The New Yorker Radio Hour

John Thompson vs. American Justice

<p>When police showed up to question John Thompson, he was worried that it was because he had sold drugs to an undercover cop.  When he realized they were investigating a murder, he could only laugh: “Shit, for real? Murder?”Thompson was insistent on his innocence, but New Orleans prosecutors wanted a conviction for a high-profile murder, and they were not scrupulous about how they got it. Thompson quickly found himself on death row. Eighteen years later, just weeks before Thompson was due to be executed, his lawyers discovered that a prosecutor had hidden exculpatory evidence from the defense. Thompson had been set up. This was a violation of the Brady Rule, established by the Supreme Court, in 1963, to ensure fair trials. Ultimately, he was exonerated of both crimes, but his attempts to get a settlement from the district attorney’s office—compensation for his time in prison—were thwarted. Though an appeals court had upheld a fourteen-million-dollar settlement, the Supreme Court reversed the decision, declining to punish the D.A. for failing to enforce the Court’s previous decision.</p> <p>Thompson’s case revealed fundamental imbalances that undermine the very notion of a fair trial.  Under the Brady Rule, prosecutors must share with the defense any evidence that could be favorable to the defendant.  But there is essentially no practical enforcement of this rule. In most states, prosecutors are the ones who hold the evidence and choose what to share, and disclosing exculpatory evidence makes their cases harder to win. We have absolutely no idea how many criminal trials are flawed by these violations.The staff writer <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/andrew-marantz">Andrew Marantz</a>, his wife, Sarah Lustbader, of the Fair Punishment Project, and the producer Katherine Wells reported on John Thompson’s story and its implications. They spoke with the late John Thompson (who died in 2017), with his lawyers, and with Harry Connick, Sr., the retired New Orleans D.A. who, despite having tried very hard to have Thompson killed, remains unrepentant.</p> <p>This episode contains explicit language and may not be suitable for children.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

The American Bombs Falling on Yemen

<p><span>Abdulqader Hilal Al-Dabab was the mayor of Sana’a, a politician with a long record of mediating disputes in a notoriously fractious and dangerous country. Earlier in his career, he accepted a position at which his two predecessors had been assassinated; Hilal, as he was known, served in that post for seven years. By 2015, Yemen was at war and Sana’a had become the center of a brutally destructive bombing campaign by a coalition led by Saudi Arabia—with planes, arms, and logistical support from the United States. Hilal was trying to hold the city together, keeping the ambulances running and convincing parents to send their children to school. At the same time, he was trying to broker a ceasefire, using the skills he had cultivated in local government at a broader level. When the Saudis bombed a funeral gathering that Hilal was attending, he was killed and the country lost a bright hope for peace. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/nicolas-niarchos">Nicolas Niarchos</a> talks with Hilal’s son about his father’s fate and what it says about the country’s future.</span></p> <p><span>Plus, Jia Tolentino visits the prize-winners at the Westminster dog show and tries to come to terms with the badly behaved mutt who’s wrecking her home.</span></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Scott Pruitt, the “Originalist” at the E.P.A.

<p>As the Attorney General of Oklahoma, Scott Pruitt sued the Environmental Protection Agency fourteen times, claiming that the Obama Administration had overreached with policies intended to curtail climate change—a phenomenon which Pruitt views skeptically. Then Donald Trump appointed him to run it. <i>The New Yorker’s</i> Margaret Talbot, who <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/scott-pruitts-dirty-politics">wrote</a> about Pruitt’s first year at the E.P.A., notes that Pruitt has cast his hostility to environmental protection as a form of populist resistance, even as it has gained him close allies in the fossil-fuel industry. Pruitt calls his approach at the E.P.A. “originalism”: he’s directed the agency to focus on dirty pollution, as it did back in the nineteen-seventies. Yet, as Talbot tells David Remnick, Pruitt is still quick to overrule regulation if it inconveniences polluting industries.</p> <p>Plus, <span><i>The New Yorker’s</i> critic of pop music, Carrie Battan, plays three tracks that have grabbed her attention lately.</span></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

