Michael Barbaro on the New Era of News

Cascade PBS Ideas Festival

The host of the New York Times podcast discusses the ways modern politics have transformed the media landscape.

For many American news consumers, Michael Barbaro’s voice is a defining element of the modern era. As a host of the New York Times podcast The Daily, Barbaro speaks to an audience of more than 3 million listeners, delivering insights into the biggest national and international stories.

That success wasn’t guaranteed. When Barbaro and the rest of the team behind The Daily started it in 2017, they were introducing a novel way to experience the news: hearing from reporters about their stories and how they reported them, or directly from the people in the middle of the stories.

For this episode of the Crosscut Talks podcast, Crosscut Now host Paris Jackson talks with Barbaro about the reasons that formula produced one of the most influential and impactful news sources today.

In this conversation, recorded April 25, 2023 as part of the Crosscut Ideas Festival, Barbaro shares his thoughts on the responsibilities and challenges of this kind of platform during such a tumultuous time, with distrust in the media at an all-time high.

This conversation was recorded April 24, 2023. Watch the video of the interview here.

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Credits

Host: Paris Jackson

Producer: Seth Halleran

Event producers: Jake Newman, Anne O'Dowd

Engineers: Resti Bagcal, Viktoria Ralph

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