Radio Atlantic

Hollywood is getting back on its feet now that the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America strikes are over. But they've revealed that, once again, Hollywood is going through an identity crisis.

The streaming revolution is looking untenable. Many studios are losing money and viewers are overwhelmed. What were the hard truths revealed by the strike? And what will the next year of entertainment look like?

Hanna Rosin talks with Atlantic writers David Sims and Shirley Li about the coming realignment in Hollywood and what we should all expect.

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Tech evangelist. Libertarian dreamer. Republican megadonor. Peter Thiel is many things. As Atlantic staff writer Barton Gellman puts it in his new profile of Thiel, he is “the purest distillation of Silicon Valley’s reigning ethos.”

Across several interviews, Gellman learned what’s driven Thiel, even through what he sees as his many disappointments. There are no floating cities. Humans can’t live forever. And Donald Trump did not turn out to be the revolutionary Thiel had hoped he might be.

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Marwan Bardawil’s job is to provide water in Gaza. This is difficult in normal times, nearly impossible now, and yet critical. Without enough clean water, people get dehydrated, hygiene deteriorates, sewage backs up, and deadly diseases can spike. In a series of phone calls over a critical week, we track how this water engineer tries to keep his community, and his family from tipping further into disaster.

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After Jordan Peele directed the movie Get Out in 2017, he unlocked the genre of Black horror, which mixed classic horror with the modern Black experience. In a conversation with Peele and best selling sci-fi writer N.K. Jemisin, we talk about the purpose of horror and what happens when Black writers and directors get to create the monster. Jemisin wrote the first story in Peele's new collection Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror.

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Nearly two weeks after the Hamas attack on Israel, Atlantic staff writer Graeme Wood is on the ground in Jerusalem. We talk to Graeme about what he’s hearing from people— namely a combination of anger, fear, mourning, and a desire for revenge. And we talk to him about what happens when a nation makes wartime decisions in this state of mind, and where the conflict will go from here. 

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Israeli journalist Amir Tibon and his family live along the Israel-Gaza border. He told Radio Atlantic the dramatic story of how his family hid out from Hamas terrorists. And how they were unexpectedly rescued.

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The Biden administration has had some monumental successes: a complicated vaccine rollout, a significant infrastructure investment, and the lowest unemployment rate in 50 years. But polls show that none of those wins are penetrating the public consciousness. Radio Atlantic host Hanna Rosin and staff writers Elaina Plott Calabro and Franklin Foer explore why we, the voters, just can’t seem to hear our politicians.

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Ozempic and other drugs like it are being heralded as game changers for weight loss. Radio Atlantic host Hanna Rosin talks to Atlantic staff writer Olga Khazan about what it means that this medical intervention has arrived at a time when our society seems to be easing away from fat shaming and moving toward celebrating all body types. 

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 When Jenisha Watts, a senior editor at The Atlantic, went home to Kentucky to interview her family, she was “looking to get rid of the shame.” She had a son now, and she wanted to be able to tell him the truth about her upbringing—both the good and the bad. But she was not quite prepared for what Jenisha the journalist would dig up about Jenisha from Kentucky.

This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Jocelyn Frank and edited by Claudine Ebeid. It was engineered by Rob Smierciak and fact checked by Michelle Ciarrocca. The managing editor of Atlantic Audio is Andrea Valdez. 

If you or someone you know are looking for support please call the National Sexual Assault Hotline at 1-800-656-4673

The Atlantic's September 2023 cover story "I Never Called Her Momma," was written by Jenisha Watts.

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Making small talk can be hard—especially when you’re not sure whether you’re doing it well. But conversations are a central part of relationship-building. Radio Atlantic is pleased to share this episode of How to Talk to People.

The social scientist Ty Tashiro and the hairstylists Erin Derosa and Mimi Craft help describe what it means to integrate awkwardness into our pursuit of relationships.

This episode is hosted by Julie Beck, produced by Rebecca Rashid, and edited by Jocelyn Frank and Claudine Ebeid. Fact-check by Ena Alvarado. Engineering by Rob Smierciak.

Music by Tellsonic (“The Whistle Funk”), Ryan James Carr (“Botanist Boogie Breakdown”), and Arthur Benson (“Organized Chaos,” “She Is Whimsical”). Click here to listen to additional seasons of The Atlantic’s How To series.

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