If you were in the business of making a bunch of money in 2026, you probably wouldn’t pick journalism. From social media to AI, the attention economy has upended the economic calculus for delivering news. But some entrepreneurs are looking to buck the trend.
Today on the show, we examine what the success of two startups could mean for the future of journalism.
Virginia Evans’ The Correspondent became a runaway hit for its exploration of a life told through letters. When readers meet Sybil Van Antwerp she’s in her 70s, and she takes readers on a journey through her various correspondences — which include names as revered as Joan Didion and Ann Patchett. But Sybil isn’t telling us everything, and her clever prose might hide as much as it reveals. In today’s episode, author Virginia Evans joins Here and Now’s Robin Young to discuss the value of correspondence, and how the book’s success has changed the letter-writing industry itself.
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The Movies…. Are back. The Mindset….Continues. Bet you thought we had forgotten? Will and Hesse get in right under the gun for another Movie Mindset Oscars Special. Our two professional film critics and acclaimed indie film stars discuss this year’s finest offerings from Tinsel Town and debate which among them deserves to be immortalized with that finest of names “Oscar.”
Will PTA finally have his crowning moment of glory this year or will it be One Disappointment After Another for the wunderkind director as he’s snubbed yet again…
Who will win the ideological battle over fascism this year? Will it be The Secret Agent, which maintains that fascism is bad or F:1 which stands for Fascism = #1?
Is having a parent evil, or is being a parent evil? And Is it better to exist or not to? Films like this year’s Frankenstein, Sentimental Value and Hamnet all delve into this tricky and universal human dilemma.
The Best Actor race is among the tightest in recent memory with many industry insiders saying it’s going to come down to Michael B Jordan playing a set of twins who are divided over eating pussy and becoming a vampire and Timothee Chalamet who plays an arrogant, pushy Jewish guy who gets everything he wants and conquers the world.
Will and Hesse discuss all this and more! Also Train Dreams? Place your bets NOW on which of this year’s movies will win, and which ones each of these professional film critics still haven’t seen!
Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro stops by the studio to talk to Jon Lovett about Trump's war in Iran, growing antisemitism and Islamophobia in America, and what it'll take for Democrats to learn how to do big things again. The two then unpack what it takes for a politician to honestly change their mind, ask the Governor's sister — who was sitting in the studio — to fact-check his claims about growing up as a troublemaker, and debate whether a calm, collected approach to politics can also be cool in our current political moment.
For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email transcripts@crooked.com and include the name of the podcast.
The Trump administration miscalculated how Iran would respond to this war. And the United States, Iran and Israel were brought to the brink of war in the first place because of a whole series of misjudgments and miscalculations going back decades.
Ali Vaez is the Iran project director at the International Crisis Group. He was involved in the negotiations that led to the 2015 nuclear deal, and is in fact himself a nuclear scientist. He’s also an author of “How Sanctions Work: Iran and the Impact of Economic Warfare.”
In this conversation, Vaez explains how over 47 years the United States, Israel and Iran came to one another as threats, and why so many efforts to thaw relations failed. It’s the briefing on Iran that Trump should have received before he decided to go to war.
Mentioned:
How Sanctions Work by Narges Bajoghli, Vali Nasr, Djavad Salehi-Isfahani, and Ali Vaez
This episode of “The Ezra Klein Show” was produced by Jack McCordick. Fact-checking by Michelle Harris with Kate Sinclair. Our senior engineer is Jeff Geld, with additional mixing by Isaac Jones and Aman Sahota. Our executive producer is Claire Gordon. The show’s production team also includes Marie Cascione, Annie Galvin, Rollin Hu, Kristin Lin, Emma Kehlbeck, Marina King and Jan Kobal. Original music by Aman Sahota and Pat McCusker. Audience strategy by Kristina Samulewski and Shannon Busta. The director of New York Times Opinion Audio is Annie-Rose Strasser.
In most sports, men compete against men and women compete against women. That is generally considered fair, because men are faster, more powerful and have greater endurance.
But there is an ongoing controversy about transgender women - people who were born male and now identify as women. Is it fair for them to compete in the women’s sport category or do they have an advantage?
A study in the British Journal of Sports Medicine recently added to the debate with an analysis that found the strength and fitness of transgender women is “comparable” with that of women.
More or Less looks into the research to explain what it does, and does not, say.
Contributors:
Professor Alun Williams, Manchester Metropolitan University
Credits:
Presenter: Charlotte McDonald
Reporter: Tom Colls
Production co-ordinator: Brenda Brown
Sound Mix: Gareth Jones
Editor: Richard Vadon