Why Trump is defunding NPR and PBS - and suing Rupert Murdoch
Reporting on the place you work is not fun. But it is an occupational hazard for media reporters — particularly for NPR’s David Folkenflik.
That’s because National Public Radio — along with Public Broadcasting Service, its TV counterpart — is quite frequently the target of attacks from critics on the right, who would like the federal government to stop funding it. Now it looks like they’ve gotten their way, and the two networks are going to lose a combined $500 million a year.
So what happens now? And how did we get here? And should the federal government be funding media organizations at all? We discuss.
And, since Folkenflik is also one of my go-to Rupert Murdoch experts, I asked him to stick around and opine about Donald Trump’s libel suit against Murdoch and his Wall Street Journal. Who has more to lose, and who is likely to blink first?
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Inside the Rise and Fall of Condé Nast with Michael Grynbaum
Here's one way New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum described Condé Nast to me in this week’s chat: “A real exporter of American cultural influence in the late 20th century.” And here’s another one: "A kind of enchanted land” but also a “lost world."
And here’s one way I’d describe it: it’s hard to imagine in 2025, but just a few decades ago, magazines were incredibly important — and Conde Nast was the most important, most glamorous magazine publisher in the world.
We know why all of that has changed — in large part because of the technology that allows you to listen to this conversation. But Empire of the Elite, Grynbaum’s excellent new book, focuses mostly on how Conde reached its peak influence, and how it sustained it for years.
Also discussed here: Money money money. Also: Why Jeff Bezos is very unlikely to buy Vogue in the near future.
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Inside the NYT - and Everywhere Else - with Semafor's Max Tani
You’re probably a normal person, so you didn’t spend your holiday weekend talking to people at the New York Times about a local politics story that some people didn’t like.
But that’s Max Tani’s job: He’s Semafor’s media reporter, which means he’s supposed to burrow into the paper of record — as well as other important media institutions — and tell you what’s going inside and why it actually matters.
So we spent a bunch of time in this chat talking about Tani’s story about a controversial-at-least-online Times story . In part because I find the whole thing fascinating (I’m not normal). And in part because it gives you a pretty good idea of what being a media reporter entails in 2025.
Also discussed here: When is something a tweet, and when is it a story? Why is this a “weird moment in media”? And why was 2024 the “fragmentation election?”
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Black Mirror's Charlie Brooker on the problem with tech - and people
"Black Mirror" creator Charlie Brooker knows that everyone thinks his show is about tech-fueled dystopias. But he says it's really about humans, not their tools.
I loved this chat back when we recorded it in 2023, when Brooker was promoting the sixth season of his Netflix show. Now there's a new season - and Brooker's vision of the world is as relevant as ever.
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How to become a Substack Star with Emily Sundberg
What's the best way to describe what Emily Sundberg does?
Substacker? Influencer? Journalist? Brand-builder?
Let's go with "yes". And she does a much better job of describing herself in our conversation, where we talk about how she went from being a laid-off marketer at Meta to a one-woman business with a devoted following and a revenue line that’s up and to the right.
A very quick primer for those of you haven't heard of Sundberg and her Feed Me newsletter - she’s building a very interesting publishing company that revolves around her reporting, insights and taste, aimed at people who make good money and spend some of it on very nice restaurants, shops and hotels in places like London, LA and New York. My assumption is that a slice of her audience doesn’t do any of that at all — but wants to read about people who do.
In olden times, Sundberg might have a column in a glossy magazine - and in fact she spent some time working at places like New York magazine on her way up. Today what's left of the glossy magazine world would love to attach itself to her. It’s a very 2025 proposition.
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Media and tech aren’t just intersecting — they’re fully intertwined. And to understand how those worlds work, and what they mean for you, veteran journalist Peter Kafka talks to industry leaders, upstarts and observers - and gets them to spell it out in plain, BS-free English.
Part of the Vox Media Podcast Network.
Brasil