A Homemade Museum in a Refugee Camp

<p>Tens of thousands of refugees from the civil war in Yemen have fled across the narrow Mandeb Strait to Djibouti, on the Horn of Africa. <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/nicolas-niarchos">Nicolas Niarchos</a> reported for <i>The New Yorker</i> from Djibouti, where Yemeni refugees cross paths with Ethiopians escaping a devastating drought. In one camp, he met a man whom aid workers described as a kind of Peter Pan. Abdillahi Bashraheel was once a road surveyor in Yemen, and lost everything in the war. From the camp, he walks miles in the desert each day to pick up broken toys, electronics, wood, stone, and other bits and bobs. He arranges these objects in his tent to create what he calls his museum—a place of beauty and respite under desperate circumstances.</p> <p>Plus, Tracy K. Smith, the poet laureate says that “green space has fed the inner silence that I think most writers are seeking.”</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Armando Iannucci on “The Death of Stalin”

<p>As the fourth season of “Veep” came to an end, director Armando Iannucci turned from chronicling the foibles of cynical western democracy to something darker still: life under dictatorship.  He found his source material in the French graphic novel “The Death of Stalin.” David Remnick compares Iannucci’s new film to “Get Out”—a real horror story that is also a comedy of terror. “I wanted to take myself out of my comfort zone by taking on these themes that involved death, destruction, and paranoia,” Iannucci tells him. As the brutal dictatorships of the twentieth century fade into history, Iannucci wants to remind people—especially those frustrated with democracy—just how horrific totalitarianism really is.</p> <p>Plus, Svetlana Alexievich, who won the 2015 Nobel Prize in Literature for her oral histories about life in the U.S.S.R.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

In Secret, a North Korean Writer Protests the Regime

<p><span>Bandi is the pen name of a North Korean writer. He is believed to be a propaganda writer for the government who began to write, secretly, fiction and poems critical of the regime. (Details of his biography cannot be verified, because identifying him publically would put his life in jeopardy.) His work was smuggled out of the country in circumstances that resemble a spy novel, and has recently been published in the West. The New Yorker Radio Hour’s Mythili Rao has written about Bandi’s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/a-collection-of-north-korean-stories-and-the-mystery-of-their-origins">fiction</a> and <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/reading-north-korean-poems-during-the-south-korean-olympics">poetry</a>. She spoke with the translator of the poems, a scholar of Korean culture named Heinz Insu Fenkl. Fenkl says the poems reflect a sophisticated approach that turns literary devices familiar to North Korean readers to subversive purposes.</span></p> <p><span>Plus, Curtis Sittenfeld talks with Joshua Rothman on why men should read romance novels.</span></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Christopher Steele, the Man Behind the Dossier

<p>The dossier—a secret report alleging various corrupt dealings between Donald Trump, his campaign, and the government of Russia, made public after the 2016 election—is one of the most hotly debated documents in Washington. The dossier’s author, Christopher Steele, is a former British spy working on contract, and went into hiding after its publication. “<a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/03/12/christopher-steele-the-man-behind-the-trump-dossier" target="_blank">The Man Behind the Dossier</a>,” Jane Mayer’s report on Steele, was just published in <em>The New Yorker</em>. She reports that Steele is in the "unenviable predicament" of being hated by both Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin—and that he documented more evidence than he put in the dossier.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Alone and on Foot in Antarctica

<p><span>Henry Worsley was a husband, father, and an officer of an élite British commando unit; also a tapestry weaver, amateur boxer, photographer, and collector of rare books, maps, and fossils. But his true obsession was exploration. Worsley revered the Antarctic explorer Ernest Shackleton and he had led a 2009 expedition to the South Pole. But Worsley planned an even greater challenge. At fifty-five, he set out to trek alone to ski from one side of the Antarctic continent to the other, hauling more than three hundred pounds of gear and posting an audio diary by satellite phone. The <i>New Yorker</i> staff writer David Grann <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/02/12/the-white-darkness">wrote about</a> Worsley’s quest, and spoke with his widow, Joanna Worsley, about the painful choice she made to support her husband in a mortally dangerous endeavor.</span></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Jennifer Lawrence on “Red Sparrow” and Times Up

