Best PColumbia Journalism Reviews Podcasts (2024)

1
What. The. F*ck. 1:02:07

12d ago1:02:07

1:02:07

Prepare to be scandalized. Oh, your stars! Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist. To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters butt…

1
Verily Varying Verbs 32:55

2M ago32:55

32:55

How to crack the attention economy? Coldcock your readers. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist. To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corn…

1
BONUS: Red Pen at the Movies 48:36

3M ago48:36

48:36

Come for the critical reappraisal of ‘Shakespeare in Love,’ stay for Mike’s shocking revelation. Anon, good nurse! Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist. To use Red Pen chapters, swipe …

1
Odds’n’Sods 35:51

3M ago35:51

35:51

Oh, boy, are the “stick to the topic” ppl gonna love this one. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist. To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-…

1
Breaking the Laws 30:25

4M ago30:25

30:25

When, whether, and how often. With a little help from Humbert Humbert. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist. To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the to…

1
Finest Points 47:03

5M ago47:03

47:03

Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love nuance. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist. To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chap…

1
Past, Perfect 37:26

5M ago37:26

37:26

You best believe we seen this trend. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist. To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters button on …

1
Top 5! 39:40

6M ago39:40

39:40

In which Mike finally reads the comments. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist. To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner Chapters butto…

1
Ergative Zones 40:07

7M ago40:07

40:07

How Padma Lakshmi schooled us all on the "middle voice." Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist. To use Red Pen chapters, swipe up on the Now Playing screen or click the top-right-corner…

1
Words We Love 55:08

7M ago55:08

55:08

And a few we hate. And, for some reason, a few that are German. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Show Notes: The Staten Island Ferry Schedule (But sign your marriage license on dry land.) Out of Office podcast Phonesthemes @germanonliners…

1
Source Code, Part I: Correcting the record 41:35

8M ago41:35

41:35

On the record, off the record, on background, deep background: What to expect when you're expecting to be a source. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen songs over on the Red Pen Official Playlist. To use Red Pen chapters, swipe…

1
Make Up the Breakdown 25:56

9M ago25:56

25:56

It's an epidemic, people: one-word compound nouns standing in for phrasal verbs. Is Kelly Clarkson to blame? Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda DarrachBy Columbia Journalism Review

1
Season 1 Is a Wrap! 7:55

1y ago7:55

7:55

Being a podcast produced under the aegis of a university, Red Pen is about to make like the kiddies, ditching the books and reclining poolside for the summer. We'll be back after Labor Day, armed with killer tans, fresh Trapper Keepers—and an exciting slate of guests. Till then! Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing …

1
Pronouns: Now it's personal 53:51

1y ago53:51

53:51

Does English offer an ungendered third-person singular, and if so, who uses it? Everyone and their mother, as it turns out—going all the way back to the Middle Ages. Yinz gotta hear this one. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all your favorite Red Pen…

1
Seven Deadly Synesis 49:24

1y ago49:24

49:24

Ghastly puns aside, English is pretty agreeable in terms of agreement—but still presents some pitfalls when it comes to the alignment of grammatical number or person. Join us as we get into all that, plus stick around for (more) chatter about ChatGPT and about the most kickass Finnish film maybe ever. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the commen…

1
What Pop Culture Taught Us 50:00

1y ago50:00

50:00

What do the musical Rent, the movie Seven, The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies, Kurt Cobain, and Lisa Simpson have in common? Why, they all imparted important, improbable vocab onto a young Ryan, Amanda, and Mike, of course (of course!). Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Aman…

1
In the Mood for Subjunctives 1:01:35

1+ y ago1:01:35

1:01:35

The pluckiest conjugation in the English language; the tense that won't go gentle into that good night. Reports of its death have been… somewhat exaggerated. (Though if it weren't for country lyrics, who knows where we'd be?) Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darr…

1
Redundancy, redundancy 51:51

1+ y ago51:51

51:51

Unless you're that one guy from Goodfellas—or verses one and three of a classic pop song—it's probably not a great idea to repeat yourself. But are you doing it without realizing? Never fear: Ryan, Mike, and Amanda are here with a list of everyday pleonasms to keep an ear out for. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thin…

1
Appositively 4th Street 45:09

1+ y ago45:09

45:09

Restrictive or nonrestrictive, essential or non-: let's dispense with the terminology and ditch the reference manuals in favor of practical advice (namely on whether and when to use those damn commas). Plus, more on everyone's favorite lovably fallible chatbot. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thin…

1
Textiquette: The gloves come off (and so do the shoes) 57:33

1+ y ago57:33

57:33

The world's changing, and so are the rules for moving through it. But did New York magazine err in its recent guide to 21st-century etiquette? Join us as we hash out canceling plans the day of, blasting out iMessages at 5am, responding "k" vs. "kk" vs. "ok," and… winking? Plus stick around after the bell rings for a spirited chat about fad diets. Q…

1
'The Elongated Yellow Fruit': On diction 58:25

1+ y ago58:25

58:25

Do you nictitate, or do you blink? Were the Clampetts new-money, or would you call them parvenus or arrivistes? When it comes to word choice, English draws the battle lines across a few fronts: the plainspoken versus the purple, the Saxonic versus the Latinate, Hemingway versus Nabokov. So let's get into it. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the…

1
Rhythm Blues: On bad poetry 1:20:01

1+ y ago1:20:01

1:20:01

There are a great many ways to write terrible verse—lazy rhymes, half-baked conceits, catastrophic metrical breakdowns. But where others have failed, u/poem_for_your_sprog sings the subreddits electric. Look on his works, ye unlettered, and despair. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike La…

1
Buzzwords, Part 2: A very unique and impactful finale 28:31

1+ y ago28:31

28:31

What voguish phrase makes Mike drop his first on-air F-bomb? Which term gets Ryan's vote for word of the decade? And what contributions did you, Dear Listener, make to this godforsaken list? Smash that play button for the answers to these and other pressing queries (to wit, on Russian poisonings, the best Judas, and MTA campaigns we just can't quit…

1
Buzzwords, Part 1: A truly iconic episode 50:18

1+ y ago50:18

50:18

We all use them, we all hate them: fad terms. How do they catch on? Why should careful writing eschew them? Listen as Mike attempts to answer despite a determined frog in the throat, and Ryan attempts to shame him for bingeing the Mighty Ducks reboot (while copping to watching the ne plus ultra of trash TV, Netflix's You). Questions/comments/ideas/…

1
Punctuation Problems, Part 2: With the Beatles 59:38

1+ y ago59:38

59:38

How litigious are the rights holders of the most beloved catalogue in music? Join us as we find out, stopping along the way to dish on Dick Morris, Ugly Kid Joe, Vladimir Nabokov, Mad Men, and (oh yeah) a dense little handful of troublesome marks: questions and quotations, colons and semis, dashes and parens. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in th…

1
Punctuation Problems, Part I: F*ck up some commas 47:02

1+ y ago47:02

47:02

Pop quiz, hotshot: When does a period go inside a parenthesis? How many commas are too many for a sentence to bear? When do you use single quotes rather than double? Should you ever hit the space bar twice? And for extra credit: How is a poorly punctuated paragraph like pornography? Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Th…

1
Possessed, Part II: Doubly Possessive 43:37

1+ y ago43:37

43:37

Genitives, gerunds, postpositive adjectives—oh, my! There's still a lot to say about the tangled mess of possessive forms, so let's get back to it. You won't want to miss Producer Amanda's first on-air appearance (to dish on the royals, natch) or Mike's unforgivable misreading of a fine point in the Chicago Manual of Style. Plus: Meat Loaf, Lorde, …

1
Possessed, Part I: Mo plurals, mo problems 49:09

1+ y ago49:09

49:09

When it comes to ownership in English, even the basics get real wrinkly real fast. Best to get right into it. So what do the Simpsons, Mighty Ducks, Danish film directors, and nepo babies have to do with anything? Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comments. We love you. Thing 1: Ryan Davis Thing 2: Mike Laws Producer: Amanda Darrach Find all…

