The Kicker

Columbia Journalism Review
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The Kicker is a podcast on the media and the world today. It comes out twice a month, hosted by Josh Hersh and produced by Amanda Darrach for the Columbia Journalism Review. It is available wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

  1. Ben Smith Isn’t Afraid of the Future

    5D AGO

    Ben 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 on a live broadcast, shortly before an ambiguously colored dress—blue and black to some, white and gold to others—was uploaded online. At BuzzFeed, which sent the dress to unprecedented levels of global virality, Ben Smith watched it all unfold. He realized in that moment just how popular divisive content could be. In hindsight, it was a grim foreshadowing: social media created the perfect conditions for an exceedingly polarizing presidential candidate to thrive. In this episode of Journalism 2050, Smith, the cofounder and editor in chief of Semafor, joins Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin to reflect on the thrill of being a journalist in the early years of social media, the internet’s evolution since then, and how AI has become the latest vehicle for techno-evangelism. Even as politics and the tech industry tack right, he insists upon his “core conviction” that good journalism will always find a way to survive. Should we mourn journalism’s past? How worrying is the future of the news? If Ben Smith was starting out now, would he even be a journalist? Over twenty-five years, as a blogger, editor, and founder—from Politico and BuzzFeed News to the New York Times and, now, Semafor—Smith’s career has always been a revealing indicator of the state of the journalism industry, and where it’s going next. Further Reading: “What Colors Are This Dress?” BuzzFeed, February 26, 2015“The Internet of the 2010s Ended Today,” by Charlie Warzel, April 2023, on how BuzzFeed News “defined an era.”“The New York Times’ success lays bare the media's disastrous state,” Emily Bell, The Guardian, February 2020“Why the Success of the New York Times May Be Bad News for Journalism,” Ben Smith, New York Times, March 2020 Hosts: Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin Producer: Amanda Darrach Production Coordinator: Hana Joy Research: Samuel Earle Art Director: Katie Kosma Illustrator: Aaron Fernandez Music: Henry Crooks

    37 min
  2. How Silicon Valley Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Oligarchs

    DEC 16

    How 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 a big part of the story. It wasn’t only that autocratic regimes were benefiting from compliant Silicon Valley companies. By launching a new media organization, Antelava also discovered how entangled journalism itself had become with some of the same companies, which proclaimed their commitment to a free press while quietly cozying up to their enemies. In this episode of Journalism 2050, Antelava joins Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin to discuss the naïveté with which news organizations treated the likes of Google and Facebook in the early years of the internet, and some of the bizarre conferences, collaborations, and initiatives that resulted from it. To secure journalism’s future, Antelava warns, there must never be such innocence again. “We got into bed with the wrong guys, and we got ourselves in big trouble,” she says.  How responsible are journalists for the perilous state of their industry? Who are their “natural allies”? And as the authoritarian tendencies of the internet’s gatekeepers become clearer and clearer, what compromises might journalists make, and what redlines must they draw? Further Reading: Coda Story: An interview with Richard Gingras The Guardian: Apple and Google Accused of Political Censorship Over Alexei Navalny App Freedom House: The Uncertain Future of the Global Internet Hosts: Emily Bell and Heather Chaplin Producer: Amanda Darrach Production Coordinator: Hana Joy Research: Samuel Earle Art Director: Katie Kosma Illustrator: Aaron Fernandez Music: Henry Crooks

    59 min
  3. The Future of Journalism After Gaza

    DEC 11

    The 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 Chaplin are joined by Azmat Khan, the director of Columbia’s Simon and June Li Center for Global Journalism, and Anya Schiffrin, a professor at the Columbia School of International and Public Affairs, to discuss the consequences of the war on Gaza on journalism and what history can teach us about the role of the press in times of crisis. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, it took only ten weeks at the end of 2022 for Israel to kill more journalists in Gaza than had previously been killed in any one country over an entire year. The attacks have not relented in the three years since: while barring international journalists from entry, the Israeli military has treated journalists inside Gaza as acceptable collateral damage and even, at times, explicit targets. In September, Irene Khan, the UN special rapporteur, described it as “the deadliest conflict ever for journalists.”  These attacks on journalism, and the limp response from the US and other powerful countries, set a dangerous precedent for the future. How might journalists and media organizations take the defense of their principles and values into their own hands? What lessons can we learn from the past? What tools do journalists need to navigate this new world?  Further reading:  Urgent Ideas for Defending Press Freedom in Gaza, Columbia Journalism Review, by Azmat Khan, Meghnad Bose, and Lauren WatsonGlobal Muckraking: 100 Years of Investigative Journalism from Around the World, edited by Anya Schiffrin Producer: Amanda Darrach Production Coordinator: Hana Joy Research: Samuel Earle Art Director: Katie Kosma Illustrator: Aaron Fernandez Music: Henry Crooks

