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Articles by Josh Hersh
How a Beloved Soccer Team’s TV Channel Got Red-Pilled
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. This April, while addressing the media at a press conference ahead of the final of the Copa del Rey in Seville, a soccer referee named Ricardo de Burgos Bengoetxea became emotional. His voice strained. He fought back tears.
How AI browsers sneak past blockers and paywalls.
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Last week, OpenAI released Atlas, which joins a growing wave of AI browsers, including Perplexity’s Comet and Microsoft’s Copilot mode in Edge, that aim to transform how people interact with the Web.
The Interview Assassin: Why Isaac Chotiner doesn’t mind the “gotcha” label.
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. If Isaac Chotiner comes calling for an interview, is it best to just hang up? His Q&As for The New Yorker have been known to spark their own media-news cycles, often for reasons that aren’t flattering to the interview subject. That was the case on Monday, when Chotiner’s latest Q&A dropped—a lengthy interview with Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary under President Joe Biden, about her new book, Independent.
The push to get international reporters into Gaza.
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. For more than two years, since the start of the war in Gaza, Israel has barred members of the international press from entering the territory, apart from occasional highly controlled embeds. During that time, reporting by Palestinian journalists has proliferated widely, documenting famine, destruction, and death.
The CEOs of everything.
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. On January 21, the day after his second presidential inauguration, Donald Trump walked into the White House’s Roosevelt Room tailed by three billionaires. He was announcing a major AI initiative, and offered warm words for the technologists beside him: Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI; Masayoshi Son, chief executive of SoftBank; and Larry Ellison, executive chairman of Oracle. “That’s a massive group of talent, and money,” Trump said.
Signal Hill, a new audio magazine, embraces the weird.
Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter. On a recent evening, a group of editors, writers, and audio producers gathered on Zoom to talk about Erin Brockovichâs bra. They were workshopping an audio essay for Signal Hill, an audio magazine that debuted early this year.
Margaret Sullivan takes a new look at journalism ethics.
Sign up for the daily CJR newsletter. This summer, Margaret Sullivan, the executive director of the Craig Newmark Center for Journalism Ethics and Security at Columbia Journalism School, and her colleague Julie Gerstein published a series of essays in CJR exploring what a new generation of journalism ethics might look like, as the media industry evolves.
Chicago’s Block Club Is Ready for ICE
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. On Thursday, a federal judge issued a temporary restraining order barring federal agents from using riot control measures like tear gas to disperse journalists seeking to cover protests outside the Broadview ICE processing center, near Chicago. The order was the result of a lawsuit filed earlier in the week by several Chicago news outlets, whose reporters had been injured or detained while trying to cover ICE activity in the city.
Elle Reeve on the Charlie Kirk Shooting Suspect’s Inscrutable Memes
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. In 2017, Elle Reeve, then a correspondent for Vice News, became a household name when she reported from the “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia—as neo-Nazis marched with burning torches and a white supremacist drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters. Reeve has developed an expertise on what you might call the fringe beat, covering shadowy internet groups and right-wing political movements for CNN.
Christian Authoritarians and the Pursuit of Power
There's an Indigenous legend about the Wendigo. It's a creature that was once human but transformed into an emaciated monster with a never-ending hunger. No matter how much the Wendigo consumes, it's never satisfied. Sound familiar? Jesus rejected earthly power. When Satan offered him all the kingdoms of the world, Christ said no. When people tried to make him an earthly king, he walked away.
The last reporter to profile Charlie Kirk.
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Brigham Tomco is a reporter for Deseret News, covering Utah politics and the conservative movement. For the past few months, he’d been digging into the political operation and personal ambitions of Charlie Kirk, the charismatic young activist and social media star who was murdered on Wednesday during an event on a college campus in Utah. The profile came out this week.
Garrett Graff Thinks the Press Should Be Taking Trump’s Health Much More Seriously
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Hind Hassan Is Sorry We Didn’t Do More to Make Journalism Safe
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Earlier this month, Hind Hassan, a decorated documentary news reporter who has covered everything from conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, and Ukraine to the bizarre underworld of the global wellness industry, spoke at a graduation ceremony for students at Columbia Journalism School.
Will the Jeffrey Epstein Scandal Break MAGA Media?
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. For the past few weeks, MAGA media and conservative podcasters have been torn apart over President Trump’s handling of the Jeffrey Epstein saga. Anna Merlan, a senior editor at Mother Jones, joins The Kicker to talk about right-wing media’s efforts to change the subject—and whether their audiences will go along with it.
Alan Rusbridger Wants the BBC to Find its Nerve
Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter. On Monday, the BBC released its long-awaited report into a documentary about life inside wartime Gaza, which the British public broadcaster retracted in February, after it was revealed that its narrator was the son of a Hamas official.
Returning Home to Cover the Floods in Texas
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Last Wednesday, a press conference with the mayor of Kerrville, Texas, grew heated. Reporters—many of them in town from national news organizations to cover the aftermath of the devastating flooding of the Guadalupe River, which left well over a hundred people dead—had been pressing city officials for information about any miscalculations that may have contributed to the high death toll.
The Kicker
The Kicker is a podcast on the media and the world today. It comes out twice a month, hosted by Josh Hersh and produced by Amanda Darrach for the Columbia Journalism Review. It is available wherever you get your podcasts, including Apple Podcasts and Spotify. All Kicker episodes »
What’s the Matter with the BBC?
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Recent weeks have not been very comfortable for the BBC. A documentary about Gaza it refused to broadcast was aired instead by a competitor, to critical acclaim. A livestream of the Glastonbury Festival turned into a political nightmare, after a performer led the crowd in a chant of “Death to the IDF”—leading the network to ditch plans for future “high risk” live shows.
Q&A: Ghaith Abdul-Ahad Has Seen Enough of American Wars in the Middle East
Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter. Ghaith Abdul-Ahad was a young graduate from architecture school when the American invasion of Iraq began in 2003.
Live from Tbilisi
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR‚Äôs daily newsletter. Branko Brkic founded Daily Maverick, a South African digital news outlet, in 2009. Today he calls himself the publication‚Äôs ‚Äúmaverick in chief.‚ÄĚ But his real focus is on a campaign to help journalism save itself from the political and economic dangers looming everywhere.
What’s the Point of Investigating Trump?
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. David Fahrenthold won the Pulitzer Prize for his 2016 reporting on how Donald Trump’s lifetime of charitable giving was largely a mirage. Nine years later, he’s still reporting on how Trumpworld’s claims about financial matters don’t always add up—this time, looking closely at the cost-cutting from DOGE for the New York Times. But does this kind of facts-first reporting still land?
‘I Try to Find the Question That People Cannot Squirm Out Of’
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. For more than thirty years, Phil Williams has been the steadying voice of investigative reporting at NewsChannel 5, in Nashville. His deep dives into toxic wastewater and lobbyist access to state politicians have earned him a slew of major journalism awards, including five Peabodys and five duPont-Columbia Awards.
‘The Threat Is Very Real’
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Last week, Donald Trump issued an executive order calling for the end of funding for NPR and PBS. It’s the latest attempt by conservatives to cut back on support for public media, and in particular target NPR, which they view as having a liberal bias.
Inside El Salvador’s Dystopian Prison Network
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. A few years ago, El Salvador was one of the most violent nations in the world, with gang killings taking the lives of dozens of people every week. Nayib Bukele, elected president in 2019, changed all that—today, violence is way down. But his brute-force approach to the problem has involved mass arrests, secret deals, and forced disappearances into a harsh prison system—which is apparently the envy of many in the Trump administration.
Kai Ryssdal Was America’s Economic Voice of Reason This Week
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Kai Ryssdal has been the host of Marketplace, a leading daily radio show and podcast about the economy, produced by American Public Media, since 2005. He delivers the news—from the bitter latest on our 401(k)s to unexpected interviews about the modern-day resurgence of train robberies—with an affable, direct tone.
Carlos Watson Goes Free: A Surprising Coda to the CJR Podcast
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. On the day that Carlos Watson, the founder of the digital media company Ozy Media, was due to turn himself in to prison last week, to begin serving a nearly ten-year sentence for fraud and identity theft, he and his family received some unexpected good news: President Donald Trump was commuting his sentence.
Molly White Knows You Don’t Understand Crypto
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. If you thought “DOGE” only stood for the “Department of Government Efficiency”—well, you’re not alone. The world of crypto is full of double meanings and inside jokes, making the recent arrival of these alternative currency markets—and their attendant “crypto bros”—into the seat of power in Washington all the more mystifying.
Trump Commutes Prison Sentence of Ozy Media Founder Carlos Watson
Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter. President Donald Trump commuted the sentence of Carlos Watson on Friday, hours before the former media executive was due to turn himself in to serve a nearly ten-year prison sentence. Watson was convicted last summer of wire fraud and identity theft, for his role in misleading investors and inflating the revenue of his news startup Ozy Media.
The Legal War on Journalism
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Over the past several months, Donald Trump has mounted a series of legal attacks against the media, including a libel case against ABC, an FCC investigation into CBS, and a lawsuit accusing an Iowa pollster (and the newspaper that publishes her) of “election interference.” The sometimes far-fetched claims in these cases notwithstanding, the maneuvers are having an effect.
A Spring Training Palate Cleanser
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. In January, the Baltimore Banner released an investigation into the star kicker of the Baltimore Ravens, in which multiple women accused him of sexually inappropriate behavior during massages, dating back years. (The player denies the accusations.) It was an example of a rare kind of journalism these days: hard-hitting accountability reporting on sports.
A Warning from a Hungarian Journalist: ‘Brace Yourself for the Worst’
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. András Pethő is a Hungarian journalist and a cofounder of Direkt36, an independent investigative news outlet. Over the past decade, he’s watched as the government of Viktor Orbán—the world leader whom Steve Bannon once praised as “Trump before Trump”—has systematically eroded the freedom of the press in his country, in ways that may feel familiar to Americans watching corporate news leaders succumb to pressure from the administration.
When ICE Raids Go Awry, Reporting Gets Blamed
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Last week, reporters at Denver’s 9News started hearing that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were staging military-style vehicles in parking lots across the city. The Denver area is home to a significant population of immigrants; last year, the suburb of Aurora became a focal point for Donald Trump’s reelection campaign, when false claims spread that an apartment complex had been taken over by a Venezuelan gang.
Back in the Whirlwind
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Jon Allsop writes and edits The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. There, he’s closely watched as the American press has struggled to respond to, and cover, the barrage of news that pours out of Donald Trump. As a frenetic new term begins, Jon joins The Kicker to share his thoughts on what the media gets wrong—and how the political press might begin to chart a new relationship with the presidency and the public.
A Wild Start to the Year
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Natalia Antelava spent many years as a correspondent for the BBC, before starting her own media company, Coda Story, in 2016. She’s covered wars in the Middle East and the rise of authoritarianism across Eastern Europe and the Caucasus. For the past year, she was a Knight Fellow at Stanford, where she examined how journalism might survive in an era of AI and tech supremacy.
The Exhibits
Sign up for The Media Today, CJRâs daily newsletter. The case against Carlos Watson, a cofounder of the digital media company Ozy, was largely built on the testimony of his key lieutenants, including his young cofounder, Samir Rao. But prosecutors also presented several other pieces of hard evidence over the course of the trial, much of it discussed in CJRâs podcast series âThe Unraveling of Ozy Media,â a special production of The Kicker.
The Unraveling of Ozy Media
Sign up for The Media Today, CJRās daily newsletter. In the fall of 2021, Ozy Mediaāa small but seemingly high-achieving digital startupāburst into the public eye, when the New York Times reported that one of the companyās cofounders had impersonated an executive from YouTube during a conference call with potential investors. Soon, Ozy was in shambles, as was Carlos Watson, the face of the company, who, two years later, was indicted on federal charges, including fraud.
Why the Media Can’t Have Its Own Joe Rogan
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Donald Trump surprised a lot of people when he appeared on a number of nonpolitical podcasts this summer, spending valuable campaign time with unconventional figures, from the comedian Andrew Schultz and the former wrestler known as The Undertaker to the podcast king, Joe Rogan.
It’s All Fun and Games Until a Television Host Becomes Secretary of Defense
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Pete Hegseth has spent the past several years on daytime television, hawking grenade-shape soaps, hurling axes, and boasting about never washing his hands. Now he’s preparing for confirmation hearings as Donald Trump’s next secretary of defense.
How Trump Won Over the Latino Vote
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Nearly half of all Latino voters put their support behind former president Donald Trump this week, according to exit polls—a 14 percent increase from 2020. Those results surprised many, but not Jack Herrera, who has been reporting on the shifting voting habits of Latino communities across the country for years. Herrera joins The Kicker to talk about what he’s learned from his journalism in Pennsylvania, Iowa, and the border counties of Texas.
The Most Important Election of a Lifetime?
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Five months ago—when I stood outside a courthouse in Lower Manhattan with a couple dozen stragglers, half-heartedly hoping to get into the first (and so far only) criminal trial of Donald Trump—the presidential campaign felt moribund, and so did the news surrounding it. Hardly anyone was tuning in to coverage of politics, and the months ahead seemed poised to be a long, tedious slog.
Martin Baron on Jeff Bezos, the Post, and the role of presidential endorsements
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. Martin Baron was the executive editor of the Washington Post from 2013 until his retirement, in 2021—which meant he was there for the arrival of Amazon founder Jeff Bezos as owner and publisher of the paper. He’s long praised Bezos for taking a firm line against any interference with the paper’s journalism, but Bezos’s sudden decision, announced last week, to torpedo the paper’s planned endorsement of Kamala Harris was a bridge too far.
NBC’s Ryan Reilly on what Trump might do if he loses
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. The so-called Big Lie—that the 2020 election was stolen out from under Donald Trump—was more than just a series of individual false facts and misleading videos. It was a narrative, carefully constructed by people affiliated with the Trump campaign, and disseminated through friendly news outlets and social media channels. Four years later, that story still convinces millions of Trump’s supporters.
A manic news cycle in New York
Sign up for The Media Today, CJR’s daily newsletter. New York City is the media capital of the world, but the number of people and outlets covering the city locally has taken a hit recently. Over the past few years, the Wall Street Journal dropped its independent metro section, the New York Times announced it would stop endorsing local races, and the all-news radio station WCBS went off the air. But a number of scrappy upstarts have started filling the void.
The power of uncomfortable ideas: Jina Moore Ngarambe on her time at Guernica
In March, the digital literary magazine Guernica published a personal essay by a British Israeli writer and translator, about her experiences in the aftermath of the October 7 Hamas terror attacks. It was raw and honest and painful to read. The writer, Joanna Chen, had spent years before the attacks and subsequent war on Gaza volunteering for an organization that transported Palestinian children into Israeli territory for medical care; after October 7, she found it hard to connect with the work.
‘That’s how you run a debate!’ 9News’s Kyle Clark on holding politicians accountable
In late May, Kyle Clark went viral after he moderated a debate featuring six Republican candidates for Colorado’s Fourth Congressional District, including Rep. Lauren Boebert. He refused to allow the candidates to evade his direct questions with waffling, rambly answers, instead repeatedly cutting them off: “You didn’t make any attempt to answer the actual question,” he said at one point.
The long, destructive path of fire: Talking to Source NM’s Patrick Lohmann about a never-ending wildfire season
In early 2023, Patrick Lohmann, a reporter for the nonprofit Source NM, moved to the small town of Las Vegas, New Mexico, to learn how residents were coping with the aftermath of the largest wildfire in state history. What he learned there was that the destruction brought on by wildfires doesn’t end when the fire itself goes out. It can take years for people to extract benefits from the federal bureaucracy, and for communities to fully recover—if they ever do.
1968 all over again? Heather Hendershot and Ted Koppel on a year for the media to remember.
The Democrats are gathering in Chicago next week, and the sitting president has dropped out of the race. But as the guests on today’s podcast remind us, that doesn’t mean history is repeating itself. In 1968, Ted Koppel was just back from a tour covering the war in Vietnam, and assigned to the comparatively tame—if, as he reminds us, not without its moments—presidential campaign of Republican Richard Nixon.
No Freebies
A few weeks ago, Sara Lomax found herself live on air at the radio station she runs. Lomax is the president and CEO of WURD, Philadelphia’s only Black-owned talk radio station; she was addressing a controversy that had roiled her organization. Two days earlier, Andrea Lawful-Sanders, one of the station’s most beloved hosts, had confessed to interviewing Joe Biden using questions that had been provided to her by his campaign.
Kamala Harris steps up: Politico’s Eugene Daniels on a wild month of news
Eugene Daniels is a White House reporter for Politico, with a special focus on Kamala Harris. That’s put him front and center for a month of news that few people in politics saw coming. On this episode of The Kicker, Daniels shares what he’s learned from nearly four years of covering the vice president, how her relationship with the press will differ from the president’s, and why he wouldn’t blame the media for Biden’s decision to drop out of the race. Produced by Emily Russell Hosted by Josh Hersh
Spanish-speaking journalism…in Iowa: A conversation with Lorena Lopez
Lorena Lopez came to the United States from her home country of Nicaragua, where she was an investigative reporter, in 1992. But it wasn’t until 2016 that she managed to return to her passion, as the founding editor of La Prensa, a Spanish-language newspaper serving Western Iowa.
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