
The Kicker
The Kicker is a podcast on the media and the world today. It comes out twice a month, hosted by Josh Hersh and produced by Amanda Darrach for the Columbia Journalism Review. It is available wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Latest episodes

May 16, 2019 • 22min
Journalist Anat Kamm on life after being sentenced for leaking
On this week’s episode, CJR Editor and Publisher Kyle Pope speaks with Israeli journalist Anat Kamm. She supplied the newspaper Haaretz with secret documents, and has accused it of giving her up to the authorities under questioning. Israeli courts sentenced her to years in prison for leaking classified documents. She has just won a lawsuit which she says will help other sources in Israel in the future.

May 9, 2019 • 19min
International press access in Venezuela
On this week’s episode, CJR Editor and Publisher Kyle Pope speaks with Nick Paton Walsh, senior international correspondent for CNN. Paton Walsh has reported extensively from Venezuela in recent months amid the country’s ongoing political crisis. Last week, in Caracas, he investigated the aftermath of the violence that resulted from the opposition’s attempted uprising against the government of President Nicolás Maduro. Broadcasted images of the violence--including a scene in which military vehicles plowed down opposition protesters--caused the government to block feeds to CNN and the BBC on Venezuela’s cable television carriers.

May 2, 2019 • 22min
Covering the Green New Deal
THIS WEEK, CJR and The Nation gathered some of the world’s top journalists, scientists, and climate experts for a conference to explore how the press can do a better job covering climate change.The second panel of the day, :A TV Case Study Covering the Green New Deal” was moderated by CJR Editor and Publisher Kyle Pope and featured Chris Hayes, MSNBC; Katrina vanden Heuvel, The Nation; Naomi Klein, author and activist; Carlos Maza, Vox; Justin Worland, Time.

Apr 25, 2019 • 20min
Pulitzer winner Darrin Bell—‘In a tyrannical kingdom, only the jester can tell the truth’
On this week’s episode, CJR Editor and Publisher Kyle Pope speaks with freelance cartoonist Darrin Bell, who won the 2019 Pulitzer Prize for Editorial Cartooning for his “beautiful and daring editorial cartoons that took on issues affecting disenfranchised communities, calling out lies, hypocrisy and fraud in the political turmoil surrounding the Trump administration.” Bell, who is the first African American artist to win the prize, discusses the importance of editorial cartoons in a political crisis.

Apr 18, 2019 • 20min
Podcast: In conversation with 2019 Pulitzer Prize winner Susanne Craig
ON THIS WEEK’S EPISODE, CJR Editor and Publisher Kyle Pope speaks with Susanne Craig, an investigative reporter for The New York Times, about her work in the Pulitzer Prize–winning investigation that questioned Trump’s claim that he is a self-made billionaire. The investigative piece, which is 15,000 words long and took 18 months to complete, is the work of Craig, David Barstow, and Russ Buettner.

Apr 11, 2019 • 21min
An editor murdered in Kashmir signals the erosion of press freedom
On this week’s episode, CJR Editor and Publisher Kyle Pope speaks with Aliya Iftikhar, Asia research associate for the Committee to Protect Journalists. As elections in India begin, Iftikhar discusses her investigation of Rising Kashmir Editor Shujaat Bukhari’s unsolved assassination. Amid the rise of Hindu nationalism and the recent erosion of democratic values in India, the media has been left to fend for itself.

Apr 4, 2019 • 19min
Podcast: In conversation with Susan Smith Richardson from the Center for Public Integrity
ON THIS WEEK’S EPISODE, CJR Editor and Publisher Kyle Pope speaks with Susan Smith Richardson who has been appointed as the new chief executive of Center for Public Integrity. She will be the first African American to head the nonprofit investigative journalism outlet. They talked about diversifying newsrooms, covering the 2020 elections, and the historic mayoral win in Chicago.

Mar 28, 2019 • 18min
Mueller, Barr, and what journalism can do when the judicial system fails us
ON THIS WEEK’S EPISODE, Managing Editor Betsy Morais and Digital Editor Nausicaa Renner discuss the backlash against journalism in the wake of the Mueller report’s delivery to Attorney General William Barr, and why justice in journalism fills the void between our judicial system and the court of public opinion.

Mar 21, 2019 • 16min
Podcast: Clerk who took over for racist Ala. editor speaks
Podcast: Clerk who took over for racist Ala. editor speaks by Columbia Journalism Review

Mar 14, 2019 • 25min
Podcast: Adam Moss and David Haskell on the transfer of power at New York
ON THIS WEEK’S EPISODE, outgoing Editor in Chief of New York Adam Moss and his successor David Haskell interview one another. They talk pitches, the art of the edit, and how they find the balance between magazine and newsroom. They were speaking at the Delacorte Lecture Series at Columbia Graduate School of Journalism.