So I'm contemplating trying to do some podcast interviews as part of the Atlantic's ever-growing commitment to multimedia. Basically, I'd talk to someone, record the conversation, and then you could listen to us talking. Is that something there'd be any interest in? Are there (plausible) interview candidates you'd be interested in hearing from?
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Won't You Be My Podcast?
08 Feb 2008 12:45 pm
Comments (90)
Megan interviews economic advisors, why don't you interview foreign policy advisors.
Then again, I don't think the Clinton people would be too warm to that idea.
It's hard to say without a better idea of what's "plausible." I'm not terribly interested in "Yglesias interviews Brad DeLong." On the other hand, "Yglesias hangs out with Zizek" might be fairly awesome.
Mike Gravel?
Spence Ackerman
Multimedia without a Table-esque head turn just isn't the same.
But if you're hell bent on doing this, I think there's a sizeable audience here, myself included, for an interview with Petey - if you can find him.
Why don't you interview the Iraqi ambassador to the U.S.? I'm curious what his response would be to your proposal that we withdraw all troops from Iraq, whatever the consequences.
Bill Simmons.
He's doing the same thing now, plus you guys are the only two people left on Earth who actually care about the NBA. It's a match made in heaven.
perhaps interview an african american academic or journalist who critiques obama from the left.
Andray Blatche. Or Ivo Daalder.
Could work. Make sure that it's set up for iTunes subscription. As per others here, don't overinterview 'top bloggers' (with exception of Petey).
Are there (plausible) interview candidates you'd be interested in hearing from?
Meeeeeeeeee! j/k - if you can't get that high profile an interviewee, howabout Gilbert Arenas?
Oh, you're probably thinking politics. Let me put it this way - no politicians. Matthew interviews Chuck Schumer would be death (I don't know which bloggers' podcasts you listen to - the only one I listen to are Instapundit's, and "Glenn and Helen interview the candidates" really was terrible.) I think candidates' advisors spouting the candidate's policy positions would also suck. That should narrow the potential field down to 299,998,000 people, not including foreigners.
Agent Zero yes. Ezra Klein no.
I second Simmons. Maybe a podcast crossover, you on the B.S Report talking NBA, and him on your podcast talking politics.
Art De Vaney, but confine the topics to nutrition, sports, and Hollywood (I don't think you want his political opinions, but maybe that's just me). I think it'd be a real hoot.
Malcolm Gladwell
Bill Clinton (those folks should be actively seeking out opportunities to address young, web-savvy liberals).
Actually I want you to interview Don Williams.Or at least let him rant for an hour or so. Please.
I second the Zizek idea, esp. since Matt is probably slightly allergic to some of Zizek's antecedents, such as Lacan and Heidegger.
Plus you could definitely talk movies with him, and maybe even basketball.
Also, an interview with David Simon would be good, if that counts as "plausible."
Jesse Ventura? Ralph Nader? Gary Johnson? Other people with views that differ slightly from their own group's orthodoxy.
I'd listen to a podcast similar to the one Sports Guy posts but politics-based with a sprinkling of pop culure and sports...so long as it's kept light and relatively funny. Maybe have a couple recurring segments with a well informed colleague (Sullivan?), a politico inverview (Carville-esque?) and maybe some rants or insight about life in DC.
Social scientists generally, particularly those with recently published interesting articles that have otherwise flown under the radar.
God please don't talk to Simmons.
How about trying a legit version of better know a district? You could talk to legislative staff, or if lucky actual congresspersons, from all the districts.
I think you should interview Osama Bin Laden. Ask him what he thinks of George W and the Presidential candidates.
You're a pussy if you don't.
There's this progressive education reform expert who I think has some interesting things to say - Sara Mead. You should look her up and introduce yourself; you two might have some interesting conversations.
The FreeDarko guys.
Jamie Kirchick?
Basically, I'd talk to someone, record the conversation, and then you could listen to us talking. Is that something there'd be any interest in?
Not from me. I don't much care for Blogging Heads either.
Not other bloggers....
Zbignew. Tom Oliphant. Maybe Mark Shields or Jack Germond. I'm a sucker for PBS/News Hour guest list.
Speaking of which, how about MacNeil and Lehrer combo interview? Just make sure Lehrer says "Missouri".
I'd encourage you to use media for what it does well. Not just "to use it"...
Interviews, where inflection can be important, comedy as the fellow stated above can be uniquely approached ...
