Shows / The Kicker
The Kicker
The Kicker is a podcast on the media and the world today. It comes out twice a month, hosted by Megan Greenwell and produced by Amanda Darrach for the Columbia Journalism Review. It is available wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and YouTube.
Episodes
- The Kicker
Magazines Are Back, and They’re Newsletters
In early 2024, scores of journalists fled Substack over the company’s refusal to ban Nazi newsletters. Smaller newsletter companies saw an opening. Beehiiv…
- The Kicker
California’s Big Bet on Government-Funded News
Gavin Newsom, California’s governor, had Matt Pearce sweating. Until the day before the signing deadline, Pearce didn’t know if the biggest piece of…
- The Kicker
A Victim of the ‘Elon Musk Playbook’
For me, and for most of my fellow millennials in the journalism industry, the idea of spending more than two decades in the same job seems unfathomable. It’s…
- The Kicker
Ruth Ann Harnisch on life as the fairy godmother of newsletters, podcasts, and blogs.
If you had lots of money to give away, what kind of journalism would you fund? City hall reporting? Big-swing investigative projects? Detailed coverage of your…
- The Kicker
So Are Nonfiction Books Dead or Not?
Anna Sproul-Latimer, a literary agent, on what a shrinking market means for journalists. After a boom time for nonfiction books during the pandemic, sales have…
- The Kicker
Kenya Hunter took a terrifying leap out of journalism. She couldn’t be happier.
One of my favorite dive-bar conversations with fellow journalists is “What would you do if you couldn’t do this anymore?” We’ve all thought about it; the tough…
- The Kicker
Twenty Years of Food Blogs: Smitten Kitchen’s Deb Perelman has never needed AI to develop a recipe.
A friend recently posted a photo on Instagram of a giant zucchini harvested from her backyard in Chicago, with a caption that she needed recipes that use a ton…
- The Kicker
What Went Wrong: A first-time editor in chief reflects on a startup that didn’t work
When The Barbed Wire debuted, in 2024, it promised “something different: a site that combines the best of savvy, new-model online journalism with Texas’s…
- The Kicker
Welcome to Hell: A site with personality big enough for the city it covers.
Since last year’s uber-competitive New York City mayoral primary, my favorite election night activity has been watching Hell Gate’s live broadcasts. CNN it is…
- The Kicker
Why Do You Have to Run from Us? Local reporters are struggling to get answers from the politicians they cover.
Generations of local journalists mostly took for granted their ability to access elected officials. Talking to the local newspaper or TV station was one of the…
- The Kicker
No Fanboys Need Apply: Wired bares real teeth.
For a certain type of tech executive, and a certain type of fan of tech executives, the point of technology journalism is to cheerfully show off the cool new…
- The Kicker
Sports Illustrated’s Emma Baccellieri on covering the changing world of women’s basketball.
One of the most fascinating sports business stories of the moment is the explosive growth of the WNBA. TV viewership is up dramatically, multiple teams sell…
- The Kicker
How Documented is reinventing immigration coverage.
Some of the most interesting journalism experiments aren’t taking place on the websites of publications. Instead, they’re happening on Facebook and WhatsApp…
The KickerThe Old Playbook of Power and Influence Is Different Now
When Ronald Reagan won the presidency, in 1980, it was a victory long in the making. For almost half a century, conservatives had plotted ways to cut taxes and…
- The Kicker
The Globe’s Emily Sweeney breaks out of Boston.
“WHOA. Ohhhh. Freaking huge,” one of my favorite recent news videos opens. Emily Sweeney, a Boston Globe reporter, stands in the Museum of Fine Arts, gazing up…
The KickerHow Elon Musk is colonizing the future.
Before Elon Musk, there was Henry Ford: an attention-seeking car manufacturer, newspaper owner, and media celebrity who pushed reactionary views on the public…
- The Kicker
Taking Back Saturday: “We’re sports people. We like to score.”
I have a galaxy-brained theory that the most effective fundraisers in the country aren’t politicians or the heads of major foundations, but a pair of…
- The Kicker
Student, Teacher: Eric Gustafson on fighting for journalistic integrity at every level.
I’ve spent my entire professional career in journalism, but student publications are still my favorite news outlets. I broke the biggest story of my life for…
- The Kicker
The Inside Look: Chatting with the New York Times’ trust editor.
I must confess that initially I was a bit skeptical of the concept. The New York Times was promoting a Q&A with two technology reporters, Mike Isaac and Sheera…
- The Kicker
Lessons from an Early-Career Journalist
When I took over the Kicker host chair, one of the things I was most excited to do was to interview early-career journalists, who see the changes to our…
- The Kicker
A Look Back at Covering Gaza for the Post
Since October 7, 2023, Miriam Berger has been on assignment in Jerusalem, covering Israel, Palestine, and war. A few weeks ago, she learned she and hundreds of…
The KickerProfit or Nonprofit? A Debate over Journalism’s Future
While the newspaper industry continues to contract, nonprofit news outlets have proliferated over the past decade. But dismissing profitable models for…
- The Kicker
The Letter of the Law, and the Law in Practice
Experts discuss the risks posed to journalism as the courts test the limits of press freedom law. If I recall correctly, the original news peg for a live…
The KickerOutlier Media Reimagines What Local News Can Be
In 2016, Sarah Alvarez, a former civil-rights lawyer and reporter, reimagined what journalism could be. Rather than break news or publish stories on a website…
- The Kicker
A Veteran of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette—and its Long Strike—Prepares for What’s Next
At first, January 7 felt to Bob Batz Jr. like a triumphant day. The U.S. Supreme Court had declined to consider an appeal from Batz’s longtime employer, the…
The KickerHow the Gawker Trial Was the Gateway to Trump: Examining a political legacy, ten years on.
In 2007, Valleywag, Gawker’s gossip column devoted to Silicon Valley, published a short piece about a then-little-known venture capitalist and tech founder…
- The Kicker
Defector’s Jasper Wang and His Unvarnished Truth
Annual reports are generally pretty boring documents, bogged down with numbers taken out of context and marketing-speak about “thriving in the face of…
- The Kicker
Why You Should Never Marry a Journalist—and Other Lessons from Decades in Media
The Kicker returns with our former host, Josh Hersh, and our new one, Megan Greenwell, in conversation. Between President Trump’s legal battles against news…
The KickerJay Rosen on the Digital Revolution That Wasn’t
In 2006, Jay Rosen, the media scholar, published his influential article “The People Formerly Known as the Audience.” His medium was as important as his…
The KickerBen Smith Isn’t Afraid of the Future
It has been called “the last good day on the internet”: on February 26, 2015, Americans flocked online to watch fugitive llamas in Arizona evade their captors…
The KickerHow Silicon Valley Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Oligarchs
When Natalia Antelava cofounded Coda Story, in early 2016, to cover democratic backsliding around the globe, she wasn’t expecting the tech industry to be such…
The KickerThe Future of Journalism After Gaza
Examining an ongoing crisis for press freedom—and how to manage security risks going forward.For Journalism 2050’s inaugural live event, Emily Bell and Heather…
The KickerDouglas Rushkoff on Being the Intellectual Dominatrix of Billionaire Tech Bros
In 1992, a writer named Douglas Rushkoff signed a contract for Cyberia, his book about the internet subcultures of the West Coast. The next year, his publisher…
The KickerJournalism 2050 - Trailer
Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin speak with the smartest minds in media to discuss the roots of today's crisis in journalism, from democracy's decline to the…
- The Kicker
Margaret Sullivan Takes a New Look at Journalism Ethics
This summer, Margaret Sullivan, the executive director of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia Journalism School, and her…
- The Kicker
Chicago’s Block Club Is Ready for ICE
On Thursday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring federal agents from using riot control measures like tear gas to disperse journalists…
- The Kicker
Elle Reeve on the Charlie Kirk Shooting Suspect’s Inscrutable Memes
In 2017, Elle Reeve, then a correspondent for Vice News, became a household name when she reported from the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville…
- The Kicker
Garrett Graff Thinks the Press Should Be Taking Trump’s Health Much More Seriously
Last week, as DC reporters were patting themselves on the back for not falling for internet falsehoods claiming that Donald Trump had secretly died, Garrett…
- The Kicker
Hind Hassan Is Sorry We Didn’t Do More to Make Journalism Safe
Earlier this month, Hind Hassan, a decorated documentary news reporter who has covered everything from conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine to the bizarre…
- The Kicker
Will the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal Break MAGA Media?
For the past few weeks, MAGA media and conservative podcasters have been torn apart over President Trump’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein saga. Anna Merlan, a…
- The Kicker
What’s the Matter with the BBC?
