Longform

Matthieu Aikins is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine who has reported on Afghanistan since 2008. His new book is The Naked Don’t Fear the Water: An Underground Journey with Afghan Refugees. “I think at some point you just say, screw it. I'm gonna act like a human being and help my friend. That's the most important thing. You actually realize, yeah, now that we're in it together, the only thing that matters is both of us staying alive and staying safe and getting where we need to go. And whatever I have to do to do that, I'm going to do.” Show notes: @mattaikins maikins.com Aikins on Longform Longform Podcast #1: Matthieu Aikins 08:00 "The Master of Spin Boldak" (Harper's • Dec 2009) 38:00 Aikins on The Daily (New York Times • Sep 2021) 39:00 "Inside the Fall of Kabul" (New York Times Magazine • Dec 2021) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Brian Reed and Hamza Syed are co-hosts of the new podcast The Trojan Horse Affair. “I had lost all faith in the reporting that already happened on the subject matter. And that was my mentality with each source and each interviewer. I wanted the debate ended in the room because I didn't want commentary beyond it. I didn't want any kind of interpretation beyond it. I wanted the situation to be resolved there and then…. And without certain answers, I thought we weren't going to be able to speak about this matter in the way that I wanted to speak about it.” —Syed “I both desperately wanted to know the answer of who wrote the letter, but kind of understood that we probably weren't going to get it beyond a shadow of a doubt. And I thought that I had transmitted that to Hamza and that he understood that. But as time went on, I realized that he had not accepted that as the likely outcome. And this is what was actually so energizing to work with you, Hamza. You never let your hope and desire and hunger to get that an

Chuck Klosterman is a journalist and the author of eleven books, including his latest, The Nineties. ”Selling out… was very much injected into the way I understood the world…. And I am now supposed to do all of these interviews and all of these podcasts promoting this book. And because it's a book about the nineties… it feels incredibly uncomfortable to me…. I think young people assume that selling out is only about money: that if you try to do something to make money, that means you're selling out, because the word ‘sell’ is in there. But that's not really how it was. I mean, what you were selling out was this idea of your integrity. And what your integrity was, was somehow not doing anything to make other people like you.” Show notes: @CKlosterman chuckklostermanauthor.com Klosterman on Longform 00:00 The Nineties (Penguin Press • 2022) 10:00 Capitalist Realism (Mark Fisher • Zer0 Books • 2009) 15:00 Klosterman's SPIN archive 29:00 Fargo Rock City (Scribner • 2001) 30:00 Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs

Khabat Abbas is an independent journalist and video producer from northeastern Syria, and the winner of the 2021 Kurt Schork News Fixer Award. ”I can see from my experience that there is a gap between the editors, who are kind of elites in their luxury offices, and the amazing journalists who are in the field, who all sympathize with what they are seeing on the ground and want to cover [it], but they have to satisfy the editors. And this is how we end up having little gaps in the ways of covering in general. It's not a matter of like, they shaped it in this way. The problem, I think, it’s bigger. How this industry is working, how this industry is deciding what they should cover.” Show notes: @khabat_abas Kurt Schork Awards in International Journalism 34:00 "'Belief Allows Us to Move Forward,' Said One Female Soldier in Battle Against ISIS" (ABC News • July 2017) 40:00 "The Former 'Caliphate Capital' Is Haunted by Fears of an ISIS Comeback" (Washington Post • May 2020) 43:00 "How ISIS Women and Their Chi

Michael Schulman is a staff writer for The New Yorker. He recently profiled Jeremy Strong of Succession. ”There's an interesting moment that's part of this job where you’ve spent a lot of time with someone and it often feels very personal and very intimate. And then when you go to write the piece, you have to sort of take a breath and say to yourself, Okay, I'm not writing this for this person. I'm writing this for the reader.” Show notes: @MJSchulman michael-schulman.com Schulman on Longform Schulman's New Yorker archive 01:00 "On ‘Succession,’ Jeremy Strong Doesn’t Get the Joke" (New Yorker • Dec 2021) 03:00 Her Again: Becoming Meryl Streep (Harper • 2016) 09:00 "Wendy Williams Dishes the Dirt" (New Yorker • May 2021) 35:00 "Adam Driver, the Original Man" (New Yorker • Oct 2019) 37:00 "A Defense of Jeremy Strong (and All the Strivers With No Chill)" (Elizabeth Spiers • New York Times • Jan 2022) 44:00 "Bridget Everett is Larger than Life" (New Yorker • Jan 2022) 45:00 "The Otherworldly Comedy of

Sarah Marshall is a writer and hosts the podcast You're Wrong About. ”I love it when people tell me that listening to the way I talk about these people in the stories that we tell, and just about the world generally, has made them practice empathy more. I almost feel like I have preserved this a-little-bit-past version of myself, because I've been on this journey throughout the pandemic of becoming pretty cynical, and then deciding cynicism is a luxury and that it feels better, ultimately, to try to believe in people.” Show notes: remembersarahmarshall.com Marshall on Longform You're Wrong About 05:00 "Your 2012 Baby Name Guide: Puritan Edition" (The Hairpin • Jan 2012) 08:00 "Remote Control" (The Believer • Jan 2014) 12:00 "The End of Evil" (The Believer • Feb 2018) 17:00 "Talking Tammy Faye Bakker w. Jessica Chastain" (You're Wrong About • Jan 2022) 46:00 "The O.J. Simpson Trial: The DeLorean Detour" (You're Wrong About • Feb 2021) 47:00 "The O.J. Simpson Trial: Kato Kaelin Part 1" (You're Wrong

Abe Streep is a journalist and contributing editor for Outside. His new book is Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana. ”The way journalists talk about, ‘Did you get the story?’—that's not how I see this. That would be extractive in this setting, I think. If someone shares something personal with me, that is a serious matter. It's a gift and you’ve got to treat it with great respect.” Show notes: @abestreep abestreep.com  Streep on Longform 03:00 "What the Arlee Warriors Were Playing For" (New York Times Magazine • Apr 2018) 03:00 Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana (Celadon Books • 2021) 09:00 "The Legends of Last Place" (The Atavist • Apr 2013) 24:00 Custer Died for Your Sins (Vine Deloria • University of Oklahoma Press • 1988) 34:00 Friday Night Lights (H.G. Bissinger • Da Capo • 1990) 34:00 The Last Shot: City Streets, Basketball Dreams (Darcy Frey • Houghton Mifflin • 1994) 35:00 Countin

Connie Walker is an investigative reporter and podcast host. Her latest show is Stolen: The Search for Jermain. “For so long, there has been this kind of history of journalists coming in and taking stories from Indigenous communities. And that kind of extractive, transactional kind of journalism really causes a lot of harm. And so much of our work is trying to undo and address that. There is a way to be a storyteller and help amplify and give people agency in their stories.” Show notes: @connie_walker Walker's CBC News archive 00:00 Missing & Murdered (CBC News) 04:00 "The Injustice to Pamela George Continues Long After Her Murder" (Heather Mallick • Toronto Star • Jan 2020) 08:00 Street Cents (CBC) 12:00 "Alicia Ross: Everyone’s Daughter" (Catherine McDonald • Global News • Apr 2020) 14:00 Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada 19:00 8th Fire, Ep. 1: "Indigenous in the City" (CBC • 2012) 19:00 8th Fire, Ep. 2: "It’s Time" (CBC • 2012) 19:00 8th Fire, Ep. 3: "Whose Land Is It Anyway?" (CBC

Parul Sehgal, a former a book critic for The New York Times, is now a staff writer at The New Yorker. “My job is I think to be honest with the reader and to keep surfacing new ways for me and for other people to think about books. New vocabularies of pleasure and disgust.” Show notes: parulsehgal.com @parul_sehgal Sehgal's New York Times archive “Mothers of Invention: A Group of Authors Finds New Narrative Possibilities in Parenthood” (Bookforum • 2015) “In Letters to the World, a New Wave of Memoirs Draws on the Intimate” (New York Times • 2019) “#MeToo Is All Too Real. But to Better Understand it, Turn to Fiction.” (New York Times • 2019) Jia Tolentino on Longform “Peter Luger Used to Sizzle. Now It Sputters.” (Pete Wells • New York Times • 2019) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

George Saunders is the author of eleven books. His latest is A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: In Which Four Russians Give a Master Class on Writing, Reading, and Life. ”I really have so much affection for being alive. I really enjoy it. And yet, I’m a little negative minded in a lot of ways too, like I really think things tend to be fucked up. ... To get that on the page—to sufficiently praise the loveliness of the world without being a sap, and also lacerate the world for being so goddamn mean—to do those in the same story would be a great aspiration. And I haven’t gotten there yet.” Show notes: georgesaundersbooks.com Saunders on Longform Saunders on the Longform Podcast (Jan 2014) Saunders' Story Club newsletter 16:00 "First Thohts on Reviision" (Story Club • Dec 2021) 28:00 "The Great Divider" (GQ • Jan 2007) 48:00 "Sea Oak" (New Yorker • Dec 1998) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Emily Oster is an economist, professor, and author. Her new book is The Family Firm. ”[COVID] has been 18 months of being a person who is slightly more public, who is saying things that are somewhat more controversial, where people yell at me a lot. ... I do much less reading of the comments than I did early on because I found that eventually I just got mad and that's not a productive way to interact. And it affects how I think about what I write, and I would like what I write to be the things that I think are true, not the things I think will avoid people being angry.” Show notes: @ProfEmilyOster emilyoster.net "Steve Cohen-Backed Radkl Hires DeFi Trader Aaron Lammer" (Nick Baker • Bloomberg • Nov 2021) Expecting Better (Penguin Books • 2014) Cribsheet (Penguin Books • 2020) The Family Firm (Penguin Books • 2021) Oster’s Parent Data newsletter 35:00 "Antibiotics and Allergies, Zika, Travel Baby Carriers..." (Parent Data • Feb 2020) 36:00 "Grandparents & Day Care" (Parent Data • May 2020) 36:00

Kelefa Sanneh is a staff writer at The New Yorker. His book is Major Labels: A History of Popular Music in Seven Genres. “I’m always thinking about how to not be that person at a party who corners you and tells you about their favorite thing and you’re trying to get away. It’s got to feel light and fun. And what that means in practice is writing about music for readers who don’t care about music, while at the same time writing something that the connoisseurs don’t roll their eyes too hard at.” Show notes: Sanneh on Longform Sanneh's New Yorker archive 01:00 "The Education of a Part-Time Punk" (New Yorker • Sep 2021) 14:00 "Paul McCartney Doesn't Really Want to Stop the Show" (David Remnick • New Yorker • Oct 2021) 17:00 "How Morgan Wallen Became the Most Wanted Man in Country" (New Yorker • Dec 2020) 23:00 "Party of One" (New Yorker • Jul 2009) 25:00 "Can Jake Paul Fight His Way Out of Trouble?" (New Yorker • Nov 2021) 34:00 "Gettin' Paid" (New Yorker • Aug 2001) Learn more about your ad choices.

Anita Hill is a professor and author. Her new book is Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence. "I really do feel that my life now has purpose. And my responsibility really is to live out that purpose as much as possible. The reason that this isn’t entirely daunting is that I realize I am one individual. And that the issues will not depend on me entirely. … But I also realize that every person who has the opportunity should be involved, and that includes me." Show notes: @AnitaHill 00:00 Believing: Our Thirty-Year Journey to End Gender Violence (Viking • 2021) 01:00 Because of Anita (Pineapple Street Studios • 2021) 01:00 Getting Even with Anita Hill (Pushkin Industries) 01:00 "Believing Is A Book Only Anita Hill Could Have Written" (Danielle Kurtzleben • NPR • Sep 2021) 33:00 "The Bad Guys Are Winning" (Anne Applebaum • The Atlantic • Nov 2021) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Ben Austen is a journalist and the author of High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing. Khalil Gibran Muhammad is the Ford Foundation Professor of History, Race and Public Policy at Harvard Kennedy School and the author of The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America. Together they host the podcast Some of My Best Friends Are. ”We're not pretending to have all the answers, but we are attempting to say, ‘this is a real issue and it can't be covered up by simply ignoring it.’ And if you can see it for what it is and all of its full dimensions, you have a better shot at bringing people along to get the work done to fix it.” Show notes: @ben_austen @KhalilGMuhammad Austen on Longform Muhammad on Longform 01:00 High-Risers: Cabrini-Green and the Fate of American Public Housing (Ben Austen • HarperCollins • 2019) 01:00 The Condemnation of Blackness: Race, Crime, and the Making of Modern Urban America (Khalil Gibran Muhammad • Harvard University

Casey Johnston is a journalist and editor who writes the column "Ask A Swole Woman," which now appears in her newsletter ”She's a Beast.” ”I feel more comfortable lately with a sort of beloved-local-restaurant level of success. What's nice about Substack is that we've come to this place that I hope lasts where we can have this sort of local restaurant relationship with writers, or I can have that with readers, where I don't have to be part of this big machine in order to do something that I really like.” Show notes: @caseyjohnston caseyjohnston.net She's A Beast newsletter Ask a Swole Woman at VICE 13:00 My 14-Hour Search for the End of TGI Friday's Endless Appetizers (Caity Weaver • Gawker • Jul 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mitchell S. Jackson is a journalist and author. His profile of Ahmaud Arbery, ”Twelve Minutes and a Life,” won the 2021 Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing. ”What is 'great'? 'Great' isn’t really sales, right? No one cares what James Baldwin sold. So: Are you doing the important work?” Show notes: @MitchSJackson mitchellsjackson.com Jackson on Longform 00:00 "Twelve Minutes and a Life" (Runner’s World • Jun 2020) 01:00 Pafko at the Wall (Don DeLillo • Scribner • 2001) 03:00 "Ahmaud Arbery’s Final Minutes: What Videos and 911 Calls Show" (Malachy Browne, Drew Jordan, Dmitriy Khavin and Ainara Tiefenthaler • New York Times • May 2020) 12:00 "We Went to Vegas to Wring Joy From Heartbreak" (New York Times Magazine • Sep 2021) 16:00 Survival Math (Scribner • 2020) 24:00 The Residue Years (Bloomsbury • 2014) 29:00 "Chuck Palahniuk, Tom Spanbauer Share Writing Secrets" (Jeff Baker • Oregonian • May 2014) 34:00 "When Michael B. Jordan Promises to Come Home, He Means It" (Esquire • Nov 2019) 36:00 "Chris R

Ben Smith is the media columnist for The New York Times. He was the founding editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News. ”I do think there's some kind of personality flaw deep in there of wanting to like, you know, find stuff out and tell people.... I'm not sure that's a totally sane or healthy personality trait, but it is definitely, for me, a personality trait…. I think that in political reporting, certainly, there's a kind of reporter who thinks that their job is basically to pull the masks off of these monsters. And I generally tend to think all these people—with some exceptions—are weird and complicated and often doing really awful things. But they aren't necessarily irredeemable or impossible to understand…. They're interesting.” Show notes: @benyt Smith on Longform Smith on Longform Podcast Smith's New York Times archive Smith's BuzzFeed News archive 04:00 "Goldman Sachs, Ozy Media and a $40 Million Conference Call Gone Wrong" (New York Times • Sept 2021) 11:00 "At Axel Springer, Politico’s New Owner, All

Jay Caspian Kang is a contributor at New York Times Magazine. His new book is The Loneliest Americans. ”I have a lot of thoughts and talk to people to make sure my thoughts are right, or change them because I think they're wrong. What more does one want out of an intellectual life? It's good work.” Show notes: @jaycaspiankang Kang on Longform Kang on Longform Podcast (Apr 2013) Kang on Longform Podcast (Aug 2017) Kang’s New York Times Magazine newsletter 5:00 "The High Is Always the Pain and the Pain Is Always the High" (The Morning News • Oct 2010) 12:00 "Bing Liu Sees Skateboarding as a Tool for Life" (New York Times Magazine • Jan 2019) 35:00 Time To Say Goodbye podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Mary Roach is the author of seven nonfiction books, including her latest, Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law. "In these realms of the taboo, there's a tremendous amount of material that is really interesting, but that people have stayed away from. ... I'm kind of a bottom feeder. It's down there on the bottom where people don't want to go. But if that's what it takes to find interesting, new material, I'm fine with it. I don't care. I'm not easily grossed out. I don't feel that there's any reason why we shouldn't look at this. And over time, I started to feel that ... the taboo was preventing people from having conversations that it would be healthy to have." Show notes: @mary_roach maryroach.net Roach on Longform 01:00 Fuzz: When Nature Breaks the Law (W.W. Norton • 2021) 01:00 Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (W.W. Norton • 2003) 01:00 Bonk: The Curious Coupling of Science and Sex (W.W. Norton • 2008) 01:00 Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void (W.W. Norton • 2010) 01:0

E. Alex Jung is a senior writer for Vulture and New York.  ”When I'm in that space, I try to be a sponge. I'll just absorb whatever's happening or going on, and I'll be down to do mostly anything. I was actually thinking recently about what my limits would be in a profile. I was like—heroin? I don't think I would do that.” Show notes: @e_alexjung Jung on Longform Jung's Vulture archive 4:00 "Come as You Are" (The Morning News • Apr 2012) 15:00 "Real Talk With RuPaul" (Vulture • Mar 2016) 18:00 "Bong Joon-ho’s Dystopia Is Already Here" (New York • Oct 2019) 24:00 "Michaela the Destroyer" (New York • Jul 2020) 26:00 "The Joke Was Never on Jennifer Coolidge" (Vulture • Jul 2021) 31:00 "Thandie Newton Is Finally Ready to Speak Her Mind" (Vulture • Jul 2020) 34:00 "The Only One" (Hilton Als • New Yorker • Nov 1994) 39:57 "Anthony Veasna So Knew He Was a Star" (Vulture • Aug 2021) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices