11:00 "Behind bars, a brutal and unexplained death" (Miami Herald • May 2014) 17:00 Series on women’s prison (Miami Herald • July 20

Doree Shafrir is a co-host of the podcast Forever35, the former executive editor of Buzzfeed, and the author of the new memoir Thanks for Waiting: The Joy (& Weirdness) of Being a Late Bloomer.”Right now I can make my living from podcasting, but I don’t know what the advertising market for podcasts is going to look like in five years or even one year. The blog advertising market cratered. So one of the challenges of being my own ‘brand’ is that I always do have to think about, what is the next thing? Because in my experience in media, nothing is ever good for too long.” Thanks to Mailchimp and The London Review of Books for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @doree doree-shafrir.com Shafrir on Longform 02:00 Thanks for Waiting: The Joy (& Weirdness) of Being a Late Bloomer (Ballantine Books • 2021) 06:00 "The Hipster Grifter" (New York Observer • Apr 2009) 08:00 Shafrir's New York Observer archive 16:00 "Chuck Klosterman, the Author Photos" (Slate • Aug 2006) 24:00 Startup (Little, Brown and Compa

Jessica Bruder is a journalist and author of the book Nomadland.“I don’t do a hard sell. I’ll tell people what my MO is, but I don’t push people to talk with me. I want to go deep with people. I want to be able to have the time to just sit with them and to say, ‘start at the beginning.’ Sometimes going chronologically will just take you to these places that wouldn’t have come up if I’ve just done a very guided interview. So I hung out. I’m not relentless. I don’t wear people down. But I stick around. If people just want me to fuck off, I fuck off, and I talk to other people..” Thanks to Mailchimp and The London Review of Books for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: jessicabruder.com @jessbruder 01:00 Nomadland (W. W. Norton & Company • 2018) 11:30 Burning Book: A Visual History of Burning Man (Gallery Books • 2007) 13:00 "Snowball's Court Decision Set for Tomorrow" (The Oregonian • October 2007) 13:30 "Faith-healing Deaths " (The Oregonian • June 2009) 16:00 "Has Perky Jerky Lost Its Perk?" (New Yo

Robert McKee is an author and screenwriting lecturer. His new book is Character: The Art of Role and Cast Design for Page, Stage, and Screen.”When I'm in conversation with others, I'm always aware—or sensitive, at least—to what they're really thinking and feeling. And writers must have that. They can't possibly create excellent nonfiction or fiction if they're not aware of what is going on inside of other people, really, even subconsciously, while they go about saying whatever they do consciously in the world. Because if you just recorded the surface, if you were just paying attention to the surface, you'd be missing the whole show.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @McKeeStory mckeestory.com Story: Substance, Structure, Style, and the Principles of Screenwriting (Regan Books • 1997) Character: The Art of Role and Cast Design for Page, Stage, and Screen (Twelve • 2021) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ashley C. Ford is the author of Somebody's Daughter: A Memoir.“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. Show notes: @iSmashFizzle  ashleycford.net Fortune Favors the Bold podcast 5:00 "Roger Loves Chaz" (Roger Ebert • Sep 2012) 11:34 The Giver (Lois Lowry • Houghton Mifflin • 1993) 17:47 Ford's commencement speech at Ball State 26:09 Ford's archive at Buzzfeed 41:00 "Ashley C. Ford’s Debut Memoir ‘Somebody’s Daughter’ Finds Home at Flatiron" (Paperback Paris • 2018) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aaron Lammer is a co-host of the Longform Podcast and the host of the podcast Exit Scam: The Death and Afterlife of Gerald Cotten.“Something I got from a number of reporters that I’ve interviewed on the Longform Podcast is letting the story guide you, and ultimately that led me to an ambiguous ending. Early on, I was like, the pinnacle achievement is to solve this case. But ultimately, I felt like an ambiguous ending was the most honest to what I actually experienced in reporting it.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: 00:30 Exit Scam Podcast 00:45 Francis and the Lights 04:30 CoinTalk™️ 04:45 Jay Caspian King on Longform 05:00 Episode #59: Flashbacks and Fake Beards, a Crypto 2018 Year in Review (CoinTalk • January 2019) 11:00 Stoner Podcast 44:00 Descript 53:00 Jean-Xavier de Lestrade on Longform Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Megha Rajagopalan is a senior correspondent for Buzzfeed News. She won a Pulitzer for her coverage of the Xinjiang detention camps.“It’s not so much that I talk to [the Chinese government] to get information. It’s more that I talk to them to see how they think about things and what’s important to them and what’s their view of the world. … There are so many journalists that have been thrown out of China, so there’s very few people that are able to actually have those conversations. And in the U.S., there are these seismic decisions being made about China policy, and if you don’t talk to the people that run the country, it’s a problem.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @meghara Rajagopalan on Longform Rajagopalan's Buzzfeed News archive 21:00 "This Is What A 21st-Century Police State Really Looks Like" (Buzzfeed News • Oct 2017) 35:00 Rajagopalan’s Pulitzer-winning reporting with Alison Killing and Christo Buschek 41:00 "China Secretly Built A Vast New Infrastructure To Impr

