The Fifth Column

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**The Fifth Column**

Your weekly rhetorical assault on the on the news cycle, the people who make it, and occasionally ourselves. Kmele Foster (Freethink), Michael Moynihan (Vice), and Matt Welch (Reason) talk and laugh and drink their way to at least quasi-sanity in a world gone mad, often with the aid of clean and articulate guests. Weekly Members Only subscription edition often comes with listener mail and professional-quality (if inappropriate) singing. Analysis. Commentary. Sedition.

www.wethefifth.com

Latest Episodes:

227 w/ Ben Smith - "Sign O’ The Times, Memo to Kendi" Mar 05, 2021

Show notes

Guest: Ben Smith, Media Columnist @ The New York Times

From BuzzFeed to The NYT
When Your Bosses are Kinda THE Story
Why We Can't Stop Talking About The Times
Newsroom Cultural
White Privilege and Employee Orientation
Resignations*
Caliphate vs. 1619
"My Notebook Remains Open"
Losing the Newsroom
You Will Sign This Letter
Vanilla Mandella
Biggie Smalls
When Van Met Ibram X
Simple, Elegant, Almost Certainly Wrong
Things Get Worse for Cuomo

Recorded March 2nd, 2021

Published March 4th, 2021

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

226 w/ Matt Taibbi - "Why Journalism Got Substack'd" Feb 26, 2021

Show notes

Guest: Matt Taibbi @ Contributing Editor @ Rolling Stone. Author, "Hate Inc"

Niggarati
Privilege Childhood
The Art of the Substack Deal
The Shift
An Active Conspiracy or An Active Conspiracy
The Escape, And Uncertain Horizon
It's Just a Camp, For Kids, So It's Fine
Trump at CPAC
A Good Shoot
Bidenomics
Listen to Black People
Didn't Even Say The Word

Recorded Feb 24th, 2021

Published Feb 25th, 2021

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

225 w/ Martin Gurri - "The Revolt of the Public" Feb 19, 2021

Show notes

Guest: Martin Gurri @ Author, "The Revolt of the Public"

Prophecy, Historical Cycles, and Modest Frameworks
From Information Monopoly to Information Tsunami
Public Dissatisfaction
Elites in Crisis
Public Nihilism
Historical Amnesia
The Yellow Vests, Jan 6th, 2021
Political Sectarianism
Truth + Objectivity + Resentment
Drama at the New York Times
The Future of Media and Truth
Plato's Perfect Form of Justice
Fact Check

Recorded Feb 17th, 2021

Published Feb 18th, 2021

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

224 - "MTG v AOC, Merit is so Racist, Determined Incuriosity" Feb 06, 2021

Show notes

Pump and Dump
Matt Bought Crack
Real Compton City Gs
Really Only One Bad Word
The Public Interest
Irrelevant Context
MTG vs. AOC: Most Insane? Best Actress?
"I Can Only Be a Non-White Person"
Why The Culture War Matters
Merit: The Racism of Fairness Racist
Covid Cumo, And the Incurious Media

Recorded Feb 3rd, 2021

Published Feb 5th, 2021

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

223 w/ Van Lathan - "Productive Disagreements and Common Ground" Feb 04, 2021

Show notes

Guest: Van Lathan @ "Higher Learning" (Co-Host), Previously @ TMZ

Kmele and Van connect for a wide-ranging conversation about racism, reconciliation, and finding common ground. It's yet another exercise in constructive disagreement. In fact, it's the back half of a three-hour discussion that managed to feature vanishingly few points of agreement -- and zero personal insults.

Oculus Quest
THOUGHT Warriors
Uncle Tom: A Most Dangerous Man
If Everyone Listened to Kmele...
Listing + Reconciliation
Representation
Racecraft
Strangefruit
MLK and the FBI
Juneteenth
Candace Owens Brother

Recorded Jan 27th, 2021

Published Feb 3rd, 2021

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

222 - "Moynihan Squeezes the Short, Cynics and Skeptics" Jan 30, 2021

Show notes

Make a Mint w/ Moynihan
Who's Behind the Squeeze
On the War Path
Strange Bedfellows
Popularity Contests
Even Libertarians
Equity and Private Prisons
Coming Attractions

Recorded Jan 28th, 2020

Published Jan 29th, 2020

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This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

221 - UNLOCKED Patreon Episode - Kmele's Victory Lap (Dem Haters) Jan 25, 2021

Show notes

It is upon us: that very rare occasion when we unlock a Patreon episode for the masses. 🎁🎁🎁

If you are clever and don't want to miss future locked episodes, subscribe here.

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Rather than our typical bullet-pointed show notes, we'll keep this one short and sweet. Because try as they might to pull the conversation away from Kmele's bravura performance on Real Time with Bill Maher, the lads just couldn't manage it. Although they do respond to a listener email about the Pet Shop Boys...and Kmele does says the word kerfluffle.

That is all.

Enjoy.

See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

220 - The Dawning of Yet Another Terrible Era Jan 22, 2021

Show notes