Channels with Peter Kafka

Josh Topolsky, CEO and editor in chief of The Outline, talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about the importance of good internet-native design for both advertising and editorial content. Topolsky dismisses the idea that everything publishers put out will move behind paywalls, arguing instead that when ads are done well, they can engage readers and support free content. Most of the time, though, online...

New York Times writer-at-large Amy Chozick talks with Recode’s Ed Lee about her new memoir, “Chasing Hillary: Ten Years, Two Presidential Campaigns, and One Intact Glass Ceiling.” Chozick says the book is about more than Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful campaigns for president; it’s also about all the things reporters didn’t write in their stories about Hillary Clinton, and the “decline of campaign...

New York Times reporter Emily Steel talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about the stories she and her reporting partner Michael Schmidt wrote that brought down Fox News star Bill O'Reilly — part of a series of stories on sexual harassment that netted the Times and the New Yorker a Pulitzer Prize for public service. Steel says she and Schmidt strategized before every phone call and recalls how she got...

Writer Rex Sorgatz talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka about his new book, “The Encyclopedia of Misinformation: A Compendium of Imitations, Spoofs, Delusions, Simulations, Counterfeits, Impostors, Illusions, Confabulations, Skullduggery, Frauds, Pseudoscience, Propaganda, Hoaxes, Flimflam, Pranks, Hornswoggle, Conspiracies & Miscellaneous Fakery.” Sorgatz says he doesn’t want readers to move through t...

Axie Navas, the executive editor of Outside Magazine, talks with Lauren Goode about how that magazine is adapting to the changing digital media industry. One of her key initiatives has been diversifying the editorial staff of the Santa Fe-based magazine and covering issues like sexual harassment, even though its readers are still largely male. Navas explains how Outside is trying to reach new audi...

Tech reviewer Marques Brownlee talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about his YouTube channel, MKBHD, which has more than six million subscribers — a breakthrough success story on the site. Brownlee started making videos for fun in 2009, when he was 15, but today he's doing well enough to have three full-time employees working under him. He explains how he works with the tech companies who want to get...

Financial Times CEO John Ridding talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka about the company’s decade-long head start in paid online subscriptions. Some of his peers in the tech and media world were initially “hostile” to the idea of a paywall, he says, but two-thirds of the FT’s current revenue is coming from subscriptions. Ridding also talks about how the London-headquartered newspaper has butted heads wi...

Wall Street Journal reporter Ben Fritz talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about his new book, "The Big Picture: The Fight for the Future of Movies." Fritz says the economics of the movie business have been completely transformed by the rise of online streaming services and by brands like Marvel, which have supplanted name-brand stars and directors as the most reliable indicator of a film's success. H...

TV writer and "Lean In" co-author Nell Scovell talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about her new book, "Just the Funny Parts ... And a Few Hard Truths About Sneaking Into the Hollywood Boys’ Club." Scovell says TV is hierarchical, meaning bad behavior at the top — including sexual harassment — trickles down to other employees. She also talks about what has changed since "Lean In" and what happened whe...

Ben Rubin, the CEO of Houseparty, talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about why his livestreaming company pivoted away from its original product, Meerkat, just three months after that app was the toast of South By Southwest. Although Meerkat was the first mobile livestreaming app to get a lot of buzz, the company quickly realized that most users can't make good, genuine live content for others every d...

Blumhouse Productions founder and CEO Jason Blum talks with Recode's Peter Kafka at South by Southwest 2018. Blum's company, which largely makes low-budget "genre" films such as "The Purge," "Happy Death Day" and "Paranormal Activity," scored a Best Picture nomination this year with Jordan Peele's hit thriller "Get Out." He talks about the experience of awaiting — and losing — that Oscar, as well...

Veteran screenwriter Graham Yost talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka about the second season of the Amazon Prime Video series “Sneaky Pete.” Showrunner Yost previously wrote movies like “Speed” and TV series like the FX crime drama “Justified,” and he explains what makes writing for Amazon different — including how the online streaming service thinks about the all-important cliffhanger. He also discus...

SoundCloud CEO Kerry Trainor talks with Recode's Peter Kafka at the 2018 Code Media conference in Huntington Beach, Calif. Trainor replaced then-CEO Alex Ljung last summer at a time when the music-streaming company was struggling and couldn't find a buyer. He explains how he convinced the board not to sell the company and what changes he's making to reorient its business model toward audio creator...

Rony Abovitz, the founder, president and CEO of Magic Leap, and Adam Silver, NBA commissioner, talk with Recode's Peter Kafka at the 2018 Code Media conference in Huntington Beach, Calif. They talk about a new partnership to bring some NBA content to Magic Leap's augmented reality goggles, due out sometime this year, and Abovitz shares some new hints about the roadmap for his company. Plus: A came...

Journalist/activist Lauren Duca talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka about the column she wrote for Teen Vogue that catapulted her into fame, and the ensuing interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that made her even more of a star. Duca’s original mega-viral essay, “Donald Trump Is Gaslighting America,” is “still true” today, she says; it established her as a leading feminist critic of the Trump admin...

Janice Min, part owner of the Hollywood Reporter, talks with Recode’s Peter Kafka at the Code Media Conference in Huntington Beach, Calif. She talks about how the Reporter is keeping an eye on the nexus of Hollywood, media and power and that one time when she got dinner with Steve Bannon, Michael Wolff and Roger Ailes. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

BuzzFeed CEO Jonah Peretti talks with Recode's Peter Kafka at the 2018 Code Media conference in Huntington Beach, Calif. Peretti says Facebook should be willing to share in the revenue it makes from its News Feed, something it has already done on other parts of its platform that make a lot less money. He also addresses recent reports that BuzzFeed might spin off its news division and argues that G...

Campbell Brown, Facebook’s head of news partnerships, and Adam Mosseri, the company's head of News Feed, talk with Recode’s Peter Kafka and Kurt Wagner at the 2018 Code Media conference. They defend the recent controversial changes to the types of stories that appear in users’ feeds, with Brown saying that Facebook is okay with having a point of view if it means “leaning into quality news.” Howeve...

MoviePass CEO Mitch Lowe talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about how he's trying to make a profitable business out of charging $10/month for nearly unlimited visits to the movie theater. Lowe says MoviePass now has more than 1.5 million paying subscribers, who see twice as many films in the theater as non-subscribers. He also talks about the company's risky public feud with the large theater chain A...

Wired editor in chief Nick Thompson talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about the merits of running a print magazine in 2018 and why Wired.com is adding a $20/year paywall. Thompson, previously the editor of NewYorker.com, learned there that asking readers to pay for content changes not just their experience, but also how writers and editors do their jobs because now the pressure is on to make unique...

Bleacher Report CEO Dave Finocchio talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about founding a sports media site, selling it to Turner and leaving — and why he came back to lead the company again. Finocchio discusses the recently announced changes to Facebook's News Feed that will deemphasize news from publishers like him, but says Bleacher Report started migrating to other platforms years ago, and now sees...

Recode’s Peter Kafka brings three past podcast guests back into the studio on this special two-in-one episode about how the media has handled President Trump. First, he interviews NYU Professor Jay Rosen, who lambastes the political press for trying to treat Trump like a normal president; Rosen says interviewing Trump is “meaningless” because his answers aren’t tethered to actual policy ideas. Lat...

Hearst Magazines President David Carey talks with Recode's Peter Kafka about how the 130-year-old media giant is striking a balance between its print legacy and the digital future. Carey says print still accounts for two-thirds of his division's profits, and it will be a "long time" before those lines cross. And he predicts that many digital media companies that are heavily reliant on advertising...

Washington Post Media Reporter Sarah Ellison and New York Times Media Columnist Jim Rutenberg talk with Recode's Peter Kafka about what the media got right and got wrong in 2017. Ellison says readers' interest in all things Trump, known as the "Trump bump," may be waning, so now is the time for journalists to figure out what comes next. Rutenberg agrees that more focus is needed, but says last yea...

Recode's Kara Swisher returns to the podcast to talk with Peter Kafka about how the media and Silicon Valley have fared in the year-plus since Donald Trump won the U.S. presidential election. Swisher says tech companies are still abrogating their share of the responsibility over the content that appears on their platforms and says she's tired of a perpetual-victim mentality among "the richest and...