Podcast Episodes

Oliver Darcy Thinks the Media Doesn’t Get It. So He Built Status

One thing about the internet is that it lets you build really, really fast. A little more than a year ago, Oliver Darcy was an unemployed former CNN media reporter. Today he’s the proprietor of Statu…

Published on 2 months ago

Why Henry Blodget is Building Another Media Company

Henry Blodget can’t help himself. The Business Insider founder is starting another media business, knowing full well how difficult the industry can be. You can watch him build it in real time: Regene…

Published on 2 months, 1 week ago

ESPN boss Jimmy Pitaro on streaming, the NFL and sports betting

The media industry has been waiting for ESPN to cut the cord for a decade. Now it’s finally happening: This week the sports TV giant will let you start streaming — without a cable TV subscription — f…

Published on 2 months, 2 weeks ago

A Busy - and Expensive - Summer for AI, with NYT's Mike Isaac

What makes a particular engineer worth $250 million to Mark Zuckerberg?

What does Trump 2.0 mean — and not mean — to people building large language models?

I didn’t know the answers to these question…

Published on 2 months, 3 weeks ago

Why the Algorithm is Making Comedy Boom, Again

The last time I talked to Jesse David Fox about the comedy boom it was… March 5, 2020.

Since then, some things have changed. But in other ways it’s just the same: comedy - or at least, some kinds of …

Published on 2 months, 4 weeks ago

What is TV’s endgame?

A decade ago, Disney CEO Bob Iger freaked out the media industry by acknowledging something many of us saw coming —  his previously unassailable TV business was starting to erode.

But even with a 10-…

Published on 3 months ago

Why Trump is defunding NPR and PBS - and suing Rupert Murdoch

Reporting on the place you work is not fun. But it is an occupational hazard for media reporters — particularly for NPR’s David Folkenflik.

That’s because National Public Radio — along with Public Br…

Published on 3 months, 1 week ago

Inside the Rise and Fall of Condé Nast with Michael Grynbaum

Here's one way New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum described Condé Nast to me in this week’s chat: “A real exporter of American cultural influence in the late 20th century.” And here’s another o…

Published on 3 months, 2 weeks ago

Inside the NYT - and Everywhere Else - with Semafor's Max Tani

You’re probably a normal person, so you didn’t spend your holiday weekend talking to people at the New York Times about a local politics story that some people didn’t like.

But that’s Max Tani’s job:…

Published on 3 months, 3 weeks ago

Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker on the problem with tech - and people

"Black Mirror" creator Charlie Brooker knows that everyone thinks his show is about tech-fueled dystopias. But he says it's really about humans,  not their tools.

I loved this chat back when we recor…

Published on 4 months ago