Barrett Swanson is a contributing editor at Harper’s and the author of Lost in Summerland.“You just have to sit there for a long time. That lesson was indisputably crucial for me. Just being willing to talk to someone, even if the first half-hour or hour is unutterably boring, or it doesn’t seem pertinent. These little things, the deeper things, take a while to get at and they kind of burble to the surface at moments when you’re not totally expecting it to happen. So for me, it’s just making myself available for that moment to occur.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: Swanson on Longform 00:30 Lost in Summerland (Catapult • 2021) 00:30 "Lost in Summerland" (The Atavist • December 2019) 00:45 "The Anxiety of Influencers" (Harper’s • September 2020) 10:00 "The Solider and the Soil" (Orion Magazine • December 2017) 11:30 "Men at Work" (Harper’s • November 2019) 20:00 "Political Fictions: Unraveling America at a West Wing Fan Convention" (Paris Review • November 2018) 28:00 “An

Dan Rather is a journalist, author, and the former anchor of CBS Evening News.”I knew that being named to succeed Walter Cronkite would put me in a position of inhaling—every day—a kind of NASA-grade rocket fuel for the ego. And that could be dangerous…. In the end, when the red light goes on, it's just you. You're by yourself.… And the longer you're in that role, the more difficult it is to stay true to yourself and to remember who you are and who you want to be.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @DanRather 70 Over 70 (Pineapple Street Studios • 2021) 01:00 Steady Substack newsletter 04:00 Reporting on Hurricane Carla (Sep 1961) 09:00 First night as CBS Evening News anchor (CBS News • Mar 1981) 21:00 Covering the India-Pakistan war (Sep 1965) 28:00 “A Lie, Is a Lie, Is a Lie” (Facebook • Jan 2017) 28:00 "Jim Crow Is Not Dead... And Why We Should Care" (Rather and Steady Team • Steady • Feb 2021) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Katherine Eban is an investigative journalist and contributor to Vanity Fair. Her latest article is ”The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins.””You can't make a correction unless you know why something happened. So imagine—if this is a lab leak—the earth shattering consequences for virology. For the science community, for how research is done, for how research is regulated. Or if it is a zoonotic origin, we have to know how our human incursion into wild spaces could be unleashing these viruses. Because COVID-19 is one thing, but we're going to be looking at COVID-25 and COVID-34. We have to know what caused this.” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @KatherineEban katherineeban.com Eban on Longform Eban on Longform Podcast 00:00 Bottle of Lies: The Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom (Ecco • 2019) 00:00 "The Lab-Leak Theory: Inside the Fight to Uncover COVID-19’s Origins" (Vanity Fair • Jun 2021) 01:00 Nicholson Baker on Longform Podcast 01:00 "Th

We've got something a little different today from our sponsor Apple News+, a sneak peek of a new article by Joshuah Bearman and Rich Schapiro called "Last Chance Hotel." It's a wild story full of misadventure, get-rich-quick schemes gone wrong, and international intrigue. Published by New York Magazine in partnership with Epic Magazine, “Last Chance Hotel” is available right now exclusively in Apple News+. After you listen to this preview, tap here to read or listen to the rest of part one. Part two will be published on June 11, and part three will be available on June 18.  “Last Chance Hotel" is available now, only in Apple News+. Subscription required. New subscribers can try 1 month free. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Rose Eveleth is the host of Flash Forward and the author of Flash Forward: An Illustrated Guide to Possible (and Not So Possible) Tomorrows.“If I didn’t have that pretty bizarrely insatiable drive to do this stuff and understand things, I don’t know if I’d still be doing this. The curiosity index has to be high in order to make the rest of it worth it. Because otherwise, what’s the point?” Thanks to Mailchimp for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @roseveleth @flashforwardpod @ffwdpresents Flash Forward Podcast 00:30 Flash Forward (Rose Eveleth • Harry N. Abrams • 2021) 21:00 Eveleth's Sample Freelancer Spreadsheet 24:30 Meanwhile in the Future Podcast 39:30 "What If Our Cities Were Smart?" (Flash Forward • April 2021) 40:30 "What If You Could Be Immune To Everything?" (Flash Forward • March 2021) 43:00 "Bodies: This Is Not A Test" (Flash Forward • May 2021) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Theo 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 Blindfold (Theo Padnos • Simon & Schuster • 2021) 03:00 My Life Had Stood a Loaded Gun: Adolescents at the Apocalypse: A Teacher’s Notes (Theo Padnos • Random House • 2004) 03:15 Undercover Muslim: A Journey Into Yemen (Theo Padnos • Bodley Head • 2011) 10:30 "My Captivity" (Theo Padnos • The New York Times Magazine • October 2014) 12:00 "Life as a Hostage in Syria" (Polly Mosendz • The Atlantic • October 2014) 22:15 Theo Who Lived (David Schisgall • 2016) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices