Longform

Jack Shafer covers the media for Politico. “This is a true story, not a ‘Brian Williams story’: my first report card said ‘Jack is a very good student, but he has a tendency to start fights on the playground and bring them back into the classroom.’ That's been my career style — start a fight and bring it back to the classroom.” Thanks to TinyLetter and Lynda for sponsoring this week's episode. If you would like to support the show, please leave a review on iTunes. Show Notes: Show Notes: @jackshafer jackshafer.com Shafer on Longform [2:00] "Why Did Brian Williams Lie?" (Politico • Feb 2015) [2:00] "Brian Williams’ Slow Jam" (Politico • Feb 2015) [18:00] aol.com: How Steve Case Beat Bill Gates, Nailed the Netheads, and Made Millions in the War for the Web (Kara Swisher • Crown Business • 1998) [21:00] Shafer’s archive on Slate [34:00] "The Trial of Stephen Glass" (Reuters • Dec 2011) [37:00] "'I Would Have Loved To Piss on Your Shoes'" (Slate • Jun 2011) [37:00] "'I Would Have Loved To Piss on Your Shoes,' Part 2" (Slate • Jun 2011) [42:00] "The Making of a Suspect: The Case of Wen Ho Lee" (Matthew Purdy • The New York Times • Feb 2001) [46:00] "House to Probe White House Role in FCC’s ‘Net Neutrality’ Proposal" (Gautham Nagesh and Siobhan Hughes • The Wall Street Journal • Feb 2015) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Molly Crabapple is an artist and writer. She is a columnist for VICE and her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Paris Review and Vanity Fair. “As long as the marginalized communities I’m writing about don’t think I’m full of shit, that’s success to me.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Squarespace and Lynda for sponsoring this week's episode. If you would like to support the show, please leave a review on iTunes. Show Notes: @mollycrabapple mollycrabapple.com mollycrabapple.tumblr.com [1:00] "Love and Ruin" (James Verini • The Atavist • Feb 2014) [1:00] "Slaves of Happiness Island" (VICE • Aug 2014) [10:00] Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec [16:00] "My Arrest at Occupy Wall Street" (CNN • Sep 2012) [19:00] "It Don’t Gitmo Better Than This" (VICE • Jul 2013) [24:00] Let Us Now Praise Famous Men (James Agee and Walker Evans • Houghton Mifflin Harcourt • 1941) [25:00] Discordia: Six Nights in Crisis Athens (with Laurie Penny • Vintage Digital • 2012) [30:00] "Caught Between ISIS and Assad" (VICE • Jun 2014) [36:00] "I Confronted Donald Trump in Dubai" (VICE • Jun 2014) [39:00] "Special Prostitution Courts and the Myth of 'Rescuing' Sex Workers" (VICE • Jan 2015) [45:00] "Talking About My Abortion" (VICE • Apr 2013) [48:00] "The World of a Professional Naked Girl" (VICE • Oct 2012) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Taffy Brodesser-Akner is a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and GQ. “My writing career was something that was always about to happen, just as soon as the baby falls asleep, just as soon as I finish watching this five-hour bout of As the World Turns, just as soon as... What do you do when you realize that you have not been doing the thing you were going to do? You're in your 30s. You get to work.” Thanks to TinyLetter and Lynda for sponsoring this week's episode. If you would like to support the show, please leave a review on iTunes. Show Notes: @taffyakner taffyakner.com Brodesser-Akner on Longform [20:00] "The Trials of a Chubby Yogi" (Self • Oct 2011) [26:00] "Who Controls Childbirth" (Self • Jul 2010) [31:00] "Who's Killing the Soaps?" (The Daily Beast • Dec 2009) [33:00] "Nicky Minaj: Cheeky Genius" (GQ • Nov 2014) [34:00] "2 Generations of Comedy Musicians Meet!: Weird Al Yankovic and The Lonely Island" (GQ • May 2013) [44:00] "Girls Fight Out" (Matter • Dec 2014) [46:00] "The Leftovers" (Matter • Sep 2014) [46:00] "Miss American Dream" (Matter • Jun 2014) [47:00] "The Chelsea Hotel Had Its Own Eloise" (New York Times Magazine • Jul 2013) [47:00] "Zosia Mamet Is Still Getting Used to Being Your New Best Friend" (New York Times Magazine • Jan 2013) [51:00] "The Tragedy of Britney Spears" (Vanessa Grigoriadis • Rolling Stone • Feb 2008) [51:00] "Don't Go Away Mad" (Grantland • Jun 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Anand Gopal has written for The Wall Street Journal, Harper’s and Foreign Policy. He’s the author of No Good Men Among the Living: America, the Taliban, and the War Through Afghan Eyes. “When I got to the Taliban, I got out my notebook and tried to ask the hard-hitting questions. ‘What are you fighting for? Why are you doing this? What’s happening with the civilians you’re killing?’ And of course you do that and you get boilerplate answers and icy stares. So I just started asking them questions about their childhood. ... People love to talk about themselves and he began to open up and very subtly something shifted and it no longer became about the war and America versus the Taliban, it became about him being an Afghan and his experience.” Thanks to TinyLetter and Lynda for sponsoring this week's episode. If you would like to support the show, please leave a review on iTunes. Show Notes: @Anand_Gopal_ anandgopal.com [9:00] Longform Podcast #1: Matthieu Aikins [12:00] "Ousted By Iran, Afghan Refugees Languish At Home" (Inter Press Service • Feb 2008) [18:00] "Kandahar’s Mystery Executions" (Harper’s • Sep 2014) [19:00] No Good Men Among the Living (Metropolitan Books • 2014) [28:00] "Welcome to Free Syria" (Harper’s • Aug 2012) [28:00] "Decoding the Syrian Propaganda War" (Harper’s • Aug 2012) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Alex Blumberg is a former producer for This American Life and Planet Money. Last year he founded Gimlet Media, a podcast network, and hosts its first show, StartUp. “When someone starts talking about something difficult, when they get unexpectedly emotional, your normal human reaction is to sort of comfort and steer away. To say, ‘Oh I’m sorry, let’s move on.’ What you need to do, if you want good tape, is to say, ‘Talk more about how you’re feeling right now.’ It feels like a horrible question to ask. It feels like you're going against your every instinct as a decent human being to go toward the pain that this person is experiencing.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Lynda and Alarm Grid for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @abexlumberg gimletmedia.com Blumberg’s archive on This American Life [2:00] Longform on Reply All #7: This Website Is For Sale [2:00] Longform Podcast #23: Starlee Kine [4:00] "Company Eight" (Matthew Pearl • The Atavist • Jan 2015) [20:00] "91: 33 Million Dollar Box" (This American Life • Jan 1998) [20:00] "115: First DayFirst Day" (This American Life • Nov 1998) [27:00] "236: Stock Making Sense" (This American Life • Apr 2003) [30:00] "355: The Giant Pool of Money" (This American Life • May 2008) [34:00] "365: The Day The Market Died" (This American Life • Oct 2008) [36:00] StartUp Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Nicholas Carlson writes for Business Insider. His book Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo! came out this week. “To me people are what’s really interesting. Marissa Mayer is a once in a lifetime subject. She’s full of contradictions. … There are a million business stories, but if you don’t have that character at the center then you’re lost.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Lynda and Squarespace for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @nichcarlson Carlson on Longform [6:00] Longform Podcast #81: Kevin Roose [13:00] "What Happened When Marissa Mayer Tried to Be Steve Jobs" (New York Times Magazine • Dec 2014) [16:00] "Viacom Takes Google, YouTube Fight to Court" (InternetNews.com • Mar 2007) [18:00] Disney War (James B. Stewart • Simon & Schuster • 2005) [19:00] Longform Podcast #19: Choire Sicha [23:00] Longform Podcast #88: Sam Biddle [23:00] Carlson’s archive on Valleywag [33:00] "Google Gave Employees This Smartwatch As A Holiday Gift, And Some Of Them Are Whining About It" (Business Insider • Dec 2014) [34:00] Marissa Mayer and the Fight to Save Yahoo! (Twelve • 2015) [38:00] Googled: The End of the World As We Know It (Ken Auletta • Penguin Press • 2008) [48:00] "The Story Behind Why AOL CEO Tim Armstrong Fired An Employee In Front Of 1,000 Coworkers" (Business Insider • Nov 2013) [48:00] "This Man Was Supposed To Become Steve Jobs 2.0 — Here’s What Happened Instead" (Business Insider • Nov 2014) [54:00] "The Untold Story Of Larry Page's Incredible Comeback" (Business Insider • Apr 2014) [1:01:00] "Hacks Into Hackers" (The New York Times • Sep 2010) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Dan P. Lee is a contributing writer at New York. "I don't believe in answers. That's what compels me to write all of these stories. None of them ends nicely, none of them ends neatly." Thanks to TinyLetter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show notes: @Dan_P_Lee Lee on Longform Lee's New York archive [13:30] "Who Killed Ellen Andros?" (Philadelphia Magazine • Oct 2006) [22:45] "Travis the Menace" (New York • Jan 2011) [45:00] "Paw Paw & Lady Love" (New York • Jun 2011) [48:45] "4:52 on Christmas Morning" (New York • Dec 2012) [49:15] "The Camera's Cusp" (New York • Sep 2013) [49:15] "Where It Hurts" (New York • Dec 2013) [51:30] "The Good Seed" (GQ • Jun 2011) [55:30] "'I Just Want to Feel Everything'" (New York • Jun 2012) [1:04:00] "Welcome to the Real Space Age" (New York • May 2013) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Evan Wright, a two-time National Magazine Award winner, is the author of Generation Kill. "When people were killed, civilians especially, I realized I was the only person there who would write it down. I was frantic about getting names, and in the book there are a few Arabic names, some of the victims. Not that anyone cares. But I thought, 'At least somewhere there's a record of this.'" Thanks to our sponsor, TinyLetter. Show notes: @evanscribe Wright on Longform [3:45] Generation Kill (2004) [10:00] "Scenes From My Life in Porn" (L.A. Weekly • Mar 2000) [12:15] A.J. Liebling’s New Yorker archive [14:15] "Big Red Son" (David Foster Wallace • Consider the Lobster • 1998) [pdf] [16:30] Every Love Story Is a Ghost Story: A Life of David Foster Wallace (D.T. Max • 2012) [18:15] Hella Nation: Looking for Happy Meals in Kandahar, Rocking the Side Pipe,Wingnut's War Against the Gap, and Other Adventures with the Totally Lost Tribes of America (2009) [28:00] "The Killer Elite" (Rolling Stone • Jul 2003) [30:30] Longform Podcast #64: Gay Talese [33:30] Wikipedia: Christopher Isherwhood [39:30] Karl Taro Greenfield on Longform [48:30] "Pat Dollard's War on Hollywood" (Vanity Fair • Mar 2007) [57:00] American Desperado: My Life—From Mafia Soldier to Cocaine Cowboy to Secret Government Asset (with Jon Roberts • 2011) [1:00:00] How to Get Away with Murder in America: Drug Lords, Dirty Pols, Obsessed Cops, and the Quiet Man Who Became the CIA's Master Killer (Kindle Single • 2012) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hanna Rosin is a senior editor at The Atlantic and a founder and editor at DoubleX. “I often think of reporting as dating, or even speed dating. You’re looking for someone where there’s a spark there between you and them. Sometimes that happens right away and sometimes it takes forever. ... You have to determine if they're reflective, friendly, open. It could be love at first sight and they're still all wrong, which is really heartbreaking.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Bonobos and The Los Angeles Times' Bookshelf Newsletter for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @HannaRosin hannarosin.com Rosin on Longform [1:00] "Murder by Craigslist" (The Atlantic • Aug 2013) [1:00] "Hello, My Name Is Stephen Glass, and I’m Sorry" (The New Republic • Nov 2014) [7:00] The End of Men: And the Rise of Women (Riverhead Books • 2012) [18:00] The Executioner's Song (Norman Mailer • Little, Brown • 1979) [18:00] "The Evil Empire: The Scoop on Ben & Jerry's Crunchy Capitalism" (The New Republic • Sep 1995) [23:00] "The New Republic: An Appreciation" (Ta-Nehisi Coates • The Atlantic • Dec 2014) [25:00] "Who Shot Johnny?" (Debra Dickerson • The New Republic • 1996) [pdf] [31:00] "A Boy's Life" (The Atlantic • Nov 2008) [38:00] "The Case Against Breast-Feeding" (The Atlantic • Apr 2009) [41:00] "The Vanishing Male Worker: How America Fell Behind" (Binyamin Appelbaum • The New York Times • Dec 2014) [42:00] "The End of Men" (The Atlantic • Jul 2010) [43:00] "By Noon They'd Both Be in Heaven" (New York • Oct 2014) [46:00] "Why Kids Sext" (The Atlantic • Oct 2014) [49:00] "The Missing Men" (with Allison Benedikt • Slate • Dec 2014) [49:00] Sabrina Rubin Erdely on DoubleX Gabfest (with June Thomas and Katy Waldman • Slate • Nov 2014) [49:00] "Blame Rolling Stone" (Slate • Dec 2014) [49:00] "DoubleX Gabfest: The Aftermath of Rolling Stone Edition" (with Noreen Malone and June Thomas • Slate • Dec 2014) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Meghan Daum's latest book of essays is The Unspeakable. “As writers we think, well there has to be closure, there has to be a beginning middle end, the character has to go through a change. And then in life we're supposed to have some sort of arc or aha moment, as if the experience isn't legitimate unless we get something out of it. That's so culturally constructed, as they say. It's so artificial.” Thanks to TinyLetter, Scribd, and Oscar for sponsoring this week's episode. Show Notes: @meghan_daum meghandaum.com Daum on Longform [1:00] The Unspeakable (Farrar, Straus and Giroux • 2014) [1:00] "My Misspent Youth" (New Yorker • Oct 1999) [18:00] "All About My Mother" (The Guardian • Nov 2014) [35:00] Daum’s archive of Los Angeles Times columns [38:00] My Misspent Youth (Open City Books • 2001) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices