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David Foster Wallace died last Friday at the age of 46. Known best as a fiction writer, he was also a journalist who wrote singular pieces about subjects as varied as porn industry awards, tennis-as-religion, luxury cruises, presidential campaigning, talk radio stamina, Midwestern wind patterns and lobster sentience. Pomona College professor Kathleen Fitzpatrick remembers Wallace’s point of view.
In his 84 years Tony Schwartz produced over 30,000 recordings, thousands of groundbreaking political ads, media theory books and Broadway sound design, invented the portable recorder, delivered hundreds of lectures and had full careers as an ad executive and a pioneering folklorist. And he did it all without leaving his zip code. Schwartz died in June and we offer a piece from the Kitchen Sisters, looking back at his life spent listening.
NBC News Washington bureau chief and moderator of “Meet the Press,” Tim Russert died Friday at the age of 58.
In his new book, What Happened, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan says he was misinformed and misled and, surprise, so too were the American people. Too little, too late?
When news happens, and even when it doesn't, Rachel Maddow is there to discuss it. She has a radio show on Air America and often appears on MSNBC as a sidekick, guest, or panelist. Maddow gives a pundit's-eye-view of Tuesday's primary coverage and discusses the compromises of professional punditry.
Think you know reality? Ayn Rand did, and through her novels and nonfiction she gave legions of followers a practical philosophy by which to live. Brooke looks at the enduring legacy of the original Objectivist.
The story of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints has been irresistible to the news media for weeks, with images of FLDS women living as though in another century. But now the sister wives are fighting back in a very 21st century way. Salt Lake Tribune’s polygamy reporter Brooke Adams reviews the narrative.
Fidel Castro resigned this week. Before his lengthy tenure began, New York Times reporter Herbert L. Matthews interviewed Castro in the jungle—and fell in love with his cause. Years later, reporter Anthony DePalma wrote about the exchange and joined us to talk about it.
