David Plotz graduated with a magna cum laude B.A. in political economy before launching into a career as a journalist, becoming the editor-in-chief at Slate magazine, and the author of two books. He has written for Slate, The New York Times Magazine, Harper's, Reader's Digest, Rolling Stone, New Republic, The Washington Post, Business Insider, and GQ. He won won the National Press Club's Hume Award for Political Reporting in 2000, an Online Journalism Award for a Slate piece on Enron, and was a National Magazine Award finalist for a Harper's article about South Carolina's gambling industry. You can connect with David through Linkedin, his websites, atlasobscura.com and citycast.fm or on Twitter, @davidplotz.

Key points include:

• 06:32: Getting divorced and moving forward
• 26:26: On the changing face of journalism
• 32:51: Behind the scenes of national politics