transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:01] America's best network just got bigger. Switch to T-Mobile today and get built-in benefits the other guys leave out. Plus our five-year price guarantee. And now T-Mobile is available in US cellular stores. Best mobile network based on analysis by Oocliffe Speedtest Intelligence Data 2H 2025. Bigger network, the combination of T-Mobiles and US. Cellular Network footprints will enhance the T-Mobile network's coverage.
Speaker 2:
[00:24] Price guarantee on top text and data.
Speaker 1:
[00:26] Exclusions like taxes and fees apply. See tmobile.com for details.
Speaker 2:
[00:30] Every day as a small business owner feels like solving a puzzle. One moment you're cruising along, and the next, there's a shipping snag that has you scrambling. But here's a surprise you will like. With Progressive, small business owners save 13% on their commercial auto insurance when they pay in full. So go ahead, surprise yourself. Get a quote in as little as 8 minutes at progressivecommercial.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates, discounts not available in all states or situations.
Speaker 3:
[01:04] Hi, this is Meg Wolitzer, and welcome to our spinoff podcast, Selected Shorts, Tell Me More, where we bring together all kinds of stories and storytelling under one big tent. Today, I'm talking to Jodi Kantor, the prize-winning investigative reporter for the New York Times and bestselling co-author of She Said, the book that details the story of decades of sexual abuse allegations against Harvey Weinstein. Before that, she spent six years writing about Barack and Michelle Obama. Her book, The Obamas, takes readers behind the scenes at the White House and into their marriage as they navigated becoming the first black president and first lady. More recently, she has been reporting on the Supreme Court, focusing on its inner workings. As she said in a New York Times interview, I want to illuminate an institution that's at the center of our public life and yet very hidden. I've run into Jodi occasionally over the years and we've said hello in passing, but this was the first chance for me to have a real conversation with her. I've always admired her work, the way she's able to make complex stories accessible and humanize characters who can seem unknowable. And she's a wonderful reporter. To me, she exemplifies what a great non-fiction storyteller can be. Informative, revelatory, and always fascinating. I was thrilled when she agreed to come talk to me. So let's get into it. Hi Jodi, thanks for talking to me today. I really appreciate it.
Speaker 4:
[02:32] Thank you for having me.
Speaker 5:
[02:33] Welcome to The Daily Show, and congratulations on a book that I think takes us behind the scenes of one of the biggest stories that has ever hit any country, and that is the story of Harvey Weinstein.
Speaker 3:
[02:49] On the publication of your book, She Said, which was about the Harvey Weinstein case and the Me Too movement, you and co-author Megan Toohey were interviewed on The Daily Show by Trevor Noah. I was really interested when you said to him, what I hope people will get from the book is the idea that stories matter. We're a short story podcast and we exclusively do fiction. Can you talk to me about what story means to you? Let's just dial it back to that very question.
Speaker 4:
[03:18] First of all, it's incredible to be with you. I feel very honored to be a non-fiction presence in a fiction world. Also, when one of your favorite novelists wants to talk to you about story, like it's a dream, but it's also like the river is flowing in reverse. Like, okay, Meg Wolitzer is going to ask me about story. Okay, okay, okay.
Speaker 3:
[03:40] Maybe I can get some tips, please, please.
Speaker 4:
[03:42] Yeah. So, I would say two things. What I meant in the conversation with Trevor Noah is that facts matter and that stories make people care. The most significant thing that happened in the Me Too movement was the compassion that people all over the world felt for these women who were coming forward, that visceral feeling of being new in a job, in the Weinstein story as an assistant, an aspiring producer or as an actress, and in your first week, showing up in this glamorous milieu and wanting a piece of the action and having ambitions and having all of that turned against you, and Weinstein exploiting his power as a boss. This is a story about work, not about sex, and he was exploiting his power as a boss to abuse these young women. It was the story that gripped people, and the feeling, investigative journalism is about the unearthing of secret stories and stories that we, in many ways, were never supposed to have access to. So, that's what I meant when stories matter, but I want to add another thing, which I think is pertinent to the times that we live in, which is the New York Times and newspapers cannot just be lists of terrible things that happen. I mean, the paper can't be a homework assignment of, then this terrible thing happened, and then this terrible thing happened, and then this terrible thing happened. That's not journalism. They have to be captivating, and even if the news is bad, we want to feel something. We need character, we need developments, we need to be engaged emotionally. And so part of, I think, the art of story and the art of journalism at this moment is saying, how are we not just doing these deadening reports about bad things happening, but how are we really bringing the audience into the full human drama and having an entire complexion of emotions involved in these stories?
Speaker 3:
[06:08] So how do you do that?
