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: He’s Semafor’s media reporter, which means he’s supposed to burrow into the paper of record — as well as other important media institutions — and tell you what’s going inside and why it actually matters.

So we spent a bunch of time in this chat talking about Tani’s story about a controversial-at-least-online Times story . In part because I find the whole thing fascinating (I’m not normal). And in part because it gives you a pretty good idea of what being a media reporter entails in 2025.

Also discussed here: When is something a tweet, and when is it a story? Why is this a “weird moment in media”? And why was 2024 the “fragmentation election?”

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