The Kicker

Eugene Daniels is a White House reporter for Politico, with a special focus on Kamala Harris. That’s put him front and center for a month of news that few people in politics saw coming.On this episode of The Kicker, Daniels shares what he’s learned from nearly four years of covering the vice president, how her relationship with the press will differ from the president’s, and why you can’t blame the media for Biden’s decision to drop out of the race.Produced by Emily RussellHosted by Josh Hersh

Lorena Lopez came to the United States from her home country of Nicaragua, where she was an investigative reporter, in 1992. But it wasn’t until 2016 that she managed to return to her passion, as the founding editor of La Prensa, a Spanish-language newspaper serving Western Iowa.On this week’s Kicker, Lopez talks about her long journey back to journalism, why reliable, trusted information available for Spanish-speaking Americans is so hard to come by—and why so many of her readers are leaning towards voting for Donald Trump.You can read more about Lopez’s work in Jack Herrera’s profile, which was part of CJR’s Election Issue. (A Spanish-language version of the article is available here.)Hosted by Josh HershProduced by Amanda DarrachResearch by Kevin LindEpisode Website

Alex Thompson, a national political correspondent for Axios, first reported that President Biden had started wearing special sneakers, in part to reduce the risk of tripping, last fall.But until the debate last week, he was still one of a small handful of reporters who was aggressively pursuing direct evidence that Biden’s age – regular fodder for political talk shows – was actually having an impact.He joins the Kicker to talk about what it’s like to do that kind of journalism, how the White House pushed back, and why so many people had a hard time accepting what was happening in front of their eyes.Read Alex’s report from last fall about concerns inside the White House about Biden losing his footing.And his coverage after the debate, when he revealed why the White House limited Biden’s public engagements before 10am and after 4pm.The Wall Street Journal’s months-long investigation into signs of Biden’s mental decline, from early June, is here.Hosted by Josh HershProduced by Amanda DarrachResearch by Kevin LindEpisode Website

Paul Farhi was a media reporter for the Washington Post until the end of last year. But instead of retiring, he’s been busier than ever, chronicling the seemingly endless stream of bad news stories about the media business, for outlets like The Atlantic and here at CJR.He joins The Kicker to talk about traditional journalism’s struggles to stay relevant amid the boundless other means companies and high-profile individuals have to communicate with the public—and the growing number of people who say they avoid the news entirely.You can read more about journalism’s apathy problem in CJR’s Election Issue here.And read Farhi’s reporting on how some companies no longer feel the need to give any comment to a reporter, even when they think the story is wrong.Hosted by Josh HershProduced by Amanda DarrachResearch by Kevin LindEpisode Website

Steve Herman was the White House correspondent for Voice of America during the Trump administration. He joins The Kicker to talk about his new book on what it was like to cover a deeply unpredictable president—and why he believes it’s essential, even under extreme circumstances, for reporters to stay out of the political fray.This podcast is part of “Covering the Election,” CJR’s spring special issue on news and politics in 2024. Read the whole issue here.You can find Herman’s Behind the White House Curtain here.Project 2025, the Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for a second Trump term, includes a chapter on remaking VOA.Hosted by Josh HershProduced by Amanda DarrachResearch by Kevin Lind

Haaretz is one of Israel’s most respected newspapers. It’s also one of the few willing to openly criticize the government for its treatment of Palestinians. The Kicker speaks with Hagar Shezaf and Omer Benjakob, two journalists with the paper, about what it’s like to do accountability journalism in Israel these days—especially in the aftermath of the devastating Hamas attacks of October 7th. Read more:Hagar Shezaf on violence against Palestinians in the West Bank since October 7And on the prison camp at Sde TeimanOmer Benjakob on Israeli influence operations against Hamas and UNRWA

Jelani Cobb is the Dean of the Columbia Journalism School. He is also a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine. For much of the past few weeks, he has been enmeshed in Columbia University’s efforts to grapple with a protest movement on campus over the war in Gaza – one that culminated in the takeover of a building, and finally, on Tuesday, April 30th, a police raid.The Kicker talks to Cobb about the role the Journalism School played throughout the crisis, including facilitating press access to campus after a lockdown was imposed, and supporting the work of student journalists, who were the only ones left on campus to document the police raid as it unfolded.Read CJR on the work of the Columbia Spectator, the undergrad student newspaper: https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/interview_editors_columbia_spectator_campus_protest.php

This week, host Josh Hersh dives into the world of documentary news. Amel Guettatfi and Julia Steers just won the Polk Award for Inside Wagner, their hourlong Vice News documentary on the Wagner Group—Vladimir Putin’s private army of militiamen. They discuss their unprecedented access to a military training operation in the Central African Republic, the unique challenges of doing this kind of reporting on film, and why, sometimes, video is the only way to tell the story. Show NotesInside Wagner: The Rise of Russia's Notorious Mercenaries, Amel Guettatfi and Julia Steers, Vice Newsbit.ly/3UtURmh

In recent years, numerous beloved sports news institutions have been shut down, or dramatically reduced their operations, while digital shows hosted by professional sportspeople, current and retired, have become ubiquitous, Meanwhile, traditional sports journalism—particularly of the type that asks uncomfortable questions of what is, ultimately, a huge and powerful business—has been in decline. Last year, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, an HBO show that mixed softer features with hard-nosed investigative journalism, wrapped its final season after twenty-nine years on air. Josh Fine was an investigative producer at Real Sports for seventeen years. He has some ideas on how sports journalism can revive itself. Host: Josh HershProducer: Amanda DarrachShow Notes:Can sports journalism survive in the era of the athlete? by Josh Hersh for CJR

News of stubborn inflation, increasing unemployment, and the housing crisis dominate headlines of late. Alissa Quart is trying to improve that reportage, in content and form. Quart is the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, which challenges traditional narratives of economic class and issues through funding original reporting, done by independent journalists from diverse economic backgrounds. Quart explains to Kyle Pope, Columbia Journalism Review’s editor and publisher, how this helps dismantle the “American myth” of self-reliance — the subject of her latest book, Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream. In the interview, Quart and Pope discuss how the media’s reliance on this myth impacts electoral politics and what solutions exist. Quart suggests changing language standards, expanding recruiting criteria for newsrooms, and even reimagining news sections.