Speaker 4:
[06:11] I mean, there are various tools that you want to use as authentically as possible. It depends on the story. I think that sometimes it's about having somebody to root for, even in a really bad situation. You know, part of the reason why the Me Too stories had to be so solid and, you know, we only published women's stories that we could really verify, right? That were truly supported by evidence. We wanted people to be able to trust the stories, but also, you can root for those women, because when you buy into those stories and you're like, oh, wow, you know, the reporters interviewed the three friends she told at the time, and here are the human resources memos, you know, from the Weinstein company, and here are the secret settlements. When you can buy into that woman's story, you can enter it fully because you're not saying, oh, is she telling the truth? Like, I don't really know what to make of this. Is she exaggerating? Once you can buy in, then you can feel things. And even, I mean, even in a story of victimhood, you can root for somebody, and you can root for somebody who is brave enough to be telling the truth after all of these years. That's a really powerful motivator for an audience. You always want surprise. I mean, like, investigative stories can't be obvious. The ones that are really obvious, I don't think, land in the same way. It was surprising that some of the most glamorous and powerful women in the world were Weinstein's victims. You know, we don't think of Ashley Judd and Gwyneth Paltrow. You know, we think of them on pedestals. And so to hear that even they were subjected to this was very surprising. You want to enter a secret world. My current work is to illuminate the United States Supreme Court, not to do stories about, in my case, the cases and the outcomes, my colleagues handle that brilliantly, but to take you inside the holy of holies of American law and to ask these questions about power like, what is it like to have that much unchecked power for 20 or 30 years at a time, which is how long they do these jobs? How do these people get along with one another? How partisan are they really, given that judges are not supposed to be? How do they countenance President Trump? So I'm trying to bring you information that has a specialness about it because it's not easy to access. And we're, again, we are not supposed to know those things, and I want us to know anyway.
Speaker 3:
[08:54] I wasn't joking, Willie, when I said I could get some tips, because I feel, in fact, that what you're saying, what you're saying really is the kind of, you're talking about the kind of things that we fiction writers think about all the time too. With regard to rooting for someone, I sometimes think of it in a novel as sometimes, when I'm writing a novel, I realize, oh, there's someone, the reader might put herself in that person's place in some way. Who is that person and why? And we follow the story possibly through that person. It's not always the case, not every writer does that, but that's sort of akin to rooting for understanding and kind of being very close to, having a real granular relationship to that character. I imagine though, of course, with the Supreme Court, I mean, they are figuratively and literally shrouded from view. You mentioned character before, and that's something that is, of course, paramount for writers of all kinds. How much do you know these nine justices?
Speaker 4:
[09:56] Oh, it's at a distance, for sure. But there's a lot you can learn, in part because they are so shrouded. I mean, so I spent... Someone recently asked me if I only wanted to write about the women on the Supreme Court, because the truth is I did spend a lot of the last year writing about Justice Amy Coney Barrett. On the one hand, I wrote a profile of her. And then I wrote a story about the strategic conflict on the left side of the court between Justices Elena Kagan and Justice Katanji Brown Jackson, who have really been... They've been at philosophical odds about how to approach their jobs and strategy. I think first of all, just like remembering that these figures are human is really key, that they're supposed to be like a blankness to a judge. The black robe is supposed to stand for the solidity of the law and the idea that it doesn't vary from judge, or should not vary from judge to judge. But they're people, like they're people, they're people. And these are people thrust into very extreme circumstances. Justice Barrett, I think, offered a lot of possibility because, first of all, she follows a pattern that other people I've written about in public life fit into also, which is that she was thrust into very extreme circumstances. She went basically overnight from being like a law professor mom in Indiana, to being the person who was supposed to secure the gains of the conservative legal movement and undue row. And when she was thrust into the spotlight, she was totally stereotyped. I mean, in a kind of interesting sexist way, like, both the left and the right saw a woman with seven children and decided they knew what that meant. And she is a more comp- she's, you know, there's like wide agreement that she's the most interesting person on the Supreme Court. She's a more complicated character than any of the cartoons which suggest. She has voted with the liberals more often than anybody would have predicted. And she's a very sincere person trying to make her way, you know, in a deeply cynical and poisoned time. So I just find her interesting. I find her story interesting. And there are a lot of natural narratives in Supreme Court coverage because, first of all, every case is a story for sure, right? I mean, there truly is a beginning, a middle and an end to the cases. And then there's the narrative of, you know, who is she and she gets to the court and what happens to her and how does she react? And that's like the classic person steps into a strange new world, you know, kind of story. And then with Justices Kagan and Jackson, it's their differences that make them so fascinating to me. And their differences are human. They're really different. Each one thinks that she is doing the job right, and they're doing it completely differently and they've clashed over that. And they each come by it honestly. Justices Kagan is a product of her influences and background and her story. And the same for Justice Jackson. And, you know, we showed that story around internally at the Times before it was published because we wanted to make sure that there weren't any tells in terms of like who we thought strategically was right. I mean, we don't have a view, obviously. But we really wanted people to debate, you know, which of these approaches is more right for this moment. And so I don't know if this is true in fiction, but in non-fiction, that withholding is very important. If you want people to have a debate about your story, I mean, I don't really have any cards most of the time. But even if I do, I do not show them because I can't take up that space. That is the reader's prerogative to sit around with their friends after reading the story and say, are you Jackson or are you Kagan? Like who do you think has it right here?