<p><span>Jennifer Lawrence was nominated for her first Oscar at twenty, and since then she has balanced the biggest of big-budget franchises, like the “Hunger Games” and the “X-Men” series, with smaller, prestige films, including “Silver Linings Playbook” and “mother!” That has made her perhaps the most famous and the most celebrated actor of her generation. Lawrence has tended to shy away from nudity and sex on film, but in the new “Red Sparrow,” directed by Francis Lawrence, she tackles a role that combines two of today’s most critical issues: Russian espionage and sexual coercion at work. As a frequent target of tabloid journalists, trolls, and hackers, Lawrence is frustrated that so many people still want to punish successful women, but, she tells David Remnick, Hollywood itself is changing; and, despite the likely cost to her career, she intends to spend the next year off the set and working as an activist, speaking to young people about the importance of political engagement.Plus, a look at the lobbyist who helped make Florida one of the most gun-friendly states in America.</span></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

The New Yorker presents “The Brodies”

<p><span>Richard Brody hosts an alternative Oscars show — “The Brodies” —  and recommends some of his favorite films from the past year, and the writer Chang-rae Lee takes us to a sprawling international supermarket in Honolulu, Hawaii. </span></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Masha Gessen on Trump and Russia, and a Former Border Agent on the U.S.-Mexico Border

<p><span>Masha Gessen was born in the Soviet Union and has written extensively about Russian politics. She talks with David Remnick about the similarities between Putin’s Russia and Trump’s America. <i>The New Yorker’s </i>Sarah Stillman talks with a former Border Patrol officer, whose years on the job left him emotionally and physically depleted. And in a Shouts and Murmurs piece by Seth Reiss, the comedian Bill Hader plays a disgruntled server who’s got some strong feelings about the house-made ketchup.</span></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Director Ava DuVernay on “Selma” and “A Wrinkle in Time”

<p>No film adaptation of “A Wrinkle In Time,” Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved, and often banned, children’s book, published in 1962, has ever made it to American movie theaters. It finally comes to the screen next month, with a cast that includes Oprah Winfrey and Reese Witherspoon,. The director is Ava DuVernay, who wasn’t the obvious choice for a metaphysical fantasy epic. Best known for “Selma,” about the 1965 civil-rights march, DuVernay also made the documentary “13,” about the prison system, and the TV series “Queen Sugar.” But DuVernay tells the staff writer Jelani Cobb that she relished the opportunity to create a fantasy film. “You’re seeing worlds built through the point of view of a black woman from Compton,” she says. “So when I’m told, ‘Create a planet,’ my planet’s going to look different from my white male counterpart’s planet”—which is what Hollywood shows us “ninety-seven per cent of the time.”</p> <p>DuVernay and Cobb spoke at The New Yorker Festival in October, 2017.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

A Reckoning at Facebook

<p>We now know that Russian operatives exploited Facebook and other social media to sow division and undermine the election of 2016, and special counsel Robert Mueller recently indicted Russian nationals and Russian entities for this activity. During that period, however, Facebook executives kept their heads down, and the C.E.O., Mark Zuckerberg, denied and underplayed the extent of the damage. Now Zuckerberg is in a process of soul-searching, attempting to right Facebook’s missteps—even if it means less traffic to the site. Nicholas Thompson, the editor in chief of <i>Wired</i> (formerly the editor of <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/">NewYorker.com</a>), interviewed fifty-one current and former employees of Facebook for a <i>Wired</i> cover story, co-written with Fred Vogelstein, called “Inside the Two Years that Shook Facebook—and the World.” He tells David Remnick that the effort is not just lip service: for a business like Facebook, reputation really is everything. Plus, The New Yorker’s Director of Photography, Joanna Milter, on her true passion: the Cleveland Cavaliers.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Ian Frazier Among the Drone Racers

<p><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/ian-frazier">Ian Frazier</a>, who has chronicled American life for <i>The New Yorker</i> for more than forty years, recently travelled to a house in Fort Collins, Colorado, where three roommates build, fly, and race drones. Jordan Temkin, Zachry Thayer, and Travis McIntyre are three of perhaps only fifty professional drone racers in the world, piloting the tiny devices through complex courses at upward of eighty miles an hour. Drones have had enormous impact on military strategy and the commercial applications seem limitless, but to these pilots drones exist in the strange overlap between pure adrenaline and big money that defines pro sports. Plus, the novelist <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/t-coraghessan-boyle">T. Coraghessan Boyle</a> grapples with the devastation wreaked by wildfires and mudslides, which took the lives of his neighbors and transformed swaths of his town into mud flats.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Extremists on the Ballot, and America’s Endless War in Afghanistan

<p><span>The 2016 Presidential primaries were a rebuke to moderates in both parties. Bernie Sanders, a sometime Democratic Socialist, built a grassroots movement that bitterly rejected the centrist Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump, whose conservative credentials were deeply suspect, defeated sixteen Republican stalwarts. As the 2018 midterms approach, both parties are wrestling with the question of whether to rise with the tide of extremist sentiment, or run moderates to regain the center. Andrew Hall, an assistant professor of political science at Stanford, studies the effect of extremist candidates on elections. He tells <i>The New Yorker’s</i> <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/amy-davidson-sorkin">Amy Davidson Sorkin</a> that we may be asking the wrong question. Plus, the Pulitzer Prize winner <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/steve-coll">Steve Coll on</a> how the repeated failures of American intelligence and policy led to the nation’s longest and most intractable war.</span></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Ryan Zinke’s Deregulation Quest, and the Future of Meatless Burgers

<p>As a congressman from Montana, Ryan Zinke was considered a moderate—he resisted radical suggestions, for example, to turn over federal land to the states. But, as Secretary of the Interior, he is at the forefront of the Trump Administration’s push to rapidly roll back environmental regulations and expand mining, drilling, and commercial exploitation of all kinds. Zinke was instrumental in the recent decision to shrink Bears Ears National Monument, opening up enormous tracts of land to uranium mining. He has acted in seemingly petty ways, as well, including increasing litter by reintroducing the sale of plastic water bottles in national parks. <span>Elizabeth Kolbert</span> recently <span>wrote</span> about Zinke's tenure at the Interior Department. In assessing Zinke's and Trump's motives, she tells David Remnick, the most cynical interpretation is likely the right one.</p> <p>Plus, a short primer that will finally explain bitcoin (not); and a food editor investigates a new veggie burger that supposedly looks, feels, and tastes like beef.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Laura Kipnis on the State of #MeToo, and a Night at Richard Nixon’s

<p>Laura Kipnis is a professor at Northwestern University and a provocative feminist critic. Her book “Unwanted Advances: Sexual Paranoia Comes to Campus” states, “If this is feminism, it’s feminism hijacked by melodrama.” She has been accused of violating Title IX by creating a hostile environment for students to report harassment. Kipnis, who supports the movement, tells the staff writer <span>Alexandra Schwartz</span> that the grassroots power of public revelations is being hijacked by institutions in a power grab to control the lives of employees and students. The real feminist lesson of cases like Aziz Ansari’s much-discussed bad date, Kipnis thinks, is that that women as well as men need to reflect on how they conduct themselves in heterosexual relationships.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie on Discovering America

<p>The novelist Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has had commercial and critical success: Her best-seller “Americanah” won a National Book Critics Circle Award for fiction, and a speech she gave on feminism was sampled by Beyoncé. But Adichie is skeptical of fame, and not afraid to voice controversial opinions. At The New Yorker Festival in October, 2017, she spoke with David Remnick about how the left in this country seems “cannibalistic,” and how, as a Nigerian immigrant to America, she at first distanced herself from our country’s conception of blackness. America was complicated for Adichie: she appreciated the freedom from the social hierarchies back home, but she had imagined everything would be newer and shinier than it really was. Plus, the British folk musician Laura Marling tells John Seabrook about living in Los Angeles alongside the spirits of her musical idols, and performs her song “The Valley.”</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Nathan Lane, Getting Serious, Plays Roy Cohn

<p>Nathan Lane may be best known for supplying the voice of the fun-loving meerkat in “The Lion King,” but in recent years he’s turned his focus to more serious roles. Now he’s playing the villain, Roy Cohn, in a new production of Tony Kushner’s “Angels in America.” Lane sat down with <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/michael-schulman">Michael Schulman</a> at The New Yorker Festival in October, 2017, to talk about the real-life Cohn. A conservative attorney who denied that he was gay to the end of his life, Cohn served as Joseph McCarthy’s chief counsel during the crusade against Communism, as an adviser to Richard Nixon, and as a mentor to the young Donald Trump. Lane went to great lengths to understand the contradictions of Cohn’s life. “It’s easy to find people who hated him,” Lane tells Schulman. “But there were people who loved Roy Cohn.”</p> <p>“Angels in America” opens on Broadway in February.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

The Rise of the Ku Klux Klan

<p>The Ku Klux Klan was originally focused on maintaining the old racial order in the postwar South, chiefly through the violent suppression of African-Americans. But, in the nineteen-twenties, the Klan was reborn as a nationwide movement, targeting not only African-Americans but Jews, Catholics, Muslims, Mexican-Americans, and Asian immigrants. In the jingoistic years following the First World War, the Klan made discrimination the new patriotism. The Bancroft Prize-winning historian Linda Gordon charts this rebirth in “The Second Coming of the KKK.” She writes that millions of people joined the Klan in the span of just a few years, among them mayors, congressmen, senators, and governors; three Presidents were members of the Klan at some point before taking the office. Gordon tells David Remnick that the lessons for our current political moment are sobering. The writer Andrew Marantz, who covers media and politics for <em>The New Yorker</em>, explains how today’s alt-right manipulates something called the Overton Window to bring fringe ideas into the mainstream. Plus, the staff writer Troy Patterson shares three recent picks with David Remnick.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

David Attenborough’s Planet (We Just Live on It)

<p>David Attenborough’s films for the BBC—impeccably researched, ambitiously filmed, and executed with style and imagination—have set a high bar for nature documentaries in our time. Over sixty years, his films have taught generations of us about the extraordinary diversity of life on the planet. His latest project is a seven-part survey of the world’s oceans, called “Planet Earth: Blue Planet II,” which débuts this week on BBC America. The series uses every technological advance, including drone-mounted and submersible cameras, to bring us closer to nature’s extremities. Attenborough talks with David Remnick about breaking precedent to give the film an overtly environmental message; about his determination at age ninety-one to keep working; and about the only creatures he really can’t stand. Plus, a look at how the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Mary Oliver finds spiritual meaning in the natural world.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Deportation in America

<p>A tougher stance on immigration is the signature position of the Trump Administration, and the President’s first year in office has been marked by sharply increased arrests of unauthorized immigrants. In this hour we explore immigration and deportation from the perspective of a Wisconsin dairy farm, a conservative Washington think tank, and the mother of a deportee, as well as a sanctuary church where a woman is hiding in plain sight from immigration enforcement.    </p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Tracee Ellis Ross on Being a “Black-ish” Woman and Jon Hamm Gets His Life Back from Don Draper

<p>Tracee Ellis Ross, who plays Dr. Rainbow Johnson on ABC’s “Black-ish,” joins Doreen St. Félix for a conversation about television, race, and self-acceptance. “Black-ish” has a reputation for breaking boundaries and tackling political and racial questions rarely discussed in prime time. But Ellis has found room to push back on the show’s treatment of her character as the wife on a family sitcom. And </p> <p>Jon Hamm won audiences over in “Mad Men” as Don Draper, the quintessential man’s man. “Navigating what the show became and navigating the success is the trickiest part of it,” he tells Susan Morrison. So he flexed his comedic muscles as often as possible, with roles in “Bridesmaids” as one of Kristen Wiig’s love interests (for which she wrote them a very long sex scene) and on “30 Rock” as Tina Fey’s too-handsome-for-real-life boyfriend. And his sensitive side is no put-on: as a young man, Hamm worked at a day-care center called Kids Depot, remembering that as a young child he had lacked male role models. “It felt nice to be that person I didn’t have in my life.”</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Jerry Seinfeld Gets Technical

<p>Jerry Seinfeld talks with David Remnick about his Netflix special “Jerry Before Seinfeld,” which is part standup show, part memoir. They discuss his “coming out” to his parents as a funny person, the labor that goes into an effortless joke, how cursing undercuts comedic craft; why George Carlin in a suit and tie was just as good as George Carlin the hippie; and why he thinks we esteem actors and writers too highly. Seinfeld compares his work as a comedian to that of John McPhee, <em>The New Yorker’s</em> elder statesman of long-form reporting. “He makes things out of ordinary life moments and making you see them in a different way,” Seinfeld says. “When he does it, it’s an art, because it’s the goddam <em>New Yorker</em>. When I do it it’s just an airlines peanuts joke.”</p> <p> </p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Trolling the Press Corps