1
Prepositions: Totally okay to end sentences with 40:56

1+ y ago40:56

40:56

A deep dive into a "rule" that arguably never was—and certainly isn't now. So where did it come from? As usual, a poet's to blame. Digressions include the animal tranquilizer xylazine, the authorship of works credited to Shakespeare, the dubiousness of quotes attributed to Churchill, Restoration-era rap battles, and Beavis and Butt-Head. Questions/…

1
Inflection Points 1:01:20

1+ y ago1:01:20

1:01:20

You might've BID on a vintage loom on eBay—but if you didn't get it, you BADE it farewell. If you did, maybe you WOVE a pair of mittens so pretty your sister WEAVED through traffic to snag them. Verbs with different senses can be tricky, but it's nothing to get HUNG about (and certainly not HANGED over!). We're here to sort out these and other dual…

1
Dangler Untangler: Make those modifiers sing 47:36

1+ y ago47:36

47:36

As a grammar podcast, our aim is to edify as well as entertain.

1
'Fewer': One less thing to worry about 38:40

1+ y ago38:40

38:40

The grocery store is where good grammar goes to die. But you needn't be afeard of "less" versus "fewer." It ain't that complicated. Except when it is. Digressions include Paraguayan beef, tightly tucked duvets, streaming services' subtitles, and how young Mike got hoodwinked by those 12-CDs-for-a-penny scams. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in th…

1
Misused and Abused, II: Compliments on a full complement 26:22

1+ y ago26:22

26:22

Homing in on honing our vocab, we effect various affects, gibing and jiving about words that don't jibe. Stick around for tangents on Bush v. Trump malapropisms, the dubious staying power of Stephen Colbert's "truthiness," and whether A Clockwork Orange can teach English-speakers conversational Russian. Questions/comments/ideas/snark go in the comm…

1
Misused and Abused, I: Shimmying, jiving, possibly some words that have nothing to do with dancing 33:15

1+ y ago33:15

33:15

"Bet," "based," "goated": we're in a brave new world of hyperfast coinage. But does this phase faze you? Are you nonplussed? Episode 2 provides the answers to help elegantly shimmy (or perhaps shinny) your way out of these uncomfortable questions. Divagations include: the merits of Goodfellas v. Casino, the shenanigans of Norman Mailer and other li…

1
Who or Whom? One weird trick melts away YEARS of confusion 44:00

1+ y ago44:00

44:00

To whom or not to whom, that is the question. The word's going the way of the northern white rhino, but is it ever wrong to use "who" in its place? Will your fancy dinner party guests think you're a troglodyte? And what if you overcorrect and stick a "whom" where it doesn't belong? All this, plus digressions on red being the real warmest color, why…

1
Trailer 3:11

1+ y ago3:11

3:11

Welcome to the weird, wild, scintillatingly stylish, and syntactically sound world of RED PEN—the grammar podcast that won't put you to sleep. Brought to you by the Columbia Journalism Review and hosted by old buds Ryan Davis and Mike Laws, RED PEN plucks examples from the news (as well as from novels, music, movies—wherever!) to answer all those q…

1
CJR Podcast: Corey Hutchins talks digital startups and local news with Denverite's Dave Burdick 26:38

7+ y ago26:38

26:38

Corey Hutchins is a Colorado-based contributor to the Columbia Journalism Review's United States Project, which covers developments in local media around the country. Here, he speaks with Dave Burdick, editor-in-chief of Denverite, a 5-month-old for-profit Denver news startup, about the challenges of starting a hyperlocal, digital-only news product…

1
CJR Podcast: Solutions-based journalism with Corey Hutchins, Ben Goldfarb and Leah Todd

8y ago

—

Corey Hutchins is a Colorado-based contributor to the Columbia Journalism Review's United States Project, which covers developments in local media around the country. Here, he speaks with Ben Goldfarb and Leah Todd of the Solutions Journalism Network, and J.R. Logan of Taos News, about "Small Towns, Big Change," a collaboration between SJN and seve…

1
CJR Podcast: Paul Berry

12+ y ago

—

Paul Berry was the CTO of Huffington Post from April 2007 through December 2011. He is currently the founder and CEO of RebelMouse, a social media startup, and Soho Tech Lab, an incubator. Here, he speaks with Emily Bell, director of the Tow Center for Digital Journalism at Columbia University, about where he's been, where he's going, and what's in…

1
CJR Podcast: James Boylan 18:00

12+ y ago18:00

18:00

In celebration of our 50th anniversary, James Boylan, who founded CJR in 1961, talks about the magazine's early history and his time as its editor with deputy editor Clint Hendler.By Columbia Journalism Review

1
CJR Podcast: Bill Grueskin and Lucas Graves 13:46

13y ago13:46

13:46

Bill Grueskin, Lucas Graves, and Ava Seave are the authors of a new report released by Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism, entitled "The Story So Far: What we know about the business of digital journalism." In this conversation with assistant editor Lauren Kirchner, Grueskin and Graves discuss the report's recommendations for t…

1
CJR Podcast: Lawrence Pintak 8:52

13y ago8:52

8:52

Lawrence Pintak, author of the book The New Arab Journalist: Mission and Identity in a Time of Turmoil, wrote the cover story of the May/June issue of CJR, entitled "Breathing Room: Toward a new Arab Media." In this conversation with assistant editor Lauren Kirchner, Pintak talks about the origins of television news networks like Al Jazeera and Al …

1
CJR Podcast: Calvin Trillin 8:44

13+ y ago8:44

8:44

CJR's Michael Meyer sits down with author and Nation columnist Calvin Trillin about his new collection, "Trillin on Texas," out now from the University of Texas Press. In this excerpt of their conversation, Meyer asks Trillin about his experiences reporting and writing "U.S. Journal," his series of features that ran in The New Yorker from 1967 to 1…

1
CJR Podcast: LynNell Hancock 12:56

13+ y ago12:56

12:56

LynNell Hancock, a reporter specializing in education and child-and-family policy issues and director of the Spencer Fellowship for Education Journalism at Columbia University, is the author of the cover story of CJR's March/April issue, "Tested: Covering schools in the age of micro-measurement." In this conversation with deputy editor Clint Hendle…

1
CJR Podcast: Brooke Kroeger 13:47

13+ y ago13:47

13:47

Brooke Kroeger, director of the Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute at New York University, is the author of an upcoming book about the history of undercover reporting. In this conversation with assistant editor Joel Meares, she argues that undercover reporting is incredibly valuable for its power to affect change in society, and that it should n…

1
CJR Podcast: Ryan Chittum 10:27

13+ y ago10:27

10:27

Ryan Chittum, deputy editor of The Audit on CJR.org, speaks with assistant editor Laure Kirchner about some of this week's most interesting stories. They discuss the Wisconsin protests over union rights and what might happen next; why Apple's price-gouging on iPad apps can't last; and what the latest developments in the Bernie Madoff saga mean for …

1
CJR Podcast: Judith Matloff 6:32

13+ y ago6:32

6:32

Judith Matloff is an adjunct professor at the Columbia University School of Journalism, and previously worked as a foreign correspondent for twenty years. She is on the board of the International News Safety Institute, which does safety training all over the world. In this conversation with assistant editor Lauren Kirchner, Matloff speaks about the…

1
CJR Podcast: Vanessa M. Gezari 9:09

13+ y ago9:09

9:09

Vanessa M. Gezari is the author of the cover story of the January/February 2011 issue of the Columbia Journalism Review, entitled "Crossfire in Kandahar: Afghanistan's new journalists navigate an ambiguous war." In this conversation with assistant editor Lauren Kirchner, Gezari talks about the obstacles that both Afghan journalists and foreign corr…

1
CJR Podcast: Craig Silverman 7:42

13+ y ago7:42

7:42

A conversation between assistant editor Lauren Kirchner and CJR columnist Craig Silverman, proprietor of RegretTheError.com. Silverman talks about NPR's recent correction concerning the number of State Department cables that WikiLeaks released to the public, and how this widespread mistake in the press has contributed to a misperception of the Wiki…

1
CJR Podcast: WikiLeaks 10:51

13+ y ago10:51

10:51

A conversation between assistant editor Joel Meares and CJR staff writer Clint Hendler about whether or not WikiLeaks is a journalistic organization, and what the latest leaks might mean for the changing role of the watchdog press, free speech on the Internet, and the future of government classification policy.…

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