What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Latest Episodes:

Can the Feds Lower Your Rent? Jun 06, 2023

Show notes

Housing prices have skyrocketed, from the usual hot spots in New York and San Francisco, out to the until-recently-affordable places like Boise, Idaho and Charlotte, North Carolina.

Sen. Brian Schatz proposed an $85 million program to entice cities and suburbs to enact “fair housing policies,” but is that enough to address a nationwide problem?

Guest: Henry Grabar, Slate writer and author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World.

If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Do Work Requirements Work? Jun 05, 2023

Show notes

Last week, Congress finally passed a debt ceiling deal. Part of that deal included expanding the work requirements for government assistance programs like SNAP, specifically for people ages 50 to 54.

Where did the idea of work requirements come from? And do work requirements actually help keep people in the workforce?

Guest: Pamela Herd, professor of public policy at Georgetown University and co-author of Administrative Burden: Policymaking by Other Means.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Tech’s Newest Trillion Dollar Company Jun 04, 2023

Show notes

Until recently, Nvidia was a company known for graphics cards—a brand name among gamers but not necessarily the general public. But as part of the A.I. boom, Nvidia’s stock has skyrocketed, putting the company in Silicon Valley’s trillion-dollar valuation class with Apple, Meta, and Alphabet—briefly, at least.

Guest: Don Clark, freelance reporter specializing in chips and enterprise tech.

Host: Emily Peck

If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When Your Childhood Was Their Content Jun 02, 2023

Show notes

When someone posts a photo of you online without your consent, it should be easy to have it taken down or confront the person who posted it. But what if the poster is your parent, and it’s not just one photo, but your entire childhood that’s readily available online? And as social media algorithms evolve to push content in front of as many people as possible, what happens when a temper tantrum goes viral?

Guest: Kathryn Lindsay, technology and culture writer.

Host: Emily Peck

If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

After They Testified: The Trans Pharmacist Who Went Viral Jun 01, 2023

Show notes

As the fight for trans rights, including gender-affirming medical care, heads through state legislation, activists and medical providers are stepping up to testify. While explaining her perspective as a medical professional, a Little Rock pharmacist, who is trans, was asked about her genitalia in the middle of the Arkansas general assembly.

This is the first installment in What Next’s Pride Month series. “After They Testified” is about the Americans who’ve shown up in the last year to speak out against anti-queer legislation, how it felt to do so, and what came next.

Guest: Gwen Herzig, owner and pharmacist at Park West Pharmacy in Little Rock, Arkansas, president and executive director of The Prism Foundation.

This Pride Month, make an impact by helping Macy’s and The Trevor Project on their mission to fund life-saving suicide prevention services for LGBTQ youth. Go to macys.com/purpose to learn more.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

New Sex Abuse Charges Roil the Catholic Church May 31, 2023

Show notes

After a long-delayed five-year investigation, the Illinois attorney general Kwame Raoul released the report on sexual abuse in the Illinois Catholic church. Where does this case fit in in the long history of abuse in the Catholic Church? And over two decades after the infamous Boston Globe investigation into the Catholic Church, has anything changed?

Guest: Robert Herguth, investigative reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times, part of the Watchdogs team.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Covering the Supreme Court May 30, 2023

Show notes

Right-wing activists have been waiting for a Supreme Court like this one, willing to hand down unpopular, reactionary opinions on guns, abortion, and voting rights. Meanwhile, the general public’s opinion of the court is cratering, and this year’s docket doesn’t look like it will help.

Guest: Jay Willis, editor-in-chief of Balls and Strikes.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Decoder Ring: Why You Can’t Find a Damn Parking Spot May 29, 2023

Show notes

From our colleagues at Decoder Ring:

Parking is one of the great paradoxes of American life. On the one hand, we have paved an ungodly amount of land to park our cars. On the other, it seems like it’s never enough.

Slate’s Henry Grabar has spent the last few years investigating how our pathological need for car storage determines the look, feel, and function of the places we live. It turns out our quest for parking has made some of our biggest problems worse.

In this episode, we’re going to hunt for parking, from the mean streets of Brooklyn to the sandy lots of Florida. We’ll explore how parking has quietly damaged the American landscape—and see what might fix it.

This episode was written by Henry Grabar, author of Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World. It was edited by Willa Paskin, who produces Decoder Ring with Katie Shepherd. We had extra production from Patrick Fort and editing help from Joel Meyer.

Your regular What Next programming resumes Tuesday.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Trouble With TikTok Songs May 28, 2023

Show notes

How the music streaming business opened the door to billions of dollars in fraud.

Guest: Ashley Carman, Bloomberg News reporter covering the podcasting, music, and audio beat.

If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

TBD | Tweetering on the Glass Cliff May 26, 2023

Show notes

How Twitter’s new CEO Linda Yaccarino finds herself on the edge of “the glass cliff”: when a woman is sent in to fix a big mess.

Guest: Vittoria Elliot, reporter for Wired, covering platforms and power

If you enjoy this show, please consider signing up for Slate Plus. Slate Plus members get benefits like zero ads on any Slate podcast, bonus episodes of shows like Slow Burn and Dear Prudence—and you’ll be supporting the work we do here on What Next TBD. Sign up now at slate.com/whatnextplus to help support our work.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Our TOPPODCAST Picks

Follow Us

Stay Connected

What Next | Daily News and Analysis

Related Podcasts

Links

Stay Connected