The Kicker

By Columbia Journalism ReviewNews

The Kicker episodes

October 14, 2022 Nothing to It: How John Bennet went from East Texas kid to New Yorker editor
In 1975, at the age of twenty-nine, John Bennet got a job at The New Yorker, under the editorship of William Shawn. He was first placed on the copy desk. Eventually, he edited Pauline Kael, Seymour Hersh, John McPhee, Alma Guillermoprieto, Oliver Sacks, Robert Caro, Elizabeth Kolbert, Bill Finnegan, and many others. In 2001, he started teaching courses in magazine writing at Columbia Journalism School. He became, over decades, a mentor to generations of authors, editors, and students—recipients of his unimpeachable proofs and compassionate, bullshit-free counsel. Shortly before he died—of cancer, in the summer of 2022—he spoke about how life took him from a dirt farm in Athens, Texas, to literary heights, shaping some of the greatest nonfiction stories of his time.
By Betsy Morais
Edited by Amanda Darrach and Mark Van Hare.
43 min
July 15, 2022 Rebecca Traister: Abortion, a case study in media disinterest
On this week’s Kicker, Rebecca Traister, a writer-at-large for New York Magazine and the Cut, and the author of “Good and Mad,” a book about the history and political power of women’s anger, sits down with Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR. They discuss why the press seemed only willing to cover “medically chilling” abortion stories, and how to protect sources as abortion’s legal loopholes disappear.
27 min
June 27, 2022 Justin Worland: Raising diverse voices on the climate crisis beat
Should climate crisis coverage focus on the danger at hand, or on optimism and solutions at work? On what individuals can do, or industrial changes? As newsrooms struggle to reach a consensus, the Covering Climate Now Journalism Awards provide a model for impactful work.Justin Worland, senior correspondent at TIME, was just named CCN’s 2022 Journalist of the Year. On this week’s Kicker, Worland sits down with Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR, to discuss his climate crisis coverage and The Uproot Project, his initiative to support environmental journalists of color.
22 min
May 31, 2022 Nina Totenberg: ‘They don’t have to follow Supreme Court precedent anymore’
Nina Totenberg has covered the Supreme Court for five decades. On this week’s Kicker, the NPR reporter sits down with Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR, to discuss a court she says is more conservative than it has been since the late 1920s and early 1930s, and what happens next in light of the leak of the Roe v Wade decision.Nina Totenberg is NPR's legal affairs correspondent. She has a book coming out in September called "Dinners with Ruth: A memoir about The power of friendships," available for preorder now.
24 min
May 13, 2022 Columbia’s Jelani Cobb: ‘Everything is on the table’
The Columbia Graduate School of Journalism announced today that Jelani Cobb will be its new dean. Cobb is a professor at the school, a staff writer at The New Yorker, an author, a documentary producer, and the director of the Ira A. Lipman Center For Journalism and Civil and Human Rights. On this week’s Kicker, Cobb speaks with Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR, about the role of journalism at a politically fraught time, diversity efforts at the J-school and in journalism, and the high cost of degrees at institutions like Columbia.
23 min
May 06, 2022 Elena Kostyuchenko: 'The Russian secret services somehow knew'
Elena Kostyuchenko reported atrocities as they unfolded inside Ukraine until Russian censors forced Novaya Gazeta—her employer and Russia’s oldest independent newspaper—to halt publication. How did Kostyuchenko gain access to the country her homeland was invading? What did she see there? And how does she view Russia’s future?On this week’s Kicker, guest host Keith Gessen, who is a professor at the J-School and a founding editor of n+1 and contributor to The New Yorker, the New York Times Magazine, and the London Review of Books, welcomes Kostyuchenko to the latest in his Delacorte Lecture series.
45 min
April 26, 2022 Dean Baquet & Joe Kahn: What’s next for the New York Times?
Last week, after years of public speculation on the matter, the New York Times named Joe Kahn as Dean Baquet’s successor to the position of executive editor. How did that process play out behind closed doors? And, as the midterms draw near, how does Kahn plan to cover the threat to American democracy?Baquet and Kahn sat down with Kyle Pope to discuss objectivity, the evolution of the paper from a news outlet to something we’ve never seen before, and—inevitably—Wordle.
46 min
April 20, 2022 Al Roker: The weather paradigm shift
Al Roker, weathercaster for the Today Show, is one of the best-known and trusted names in media. He has also led efforts to educate the American public on the ties between weather and the climate crisis. On this week’s Kicker, Roker and Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR, discuss the evolution of weather coverage, from lighthearted entertainment to reporting on the frontlines of the biggest story of our time.
24 min
March 03, 2022 Jane Lytvynenko: Ukraine’s great ‘prebunk’
Over the past week, Ukrainians have used social media to document Russia’s attacks on civilians. Those efforts have been more effective at blunting the Russian propaganda machine than anything that has come out of the technology companies themselves.On this week’s Kicker, Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR, speaks with Jane Lytvynenko, a senior research fellow in the Technology and Social Change Project at the Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy. They discuss Ukrainian “prebunking” of Russian propaganda, and where Lytvynenko, a Ukranian-Canadian expert on Russian disinformation, gets her news.
24 min
February 28, 2022 Eleanor Beardsley & Igor Kossov: The road out of Ukraine
In the five days since Russia declared war on Ukraine, invading troops have drawn ever closer and their attacks have grown more deadly. Domestic and foreign reporters on the ground are struggling to determine how much danger is too much, and where they can most effectively cover the conflict.On this week’s Kicker, NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley and Igor Kossov, a journalist at The Kiev Independent, speak with Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of CJR. The two journalists, both attempting to leave the country as they speak, discuss the war they witnessed and their decision to leave.
26 min

About The Kicker

From the publisher's feed

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…