Recent weeks have not been very comfortable for the BBC. A documentary about Gaza it refused to broadcast was aired instead by a competitor, to critical…
- The Kicker
The Kicker Live: Branko Brkic Wants Journalists to Wake Up
Last year, Branko Brkic, the founder of the Daily Maverick, a South African news outlet, left his day job to launch an advocacy campaign in defense of…
- The Kicker
The Kicker Live: Arwa Damon on Leaving CNN and Telling Stories from Gaza
For nearly twenty years, Arwa Damon worked as a journalist covering conflict zones across the Middle East—much of it as a prominent correspondent for CNN. But…
- The Kicker
The Kicker Live: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad on American Misadventures in the Middle East
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad is an award-winning Iraqi journalist for The Guardian and the author of A Stranger in Your Own City (2023), a reported memoir of his life as…
- The Kicker
What’s the Point of Investigating Trump?
David Fahrenthold won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2016 reporting on how Donald Trump’s lifetime of charitable giving was largely a mirage. Nine years later…
- The Kicker
‘I Try to Find the Question That People Cannot Squirm Out Of’: An Interview with Nashville’s Phil Williams
For more than thirty years, Phil Williams has been the steadying voice of investigative reporting at NewsChannel 5, in Nashville. His deep dives into toxic…
- The Kicker
‘The Threat Is Very Real’: NPR’s Katherine Maher on the Fight to Save Public Media
Last week, Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the end of funding for NPR and PBS. It’s the latest attempt by conservatives to cut back on…
- The Kicker
Inside El Salvador’s Dystopian Prison Network
A few years ago, El Salvador was one of the most violent nations in the world, with gang killings taking the lives of dozens of people every week. Nayib…
- The Kicker
Kai Ryssdal Was America’s Economic Voice of Reason This Week
Kai Ryssdal has been the host of Marketplace, a leading daily radio show and podcast about the economy, produced by American Public Media, since 2005. He…
- The Kicker
Carlos Watson Goes Free: A Surprising Coda to the CJR Podcast
Prosecutors weren’t notified in advance, witnesses are in shock—and Watson’s family celebrates his freedom. On the day that Carlos Watson, the founder of the…
- The Kicker
Molly White Knows You Don’t Understand Crypto
If you thought “DOGE” only stood for the “Department of Government Efficiency”—well, you’re not alone. The world of crypto is full of double meanings and…
- The Kicker
The Legal War on Journalism
Over the past several months, Donald Trump has mounted a series of legal attacks against the media, including a libel case against ABC, an FCC investigation…
- The Kicker
The Kicker, the Masseuses, and the Price of Doing Sports Journalism
In January, the Baltimore Banner released an investigation into the star kicker of the Baltimore Ravens, in which multiple women accused him of sexually…
- The Kicker
A Warning from a Hungarian Journalist: ‘Brace Yourself for the Worst’
András Pethő is a Hungarian journalist and a cofounder of Direkt36, an independent investigative news outlet. Over the past decade, he’s watched as the…
- The Kicker
CJR’s Jon Allsop on the Return of the Trump Whirlwind
Jon Allsop writes and edits The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. There, he’s closely watched as the American press has struggled to respond to, and cover…
- The Kicker
Coda’s Natalia Antelava on Meta, Trump, and How Journalism Can Survive 2025
Natalia Antelava spent many years as a correspondent for the BBC, before starting her own media company, Coda Story, in 2016. She’s covered wars in the Middle…
- The Kicker
The Unraveling of Ozy Media: Episode 3: The Verdict and the Pain
In the finale, Carlos Watson takes the stand—and the jury reaches a verdict. “The Unraveling of Ozy Media” is a special three-part series of The Kicker, on the…
- The Kicker
The Unraveling of Ozy Media: Episode 2: Built on a Bluff
How inflating traffic data went mainstream in digital media—and a key witness takes the stand. “The Unraveling of Ozy Media” is a special three-part series of…
- The Kicker
The Unraveling of Ozy Media: Episode 1: Truth and Mythmaking
Carlos Watson’s media startup arrives on the scene—and insiders reveal a dark reality under its glossy veneer. “The Unraveling of Ozy Media” is a special…
- The Kicker
Coming Soon: The Unraveling of Ozy Media
Starting on December 9, the Columbia Journalism Review presents a special three-part series of The Kicker: “The Unraveling of Ozy Media,” on the dramatic rise…