
Longform
Interviews with writers, journalists, filmmakers, and podcasters about how they do their work. Hosted by Aaron Lammer, Max Linsky, and Evan Ratliff.
Latest episodes

Sep 14, 2016 • 48min
Episode 211: Naomi Zeichner
Naomi Zeichner is editor-in-chief of The Fader.
“Right now in rap there’s kind of a huge tired idea that kids are trying to kill their idols, and kids have no respect for history, and kids are making bastardized crazy music, and how dare they? I just don’t even know why we still care about this false dichotomy. Kids are coming from where they come from, they’re going where they’re going. And it’s like, do you want to try to learn about where they’re coming from and where they’re going, or do you not?”
Thanks to MailChimp, Club W, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode.
@nomizeichner
Zeichner on Longform
[05:00] "Zayn Malik’s Next Direction" (Duncan Cooper • The Fader • Nov 2015)
[10:30] "Gucci Free" (Andrew Nosnitsky • The Fader • Jul 2016)
[17:00] "America Is Brutal and Meek Mill Is a Hero" (Will Stephenson • The Fader • May 2015)
[17:30] "Rae Sremmurd’s Best Life" (The Fader • Jun 2016)
[25:00] Young Thug on YouTube
[30:00] Flagpole
[32:45] "Yo-Yo Ma, The Silk Road Ensemble—Empire State of Mind" (YouTube)
[43:30] David Remnick on the Longform Podcast
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Sep 7, 2016 • 1h 18min
Episode 210: Ben Taub
Ben Taub is a contributing writer at The New Yorker.
“I don’t think it’s my place to be cynical because I’ve observed some of the horrors of the Syrian War through these various materials, but it’s Syrians that are living them. It’s Syrians that are being largely ignored by the international community and by a lot of political attention on ISIS. And I think that it wouldn’t be my place to be cynical when some of them still aren’t.”
Thanks to MailChimp, Audible, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode.
@bentaub91
Taub on Longform
[02:45] David Remnick on the Longform Podcast
[08:45] "Was U.S. Journalist Steven Sotloff a Marked Man?" (Daily Beast • Sep 2014)
[28:00] Taub on The Voice (YouTube)
[33:00] "Journey to Jihad" (New Yorker • Jun 2015)
[49:00] Rukmini Callimachi on the Longform Podcast (Part 1)
[49:00] Rukmini Callimachi on the Longform Podcast (Part 2)
[50:30] "The Shadow Doctors" (New Yorker • Jun 2016)
[50:30] "The Assad Files" (New Yorker • Apr 2016)
[52:00] "’They were torturing to kill’: inside Syria’s death machine" (Guardian • Oct 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 31, 2016 • 47min
Episode 209: Sarah Schweitzer
Sarah Schweitzer is a former feature writer for the Boston Globe.
“I just am drawn, I think, to the notion that we start out as these creatures that just want love and were programmed that way—to try to find it and to make our lives whole. We are, as humans, so strong in that way. We get knocked down, and adults do some horrible things to us because adults have had horrible things done to [them]. There are some terrible cycles in this world. But there’s always this opportunity to stop that cycle. And there are people who come along who do try that in their own flawed ways.”
Thanks to MailChimp and AlarmGrid for sponsoring this week's episode.
@SarahSchweitzer
Schweitzer on Longform
[2:45] With Her
[3:15] Pineapple Street Media
[4:45] "The life and times of Strider Wolf" (Boston Globe • Nov 2015)
[16:45] Random Family: Love, Drugs, Trouble, and Coming of Age in the Bronx (Adrian Nicole LeBlanc • Scribner • 2004)
[27:45] "Only a few tackle the trying times" (St. Petersburg Times • Oct 2000)
[32:45] "Chasing Bayla" (Boston Globe • Oct 2014)
[38:00] "Struggling town votes to end itself" (Boston Globe • Mar 2004) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 24, 2016 • 53min
Episode 208: Rachel Monroe
Rachel Monroe is a freelance writer based in Texas.
