The Media Narrative

Julio Ricardo Varela began his journalism career working alongside sportswriters like Bob Ryan, Leigh Montville, and Bud Collins but returned to the field years later as a news reporter and multi-media journalist. A Puerto Rico native, Varela was an early adopter of social media platforms and remembers that period as his version of J-school. After founding LatinoRebels.com, he began working with award-winning journalist, author, and PBS host Maria Hinojosa, for Latina USA and Futuro Media. Varela and Hinojosa are also cohosts of the In the Thick podcast, which he calls the "people of color complement to Pod Save America." He has written for the New York Times, ESPN, and The Guardian, among other outlets.

During our conversation, Varela talked about his evolution as a journalist, including such topics as sports reporting for the Boston Globe as a Harvard student (1:30); being an early adopter of Facebook and Twitter (6:45); starting the Latino Rebels news blog (10:00); the new journalism model (15:30); being acquired by Futuro Media (21:00); and a preview of Part 2, when Varela talks about Hurricane Maria and Junot Diaz (27:00).

After meeting in 1960, Arlie and Adam Hochschild bonded around common ideals and activism, beginning a partnership that led to marriage, family, and, so far, a combined total of nearly 20 books. Their most recent—Arlie's Strangers in Their Own Land and Adam's Spain in Our Hearts—are must-reads for today's political watchers, focusing, respectively, on Tea Party voters in Louisiana and American journalists and fighters who chose to cover or join the Spanish Civil War.

During our conversation in Boston in 2017, about two months after the inauguration of Donald Trump, topics included supporting each other as writers (5:30); ways in which their 2016 books reflect on contemporary American political life (10:30); the importance of empathy in nonfiction writing (14:30); advice for aspiring writers (23:30); and thoughts on the kinds of journalists and writers needed today (25:00).

Steve Morse has interviewed and written about some of the biggest names in music, including Bob Marley, Bono, Madonna and Bruce Springsteen. In this episode, the Boston Globe rock critic talks about the highlights of his decades-long career.

During a conversation in his Cambridge, Massachusetts home, Morse talked about: Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, and London in 1969 (1:30); early days of rock criticism (5:00); writing on deadline (7:00); roster of interviewees (10:30); Bob Marley in NYC (12:30); interviewing strategies (16:00); climate for music journalism today (20:30); advice for aspiring music writers (24:30); and Bono and U2 (30:30.)

Journalist Beth Schwartzapfel has been covering the criminal justice system for more than a decade, with an emphasis on telling the human stories of prisoners that are often overlooked. She is an award-winning reporter and staff writer at the Marshall Project, and her work has also appeared in publications such as The American Prospect and the New York Times.

During our 2017 conversation, Schwartzapfel talked about her beginnings in journalism (4:00); a college-prison collaboration in Washington state (7:15); low pay for prisoner labor (12:00); moral complexity in covering prisons (18:00); her reporting process (20:30); felony disenfranchisement (23:30); advice for aspiring journalists (27:00); and how she consumes news (30:45).

In a conversation about her book, The Fact of a Body: A Murder and a Memoir, Alexandria Marzano-Lesnevich discusses how writing about the case of a convicted pedophile and murderer compelled her to reexamine her assessments of the legal system and her memories of abuse in her family.

During the 2017 interview, Marzano-Lesnevich talks about connections between storytelling and the law (3:00); structuring and editing her book (8:00); embracing contradiction in the book's narratives and characters (15:30); the death penalty and the hazards of judgement (18:30); truth in nonfiction (23:00); and her newer work focusing on the Cambodian genocide (26:50).

The interview was conducted at The Village Works, in Brookline, Massachusetts.

Having studied engineering at an Ivy League school before becoming a major league baseball outfielder, Doug Glanville sometimes thought about angles, vectors, and ballistics between pitches. He’s taken the idea of the cerebral athlete to even greater levels, post-career, as a New York Times columnist and a sports commentator whose analysis touches on society, psychology, race, and other ideas.

During a conversation shortly after he left ESPN in 2017, Glanville talks about being an Ivy Leaguer in MLB (1:00); race and bias in sports and life (7:45); his approach to writing essays and columns (16:30); being inspired by other baseball writers (21:00); what he learned from manager Terry Francona 26:30).

Influenced as much by punk as folk music, England’s great singer/songwriter Billy Bragg has always placed politics and social activism at the center of his creative life. Bragg has a new book out about the history and impact of skiffle: Roots, Radicals, and Rockers.He paused during his book tour to talk about why he wrote the book (1:00); examples of genre mixing in music that don’t qualify as cultural appropriation (2:50); hip-hop as the musical language of today (5:15); music as revolution, citing the example of Beyonce (6:15); the importance of empathy in music (10:30); and why his best songs connect with audiences (13:00).

In this short introductory episode, you'll learn about the mission of The Media Narrative, a new interview podcast focusing on authors, artists, journalists and others who are shaping the public conversation. You'll also hear clips from a few upcoming episodes.