Audio/video tends towards a bit less reflection... Reading allows one to absorb what's written at one's own pace ...
just thinking...
Petey
Ben Barber and Joshua Cohen.
The more suggestions:
1) Obama's Afrocentric preacher.
2) Obama's physicist half-brother.
3) The Atlantic's Sandra Tsing Loh. She's funny, and her column about public education (she actually has kids in an L.A. public school) in the current magazine was great. She offers an antidote to some of the tired lamentations on the left, and also the monochromatic liberal simplifications about race.
PS
If you can not only interview Osama Bin Laden, but also get him to endorse McCain ON VIDEO, then I will concede that you are a demigod.
Maybe even a "political operative". Although the accolade would sound better coming from Mixner.
David Orr.
David Cole and Samantha Power
I'll second the Petey nomination.
I second Chris' suggestion. Steel cage death match with Kirchik, recorded and uploaded to the Atlantic's site.
I second SoCalJustice, jay and (gulp) Al. Don't do interviews with people who are bound by the demands of their position to just feed you spin - which nixes anyone working for a campaign or a congressional office (sorry, crack). Get people who will tell you what they really think. Malcolm Gladwell always has interesting things to say, but he gets a comparatively large amount of media exposure - the trick here is to get people (1) we otherwise wouldn't hear from, and who will be (2) completely open, (3) honest, (4) interesting, and (5) insightful. Since people who meet all those criteria are in short supply, I don't think we should limit this to folks in certain fields - I say interview anybody who meets all 5 conditions, from whatever walk of life. Say, that British guy who was on Colbert last week, except that Colbert basically talked all over him and didn't let him get a word in edgewise.
This is a wonderful idea. I will listed to each and every one of your podcasts.
Some possible - and plausible - people you could interview:
[1] Any of the writers on the Daily Show (I hear a settlement is imminent).
[2] Any of the writers on the Colbert Report ...
I'll third or fourth the nomination of Petey. That would be awesome.
Aside from the several good suggestions above, how about making some use of that degree and interviewing philosophers? Not Zizek, for crying out loud, but actual philosophers. You know, people who don't scoff at the word "Logic" and don't use "Epistemology" as something to tack on a book cover.
another vote for agent zero
i agree Petey would be good
Obama foreign policy adviser and author of "A Problem from Hell" Samantha Power.
Seems like you might be able to get smaller players of significance on to talk. The only example that's coming to mind is Samantha Powers, and she's probably less accessible and possibly a little too big time for you, but it would be really interesting.
I would not bother to listen to you interviewing Ezra. Similarly to why the "Table" vids are not interesting--all of have blogs, and much of what you might say in that kind of a round table is exactly what I would predict from reading yours or Marc's or Russ' or Ezra's blog. It would be much cooler if you found a way to get time with interesting figures who are in the middle of big stories, but not on cable news shows b/c they're significance requires a higher information context than what is available on cable news (e.g. Samantha Powers).
Another example might be, back when the trial was still going on and relevant, interviews with all of the Libby bloggers. That was a fascinating chapter that the traditional media pretended wasn't happening. Right now it would be cool to find the mid-level people in the Obama campaign and ask them why/how the campaign has come to dominate caucuses so thoroughly, or which tactics strategies seems to have contributed the most to closing the gap with Clinton in a given state over the last couple weeks (e.g. some field director from MO or CT).
Or it would be cool if you got more prominent figures on to kind of gab more freely than they might otherwise. Get Trippi on--he's not busy--and ask him about taunting Terry McAuliffe after the Jefferson-Jackson dinner. I'd definitely listen to that.
Don't laugh but, honest to God, my mother. A conservative Democrat - born in SF, in San Antonio for the last 10 years - she has some of the most prescient political observations of anyone around.
Don't think so.
Petey.
Malice and/or Pusha T.
Pantload?
Just my own 2 cents, but I'm really not interested at all.
In my opinion, this trend towards video & audio by bloggers has really diminshed the value of blogs. They tend to be weak imitations of what can be done by Traditional Media. I look to blogs for a different experience, not for TV-lite - Podcasting strikes me as offering nothing that I couldn't get by listening longer to NPR.
I'm sure lots of folks love all this multi-media-fication of blogs, but a few luddites remain out here. Over on TPM, which I still read religiously, the advent of TPMtv has resulted in a large quantity of content being only available through video. I greatly prefer reading arguments and being able to come back to specific points. You can't do this as easily with a blog or podcast.
