The Kicker

Latest Episodes:

Crisis at Columbia: A Conversation with Jelani Cobb May 04, 2024

Show notes

Jelani Cobb is the Dean of the Columbia Journalism School. He is also a staff writer at the New Yorker magazine. For much of the past few weeks, he has been enmeshed in Columbia University’s efforts to grapple with a protest movement on campus over the war in Gaza – one that culminated in the takeover of a building, and finally, on Tuesday, April 30th, a police raid.The Kicker talks to Cobb about the role the Journalism School played throughout the crisis, including facilitating press access to campus after a lockdown was imposed, and supporting the work of student journalists, who were the only ones left on campus to document the police raid as it unfolded.Read CJR on the work of the Columbia Spectator, the undergrad student newspaper: https://www.cjr.org/the_media_today/interview_editors_columbia_spectator_campus_protest.php

'Inside Wagner': Video journalism unmasks Russia’s secretive mercenary group Apr 25, 2024

Show notes

This week, host Josh Hersh dives into the world of documentary news. Amel Guettatfi and Julia Steers just won the Polk Award for Inside Wagner, their hourlong Vice News documentary on the Wagner Group—Vladimir Putin’s private army of militiamen. They discuss their unprecedented access to a military training operation in the Central African Republic, the unique challenges of doing this kind of reporting on film, and why, sometimes, video is the only way to tell the story. Show NotesInside Wagner: The Rise of Russia's Notorious Mercenaries, Amel Guettatfi and Julia Steers, Vice Newsbit.ly/3UtURmh

Josh Fine: How to Revive Investigative Sports Reporting in the Age of the Athlete Apr 03, 2024

Show notes

In recent years, numerous beloved sports news institutions have been shut down, or dramatically reduced their operations, while digital shows hosted by professional sportspeople, current and retired, have become ubiquitous,

Meanwhile, traditional sports journalism—particularly of the type that asks uncomfortable questions of what is, ultimately, a huge and powerful business—has been in decline. Last year, Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel, an HBO show that mixed softer features with hard-nosed investigative journalism, wrapped its final season after twenty-nine years on air. Josh Fine was an investigative producer at Real Sports for seventeen years. He has some ideas on how sports journalism can revive itself.

Host: Josh Hersh
Producer: Amanda Darrach
Show Notes:
Can sports journalism survive in the era of the athlete? by Josh Hersh for CJR

Alissa Quart: on reimagining reporting on a recession May 12, 2023

Show notes

News of stubborn inflation, increasing unemployment, and the housing crisis dominate headlines of late. Alissa Quart is trying to improve that reportage, in content and form. Quart is the executive director of the Economic Hardship Reporting Project, which challenges traditional narratives of economic class and issues through funding original reporting, done by independent journalists from diverse economic backgrounds. Quart explains to Kyle Pope, Columbia Journalism Review’s editor and publisher, how this helps dismantle the “American myth” of self-reliance — the subject of her latest book, Bootstrapped: Liberating Ourselves from the American Dream. In the interview, Quart and Pope discuss how the media’s reliance on this myth impacts electoral politics and what solutions exist. Quart suggests changing language standards, expanding recruiting criteria for newsrooms, and even reimagining news sections.

Svitlana Oslavska: On Documenting a War on Her Home Front May 10, 2023

Show notes

Before Russia invaded her home country, Ukrainian journalist Svitlana Oslavska was reviewing books for Krytyka, a Ukrainian magazine, and writing nonfiction books. Now, she’s documenting war crimes committed by the Russians against Ukrainians for the Reckoning Project. Since joining the Project, Oslavska’s reporting serves two purposes — to provide detailed witness testimonies for court cases against the Russians and to publish accounts of the war in the international media. In this episode of the Kicker, Oslavska recounts the war crimes she documented for the Project and later published as a story in TIME.

How Authoritarians Erase the Past May 09, 2023

Show notes

The Columbia Journalism Review recently invited journalists, academics, and experts to convene at a conference called "FaultLines: Democracy." In this episode, taped at the FaultLines conference, Masha Gessen, of The New Yorker; Jodie Ginseberg, president of the Committee to Protect Journalists; and Sheila Coronel, an expert in global investigative journalism, discuss how authoritarian regimes are erasing traces of the past and recasting history in dangerous ways.

Hearts and Minds Media Apr 19, 2023

Show notes

For decades, Voice of America and Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty have broadcast into countries all over, in dozens of languages. Yet in some places where the United States has invested the most soft power, authoritarianism has only gotten stronger—and journalists remain at risk. That may be especially true in Afghanistan since the Taliban’s takeover. For CJR's latest digital issue, Emily Russell reports on hearts and minds media in Afghanistan and beyond.Visit cjr.org to read the Authoritarianism Issue.

Feven Merid: On Jacaranda Nigeria Limited Mar 13, 2023

Show notes

In 1982, about twenty Black journalists quit their jobs at American networks, banded together under the name Jacaranda Nigeria Limited, and flew to Nigeria, where they would work under the country’s newly elected president to revamp a state-funded journalism network. On today’s episode of the Kicker, Feven Merid, a Columbia Journalism Review staff writer, tells their story.She explains the many unforeseen challenges Jacaranda’s journalists faced — the Nigerian government’s interference in their reporting, the lack of proper training and resources, the confusion over their racial identity — and, ultimately, how the problems they went to Nigeria to escape never really disappeared.Read Feven's article at https://www.cjr.org/the_feature/black-american-journalists-nigeria.php.

Jeff Gerth on the press versus the president Feb 07, 2023

Show notes

Last week, the Columbia Journalism Review published a four-part investigation into the media’s fraught relationship with Donald Trump. In this episode of the Kicker, Jeff Gerth, who authored the report, talks to Kyle Pope, CJR’s editor and publisher, about the origin of the investigation and the intense responses to it, with which Gerth admits he is still “grappling.”On the podcast, Gerth says he considers his 24,000-word story an “anatomy,” reconstructing how the media covered Trump and Russia. In reporting the piece, Gerth interviewed Trump at – predictably – a golf course, and reached out to dozens of journalists who covered Trump-Russia, albeit with limited success. “Many of them are loath to want to discuss or/and engage with what they do,” Gerth says in the episode. “I find it perplexing.” For additional news on this story and on the media, subscribe to CJR’s daily newsletter at cjr.org/email

FT's Rana Foroohar: What the Davos Crowd Doesn't See Jan 31, 2023

Show notes

After two decades of attending the World Economic Forum's annual gathering of business elites in Davos, Rana Foroohar, associate editor of the Financial Times, stayed back this year. In this week’s episode of The Kicker, Foroohar tells Kyle Pope, editor and publisher of the Columbia Journalism Review, why the annual meet-up of global technocrats imparts “icky” feelings, and why the Davos crowd, including the journalists reporting from the conference, might have a skewed outlook on the economy. Also joining Pope in conversation is Mercy Orengo, a CJR fellow. Orengo shares insights from her recent conversations with business reporters tasked with covering an uncertain economy.

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