“I will totally go emotionally deep with people. If I can find a subject who is into that then it will probably be a good story. Whether that person is a victim of a crime, or a committer of a crime, or a woman who spends a lot of time on the internet looking for hoaxes, or whatever it may be—I guess I just think people are interesting. Particularly when those people have gone through some sort of extreme situation.”
Thanks to MailChimp, Club W, and Igloo for sponsoring this week's episode.
@rachmonroe
rachel-monroe.com
Monroe on Longform
[00:45] "Fire Behavior" (Oxford American • Apr 2014)
[01:00] Love and Ruin: Tales of Obsession, Danger, and Heartbreak from the Atavist Magazine (W.W. Norton & Company • 2016)
[04:45] "From Pickup Artist to Pariah" (New York • Jan 2016)
[15:45] "Evil Genius" (Pacific Standard • Sep 2015)
[18:15] "Have You Ever Thought About Killing Someone?" (Matter • Apr 2015)
[42:00] "Cancer Cons, Phoney Accidents and Fake Deaths: Meet the Internet Hoax Buster" (The Guardian • Feb 2016) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 19, 2016 • 41min
Episode 207: McKay Coppins
McKay Coppins is a senior political writer for Buzzfeed News and the author of The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House.
“I am part of the problem. Not in the sense that it’s my fault Trump ran, but in the sense that I’m one of many who for his entire life have mocked him and ridiculed him. He’s a billionaire—I don’t feel any moral guilt about it. But if being I’m honest with myself that same part of me can also, when not checked, be projected onto vast swathes of people. It’s easy to have a lazy classism about the type of people who would vote for Donald Trump.”
Thanks to MailChimp for sponsoring this week's episode.
Show Notes:
@mckaycoppins
McKay Coppins’ Buzzfeed Archive
[2:28] "A Mormon Reporter On The Romney Bus" (Buzzfeed • Nov 2012
[10:56] No Man Knows My History (Fawn M Brodie • Vintage • 1995)
[11:18] Rough Stone Rolling (Richard Lyman Bushman • Vintage • 2007)
[14:20] 36 Hours On The Fake Campaign Trail With Donald Trump(Buzzfeed • Feb 2014)
[25:40] The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party's Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House (Little, Brown • 2015)
[30:05] Donald Trump’s Mormon Problem (New York Times • Jun 2016)
[32:35] "Trump Campaign Rally Erupts In Chaos And Ugly Confrontation " (Buzzfeed • Dec 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 17, 2016 • 57min
Episode 206: Gabriel Sherman
Gabriel Sherman is the national affairs editor at New York and the author of the New York Times best-seller The Loudest Voice in the Room: How the Brilliant, Bombastic Roger Ailes Built Fox News—and Divided a Country.
“There was a time when we got death threats at home. Some crank called and said, ‘We’re gonna come after you. You’re coming after the right, we’re gonna get you.’ That was scary because, again, you don’t know if it’s just a crank when you have right wing websites that are turning you into a target. You know, it’s one thing if they do it with a politician. They have security or handlers—I don’t have any of that.”
Thanks to MailChimp and Audible for sponsoring this week's episode. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 12, 2016 • 54min
Special 'Love and Ruin' Reissue: Jon Mooallem
Jon Mooallem is the author of "American Hippopotamus," a story included in Love and Ruin, the new Atavist Magazine collection. Buy your copy today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 10, 2016 • 1h 7min
Episode 205: Ezra Klein
Ezra Klein the editor-in-chief of Vox.
“I think that if any of these big players collapse, when their obits are written, it’ll be because they did too much. I’m not saying I think any of them in particular are doing too much. But I do think, when I look around and I think, ‘What is the danger here? What is the danger for Vox?’ I think it is losing too much focus because you’re trying to do too many things.”
Thanks to MailChimp, Casper, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode.