Overall, to the extent that content shifts to audio, I see myself relying less on MY for my blogging fix.
xyz
If it's just going to be you having a conversation with somebody about politics, recorded, and put online -- I'd say save it. It's not that you aren't interesting but that format is BORING. A little production value and good humor like in The Basketball Jones podcast is going to grab an audience.
http://www.thebasketballjones.net/
If I were you I'd just grab people regular people from all walks of life off the street, tell they you write about politics and government for a national magazine, and ask them if they have any questions and then try to answer them. You have interesting tastes so try to pick and interview interesting people -- from all levels of education and income.
If it's BloggingHeads.tv without the video, don't bother.
Chuck Klosterman on the NBA and pop culture
Bethlehem Shoals or Billups from FreeDarko
Samantha Powers
Ken Pomeroy
In general? I hate this idea. I hate voice and video content on blogs without transcripts; I can read about five times faster than you can talk, and I can do it at work, whereas I can only look at multimedia if I see it during the time I'm at home.
Some of your douche bag Harvard buddies.
Strongly second the idea of including in any list of interviewees political scientists and economists (but god no, not of the Mankiw mold). Someone above recommended Powers. Others in the KSG mold who I'd like to hear from are Rodrik and Hausman. Anyone who partook in the blog seminar thingy on Rodrik's new book on crooked timber would be cool. Marc Lynch and his like....
gilbert arenas
Tim Russert
No bloggers, no pundits, no obscure advisers to campaigns or political operatives, etc. Blogland has too much of that inside-baseball meta-discourse stuff already. Talk to actual primary producers of content, not people who comment on content. Or man/woman-in-the-street talk could conceivably be good, but would be more time-intensive to cull the interesting parts.
Edward Glaeser -- he's are Harvard prof that has really interesting findings on the housing cost issue you keep touching on at BHTV and elsewhere, especially as relates to zoning and planning.
Let me echo the opinions of those above who have said no to: bloggers*, pundits, advisers, or politicians.
However, if you could land interviews with Agent Zero, Feist, or Omar from the Wire, I'd definitely listen.
I guess the lesson is that few of us want to listen to a "serious" podcast. I think most of us probably consume as much "serious" commentary as we can take already. But if you came up with some fluff, I'd probably listen.
*the exception would be that a podcast with you and Ackerman could have potential as long as it was sufficiently funny.
This is probably Matt's wet dream anyway, but how about David Simon? We already know he's a fan. I bet he'd do it.
No. Don't do it. Your strength is writing, not yakking.
I am not understanding the compulsion among MSB (mainstream bloggers) to step outside their fields of talent and expertise in front of the keyboard, put themselves in front of cameras, and start bobble-heading us to death.
Maybe it's that corporate masters insist they keep us distracted with ever more "content," no matter how empty and redundant.
Unless, of course, it's plain old egomania.
Or a combination of the above factors.
But no, it couldn't possibly be any of that.
I'd love to interview Petey, but he'd have to get in touch with me. I have no idea how to contact him.
No. I prefer to read your thoughts and interviews.
Why would I want to spend time on someone's amateur "learn as you go" done-on-the-cheap attempts at using other media?
If I want "podcast," I am going to go to someone who knows how to do it well, a radio program like Teri Gross.
I feel the same about Josh Marshall's "TV." I've only clicked on one, never again. If I want a TV interview, I watch TV that has a lot of money, experience and production experience behind it, i.e., Charlie Rose.
Alan Sokal, the NYU physicist who has done a great service to academia by calling bullshit on bullshitters like the aforementioned Zizek (and pretty much anyone liked by anyone who thinks Derrida has interesting things to say).
Maybe it's that corporate masters insist they keep us distracted with ever more "content," no matter how empty and redundant.
That'd be the answer.
Alan Sokal, the NYU physicist who has done a great service to academia by calling bullshit on bullshitters like the aforementioned Zizek (and pretty much anyone liked by anyone who thinks Derrida has interesting things to say).
Of course, what Sokal did in no way logically questions Derrida's work, or any other of the writers and philosophers that are popularly considered to have been "debunked" by Sokal. Of course, I won't expect anything from you except for the typical parade of straw men; 95 % of the criticisms of post-structuralism are the products of people who criticize what they don't understand.
And, of course, as has been widely acknowledged, Sokal is an exceedingly minor scientist who is known only for committing a hoax.
That'd be the answer.
Suggestion: If "the man" gives you grief about that comment, shoot all of us that bascially said no an email.
I was thinking about being in your shoes when I read this post, being hassled to spend a lot of time on doing videos when one could be writing.
Is actually sad, mho, that a venerable literary institution like The Atlantic thinks they have to go this route.
You heard him, Petey. E-mail the man.
Ken Pollack
I second Ken Pollack. But only if you waterboard him a couple of times first. Plus give him a zap on the nuts with a taser. Let him know it's a Socratic dialogue with a Harvard philosophy major, not showtime on CNN.
PS Save the video of the Pollack waterboarding/nut zapping/interview. Bill Moyers would love it for PBS -- as comic relief.
Plus, Democracy NOW would lunge for it like a trout on a fly.
Yes. Please do.
Oliver Kamm.
Matt, I watched one of your blogging heads things. I came to the conclusion that you have a voice made for print media.
Oh, & Hitch of course. About Iraq. A grilling.
Please, NO!
It's made tpm terribly annoying. Spend the time writing good prose and editing down and presenting good interviews. The written word is 5 million times more efficient (I swear. There are studies that prove it). The time wasted in video is painful. And rambling and hard to refer back to and difficult to listen to in a work environment. Do what you do best. PLEASE!
More writing. Less video.
In line with your book, it would be good to talk to foreign policy experts, preferrably those outside the neo-liberal/neo-conservative consensus: Perry Anderson, Tariq Ali, Mearsheimer, Immanuel Wallerstein. If you're staying inside DC, it'd be nice to hear from Anatole Leiven, Trita Parsi, Edward Luttwak, Jacob Heillbrunn.
Spend the time writing good prose
Haven't spent much time around here, have you?
The range of "voices" on the Atlantic website is terribly narrow. Use this to expand the type of intellectual perspective, and have them talk about something just slightly off their normal range of expertise. How about Saul Kripke on the election? Or Slavoj Zizek on analytic philosophy? Or the Nanny 911 lady on the Republican party?
I'll join the emerging consensus in favor of a live podcast of Matt waterboarding and nut-zapping Ken Pollack. Bonus points if you can coerce him into confessing his membership in either Al Qaeda or the DAR, preferably both.
More seriously, if you're going to do this, I strongly encourage you to avoid blogger nepotism. Try to bring in some serious academics and viewpoints from outside the narrow range of elite opinion in Washington. If it's just another vehicle for cross-promoting other writers at the Atlantic or in your apartment, it's not going to be worth the expense and effort.
And, of course, as has been widely acknowledged, Sokal is an exceedingly minor scientist who is known only for committing a hoax.
And SocialText is a prententious roll of asswipe that will forever be know for falling for it.
And, of course, as has been widely acknowledged, Sokal is an exceedingly minor scientist who is known only for committing a hoax.
And SocialText is a prententious roll of asswipe that will forever be known for falling for it.
JD Salinger
Dan: "I think you should interview Osama Bin Laden. Ask him what he thinks of George W and the Presidential candidates.
You're a pussy if you don't."
If Matt has the bucks, I'll find Osama so he can do it.
Otherwise I agree with those who think Matt is better at writing than talking - and considering how bad Matt is at writing, I'd say that pretty much clinches it.
However, if Matt could interview Summer Glau, I'd listen. I'd just edit the part out where Matt is talking.
Ah, wait! Here's a GREAT IDEA!
Interview Sibel Edmonds! Have her tell her WHOLE STORY on the podcast - name names and everything!
Then you get to go to Guantanamo...but at least we'll have the whole story on the Internet which will never disappear.
While you do.
Sure, sounds like a good idea. But please, please try to curb your verbal tic of constantly interspersing your sentences with "you know". It can be unbearable.
Of course you should. But you should also provide a transcript of the better parts. Plus, you should record 20 minutes and edit it to the best five (like FRESH AIR). Good people to interview are authors with new books, or people with cover stories in magazines. Gives you something to talk about and PR people will love it. Also, announce it a week ahead of time, and have your comment club throw out questions you should ask.
Actually, Sokal wrote a book ("Fashionable Nonsense," w. Jean Bricmont) that DOES question the logic of Derrida etc. But don't waste time on this, Matt - pomo is more or less a dying topic anyway. I'd be more interested in your interviewing policy/ economics folks - like Rodrik, et al. - esp the ones who do important work that isn't getting big press.
Comments closed February 22, 2008.
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Heads in the Sand
Matt Taibbi.
Posted by ethan salto | February 8, 2008 12:51 PM