    53 min
  4. Douglas Rushkoff on Being the Intellectual Dominatrix of Billionaire Tech Bros

    NOV 25

    Douglas 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 canceled it, according to Rushkoff’s recollection, on the grounds that “by the time the book came out the Internet was going to be over.” (He later found a different publisher, and the book came out in 1994.) Since then, Rushkoff has been one of the most entertaining and pointed futurists (though he prefers “presentist” these days) chronicling Silicon Valley’s effects on culture and communications. His books include Present Shock, Throwing Rocks at the Google Bus, and Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of Tech Billionaires. His Team Human podcast is required listening for skeptics of artificial intelligence. Emily Bell, the founding director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia Journalism School, and Heather Chaplin, the director of the New School’s Journalism + Design Lab, ask Rushkoff about what lessons we can draw from the anarchic free spirited origins of web publishing that can be applied to our present moment of techno authoritarianism and the dominance of Silicon Valley.  As for what Rushkoff's outlook is for 2050, “the worst case is we will have ceased to be”—a bleak scenario. But the more optimistic case is that we will see a stratified media ecosystem emerge, with a number of large global players collaborating on complex stories, and a rich vibrant network of smaller local and niche players.  Further Reading and Listening: “We Will Coup whoever We Want: the unbearable hubris of Musk and the billionaire tech bros” Team Human podcast John Perry Barlow : A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace Producer: Amanda Darrach Production Coordinator: Hana Joy Research: Samuel Earle Art Director: Katie Kosma Illustrator: Aaron Fernandez Music: Henry Crooks

    1h 5m
  5. Journalism 2050 - Trailer

    SEASON 11 TRAILER

    Journalism 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 rise of AI, and to explore the uncertain future of journalism in the digital age.  This series is brought to you by the Tow Center for Digital Journalism and Columbia Journalism Review, with help from the New School's Journalism + Design Lab.  Journalism 2050 is supported by the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation and available wherever you get your podcasts

    1 min

  6. OCT 23

    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 colleague Julie Gerstein published a series of essays in CJR exploring what a new generation of journalism ethics might look like, as the media industry evolves.  “It is conventional wisdom among journalists that while the world around us changes, our ethics do not,” Sullivan wrote, in her introduction to the project. “Yet a fresh look at our standards and practices seems a worthwhile pursuit at this moment.” Sullivan joins The Kicker to talk about what it means for journalism ethics to evolve with the times—and how she views critical questions around transparency, media bias, and whether the public editor role might make its return. Read More: *“A New Look at Journalism Ethics”—A special project from CJR  *“Is Objectivity Still Worth Pursuing?” *“What Do Journalists Owe Their Sources—and Their Audiences?” *“Can AI Tools Meet Journalistic Standards?”

    28 min

  7. OCT 10

    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 seeking to cover protests outside the Broadview ICE processing center, near Chicago.  The order was the result of a lawsuit filed earlier in the week by several Chicago news  organizations and reporters who had been injured or detained while trying to cover ICE activity in the city.  Stephanie Lulay is the co–executive editor and cofounder of one of them, Block Club, a seven-year-old digital nonprofit that seems almost perfectly built for this moment. She and reporter Francia García Hernández join The Kicker to talk about what they’ve seen around Chicago recently, and about what it’s like reporting on a city under siege. Read more: *The lawsuit filed by Block Club and other Chicago-area news outlets. *Some of Francia’s coverage for Block Club.  *A September incident during which a Block Club freelancer was shot by pepper balls while covering protests at Broadview. *Dave Levinthal for CJR on how ICE has been routinely ignoring FOIA requests from reporters—including one from Block Club.

    25 min

  8. SEP 19

    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, Virginia—as neo-Nazis marched with burning torches and a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters.  Reeve has developed an expertise on what you might call the fringe beat, covering shadowy internet groups and right-wing political movements for CNN. Those worlds collided when a very online man assassinated the right-wing political star Charlie Kirk in a meme-drenched attack that left much of the media world mystified. Reeve joins The Kicker to help make sense of it all. Read More: *Elle recently spoke about interviewing extreme figures with CNN’s Donie O'Sullivan  *Black Pill, Elle’s 2024 book on her journeys into the “darkest corners of the internet” *“Charlottesville: Race and Terror,” the 2017 Vice News documentary

    36 min
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About

The Kicker is a podcast on the media and the world today. It comes out twice a month, hosted by Josh Hersh and produced by Amanda Darrach for the Columbia Journalism Review. It is available wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify.

Information

  • Creator
    Columbia Journalism Review
  • Years Active
    2016 - 2025
  • Episodes
    311
  • Rating
    Explicit
  • Copyright
    © 2025 Columbia Journalism Review
  • Show Website
    The Kicker

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