@ezraklein
Klein on Longform
Vox
[01:00] The Ezra Klein Show
[2:00] The Weeds
[2:45] Ezra Klein’s Blog
[5:00] "Jesse Eisenberg on Jewish humor, writing lessons, and interrogating strangers" (The Ezra Klein Show • Jun 2016)
[8:45] Videos on Vox
[11:15] Wonkblog
[16:00] "If you are losing faith in human nature, go out and watch a marathon" (Washington Post • Apr 2013)
[21:30] Matthew Yglesias’s Blog
[23:45] What It Takes: The Way to the White House (Richard Ben Cramer • Vintage Books • 1993)
[25:15] Ezra Klein’s Washington Monthly Archive
[26:30] Ezra Klein’s American Prospect Archive
[34:15] "Top Wonkblog Columnist to Leave Washington Post" (Ravi Somaiya • New York Times • Jan 2014)
[49:15] The Verge
[49:15] Eater
[49:15] SB Nation
[49:15] Polygon
[49:15] Curbed
[49:15] Recode
[49:15] Racked
[1:00:30] Card Stacks on Vox
[1:03:00] Ezra Klein’s New Yorker Archive Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Aug 3, 2016 • 53min
Episode 204: Malcolm Gladwell
Malcolm Gladwell is a staff writer at The New Yorker. His new podcast is Revisionist History.
“The amount of criticism you get is a constant function of the size of your audience. So if you think that, generously speaking, 80% of the people who read your work like it, that means if you sell ten books you have two enemies. And if you sell a million books you have 200,000 enemies. So be careful what you wish for. The volume of critics grows linearly with the size of your audience.”
Thanks to MailChimp, Audible, and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode.
@Gladwell
Gladwell.com
Gladwell on Longform
[00:15] Malcolm Gladwell on the Longform Podcast
[00:15] Revisionist History
[08:30] "Episode 01: The Lady Vanishes" (Revisionist History • Jun 2016)
[08:30] "Episode 03: The Big Man Can’t Shoot" (Revisionist History • Jun 2016)
[08:30] "Episode 02: Saigon, 1965" (Revisionist History • Jun 2016)
[10:30] "Hulk Hogan v. Gawker: A Guide to the Trial for the Perplexed" (The New York Times • Mar 2016)
[19:30] "Episode 06: My Little Hundred Million" (Revisionist History • Jul 2016)
[23:45] "Malcolm Gladwell just went nuts on a Wall Street billionaire’s $400 million donation to Harvard" (Business Insider • Jun 2015)
[28:45] Gladwell on Audible
[31:45] "Episode 05: Food Fight" (Revisionist History • Jul 2016)
[32:30] "Episode 04: Carlos Doesn’t Remember" (Revisionist History • Jul 2016)
[32:45] Nikole Hannah-Jones on the Longform Podcast
[37:45] "Thresholds of Violence" (New Yorker • Oct 2015)
[38:30] "Threshold Models of Collective Behavior" (American Journal of Sociology • May 1978)
[43:30] The Weeds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Jul 27, 2016 • 34min
Episode 203: Ellis Jones
Ellis Jones is the editor-in-chief of VICE Magazine.
“I’m just not an edgy person. You know what I mean? I think I am a nice person. I think VICE Magazine reflects the qualities that I want to have or think that I have or that my team has. The magazine would be terrible if I tried to make edgy content ... people would just see right through it. It wouldn’t be good.
Thanks to MailChimp and EveryLibrary for sponsoring this week's episode.
@ellisjones
[00:15] "RNC 2016" (Justin Peters • Atavist Magazine • Jul 2016)
[6:45] Balls Deep (VICELAND • 2016)
[15:15] Motherboard
[17:45] "Inside the Unregulated Chinese Hospitals That Make Men Impotent" (R.W. McMorrow • VICE Magazine • May 2016)
[21:00] VICE (HBO • 2016)
[21:00] VICE News
[21:15] Dos & Don’ts Archive at VICE
[22:00] "Is Vice Getting Nice?" (Carrie Battan • New York • Apr 2015)
[25:45] The Prison Issue (VICE Magazine • 2015)
[26:15] "How the Killing of a Trans Filipina Woman Ignited an International Incident" (Meredith Talusan • VICE Magazine • Feb 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices