“The incentive structures in the worlds of politics and news media… are geared towards division and not just division, but demonizing people. And it's very dangerous. It has already resulted in loss of life.”
-CNN’s Jake Tapper
Jake Tapper is the CNN Chief Washington Correspondent, anchor of The Lead with Jake Tapper, and co-host of the Sunday morning public affairs program State of the Union. In 2023, he was part of the team that won a duPont-Columbia award for their coverage of the conflict in Ukraine. He also hosted the awards at Columbia University in 2018.
In this episode, Tapper sits down with Columbia Journalism School’s Dean Jelani Cobb to reminisce about their longstanding friendship and talk about the extraordinary state of American politics. including how journalists should report on figures like Trump.
“People are often surprised when they watch the film and they realize that it's sort of a dark comedy. It's a funny movie. He's a funny guy.”
“Navalny” follows Alexei Navalny, his team and his family as he investigates his own poisoning, and heads back to Russia to meet his fate. Director Daniel Roher explains how he built a relationship with Russia’s most prominent opposition leader.
“When we were in the back of a van crossing Hungary to Vienna, the driver was drunk and all the smugglers had AK-47s... and I remember my cousin looking at me like, I hope you're not filming. But I was secretly holding the camera.”
Exodus’ subject Hassan Akkad on filming himself, and Director James Bluemel on collecting these important stories.
“One person hearing the other person tell her story on television had empowered the next person to come forward. And you got a sense, that in the room too, they were finding strength in numbers and power in numbers. ”
Revisiting an early #MeToo moment - Kate Snow talks about her 2017 duPont Award winning interview with 27 of Bill Cosby’s accusers.
“She had not seen it, and she never asked to see it ahead of time which is pretty extraordinary…people are always asking to see your work ahead of time. She never asked. ” — RBG Producer/Director Betsy West
A repeat of one of our most popular episodes: A look back at last year’s Columbia J-School screening of “RBG,” when the Supreme Court justice herself made a surprise visit. The filmmakers talk about the power of optimism, and how RBG herself reacted to seeing the film for the first time in front of a sold out audience at Sundance.
“Most writing about race simply says ‘there's a disparity that exists.’ That's not news... What's much more important is the why and the how. And I don't think that we see nearly enough of that.” — Nikole Hannah Jones, NYT Magazine
A repeat of one of our most popular episodes: NBC News Anchor Lester Holt speaks with NYT Magazine reporter/writer and 2019 winner of the John Chancellor Award for Excellence in Journalism about the convergance race and reporting.
“It really is just like a bunch of people thinking what would amuse us to put on the radio, and we're interested in the news and what's going on. And honestly it is not more sophisticated than that.” — This American Life Host/Producer Ira Glass
In our special 50th episode, find out what goes into the making of This American Life, one of the most listened to radio shows - one that spawned a generation of podcasts.
Bonus: Hear Ira’s sage advice from his speech to the Columbia Journalism School graduating class of 2018.