<p>Lucian Wintrich, a young blogger, was recently appointed as the White House correspondent for the conservative political site Gateway Pundit. He has no professional experience as a reporter and doesn’t claim any interest in landing big stories. His goal is to attack media outlets that he regards as leftist, and he doesn’t shy away from name-calling. The New Yorker’s Andrew Marantz questions Wintrich about trolling as a form of journalism.</p> <p><em>Originally aired on April 7, 2017. </em></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Jon Stewart’s Children

<p>In the years after September 11th, Jon Stewart’s “Daily Show” made political satire a central part of the media landscape. This hour, we hear from some of today’s leading practitioners: <em>The New Yorker’s</em> Andy Borowitz; Trevor Noah, of “The Daily Show”; Bassem Youssef, and the founders of Reductress. Plus, cartoonists Emily Flake and Drew Dernavich try out an escape room, along with the Radio Hour’s Sara Nics.</p> <p><em>Originally aired on April 7, 2017. </em></p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Leonard Cohen: A Final Interview

<p>Leonard Cohen was one of the world’s greatest songwriters, and a figure of almost cult-like devotion for generations of fans, including Bob Dylan. David Remnick sat down with Cohen in the summer of 2016, at the musician’s home in Los Angeles to discuss Cohen’s career, his spiritual influences, his triumphant final tours, and what he was doing to prepare for his end. “I am ready to die,” Cohen said. He was already suffering from a number of health problems at the time and died in November 2016. “At a certain point, if you still have your marbles and are not faced with serious financial challenges, you have a chance to put your house in order. It’s a cliché, but it’s underestimated as an analgesic on all levels. Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable.” Plus, a 1952 poem by E.B. White brings Christmas greetings to misfits and oddballs the world over.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Bonus: Holiday Greetings from Ian Frazier

<p><span>For decades, The New Yorker has published a poem on or around Christmas -- a look back at the events and people that have shaped the past year, generally light and fun; but in more difficult years it touches on quite serious themes as well.</span></p> <p><span>The humorist Frank Sullivan wrote the first "Greetings, Friends" back in 1935. Roger Angell wrote the poem</span> for many years.  And staff writer Ian Frazier has been writing it since 2012. Frazier reads his 2017 "Greetings, Friends" in this podcast bonus of the New Yorker Radio Hour.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Children’s Letters to Satan, and a Changing of the Guard at the New York Times

<p>Every year, countless poor spellers accidentally address their Santa letters to Satan.  Satan—played by Kathleen Turner—always replies <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/humor/daily-shouts/childrens-holiday-letters-satan">Matt Passet’s</a> Daily Shouts piece is performed by Kathleen Turner, in the role of Satan.  On January first, Arthur Gregg Sulzberger, who goes by A. G., will succeed his father Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, Jr., as the publisher of the New York Times. At 37, A. G. is young for the job and he’s taking over one of the world’s most important news institutions at an extremely complicated time for the business of journalism. But he is not afraid of the future: his 2014 <a href="https://www.scribd.com/doc/224332847/NYT-Innovation-Report-2014">internal report to the Times’ leadership</a>, which Buzzfeed leaked to the world, is credited with jump-starting the paper’s transition into a digital-first news platform. David Remnick talks with Sulzberger about his apprenticeship at a small-town reporter, the “Trump bump,” and how long we can expect the print edition of the Times to remain.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>

Nicolás Maduro on the Brink of Dictatorship

<p>Nicolás Maduro was an unlikely successor to Venezuela’s popular and charismatic Hugo Chavez. And, since his election, the country has been wracked with devastating food shortages, a breakdown of ordinary services and medical care, and rampant violence. But, as Maduro sees it, the real problem is his political opponents, and he has taken steps to secure control over all the branches of government, in order to establish a de-facto dictatorship. <em>The New Yorker’</em>s <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/jon-lee-anderson">Jon Lee Anderson</a> was recently granted a rare interview with the Venezuelan President, who told him of his country’s economic relationships with Russia and China. Anderson tells Dorothy Wickenden that he came away from the conversation with a renewed sense of the need for greater American engagement in Venezuela. “It is going through the sewer on our watch,” Anderson says. Plus, a visit to the library with Cristina Henriquez.</p><br/> <p>Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See <a href="https://pcm.adswizz.com">pcm.adswizz.com</a> for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.</p>