Speaker 3:
[14:09] Yeah, I think that there is a corollary in fiction, the kind of idea of the intrusive author that you don't want to be. I don't want to be like a god moving these characters around because that just feels inappropriate. It feels like it's about me. You don't want to be a character, although we'll get to this in a minute, but you were of course a character in the film, she said, which is a whole other thing based on your book. But back to the justices for a moment. When I asked, how well do you know them? I know you can't know them, but do you have ideas, like do you have a feeling, like an essence around each of them, whether it's accurate or not? Is that, does that inform?
Speaker 4:
[14:55] Yeah, and it's through reporting, obviously not like my own psychoanalysis or anything. But I think what's really interesting about them is that they're each a little different than the way they're usually portrayed. It's like we have the cardboard cutouts of what even very educated news readers think of the justices. And then there's what they're really like. Like I'll give you, there's some, I wouldn't share because the information is more protected. But a very obvious one is that Justice Clarence Thomas is a lot of people's favorite person on the court. And that is surprising, especially to liberals. But he is very warm. He's super warm and friendly. There's like a jovial quality to him that like feels distinct from like the ferocity of some of his opinions. And so, you know, remember this, Supreme Court is a story of all these people sort of sentenced to, you know, it's sort of like a Sartre. Was it Sartre or Camus who wrote No Exit?
Speaker 3:
[15:58] It was Sartre.
Speaker 4:
[15:58] Thank you.
Speaker 3:
[15:59] No Exit, yeah.
Speaker 4:
[15:59] Okay, good, see, I need to ask my fiction writing friend.
Speaker 3:
[16:01] See, I of course went to the Gilligan's Island analogy. See, that's the difference between us.
Speaker 4:
[16:06] It's what, well, it's right. It's Sartre? It's Sartre meets Gilligan's Island, Meg.
Speaker 3:
[16:12] That's right.
Speaker 4:
[16:13] With marble pillars and chandeliers and red carpeting. So, yeah, remember that they are coexisting for a long time together and not really of their own choice. It's an incredibly dramatic setup. So the question of who's nice is actually pretty important.
Speaker 3:
[16:30] It really, really is. And in fact, I remember when everybody was so struck by the stories about Justice Scalia and Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg going to the opera and being good friends. And I assume that's all true.
Speaker 4:
[16:46] That's true, yeah.
Speaker 3:
[16:46] But to me, that was a story that really affected people in some way because it upended ideas that we had that, as you say, spoke to kind of caricatures of who someone might be. And it was confusing to those of us, but fascinating because you wanted to picture it, you wanted to understand it. And I think that gets me back to the idea of what stories can do and what they're meant to do. They do help us understand, not just the story itself, but larger things. So in telling the story of the Supreme Court right now, it radiates outward, right? It's got a larger glimpse into how we live now. Do you think about things like that when you're writing about the-
Speaker 4:
[17:32] Oh, sure. So the thing I think, well, I'll tell you what I think about a lot in terms of how we live now, which is I wonder if the court's culture of utter formality can last. I mean, this is like, let me try to think of an easy way to explain this to anybody who's listening. So our culture now is loud, it's direct, it's TikTok, it's informal, right? It's in your face, it's very blunt. The court is so stately and formal, Meg. As a justice, if you say in an opinion, I dissent instead of I respectfully dissent, that is like a burn. And when new justices come, they're kind of like initiated into that culture. And I just wonder if it can survive because it's so contrary to the way we live now. And there are good things about it and there are bad things about it. I mean, like all forms of extreme politeness, at their best, they've got a real etiquette and respect to them. And then at their worst, they are, you know, stylized and ossified to the point of feeling, you know, hypocritical or fake. So yeah, I wonder what the court's internal culture will look like in 20 or 50 years.
Speaker 3:
[18:59] That's really interesting.
Speaker 1:
[19:20] America's best network just got bigger. Switch to T-Mobile today and get built-in benefits the other guys leave out. Plus, our five-year price guarantee. And now, T-Mobile is available in US cellular stores. Best mobile network based on analysis by Oogliffe Speedtest Intelligence Data 2H 2025. Bigger network, the combination of T-Mobiles and US. Cellular Network footprints will enhance the T-Mobile network's coverage.
Speaker 2:
[19:43] Price guarantee on talk, text and data.
Speaker 1:
[19:45] Exclusions like taxes and fees apply. See tmobile.com for details.
Speaker 6:
[19:49] Adventures don't always go as planned. One minute you're cruising in your RV, the next your tire hits a massive pothole. Progressive is ready for you when the unexpected hits, with excellent claim service for your boat, RV and motorcycle. Plus optional coverage like roadside assistance and on-the-water towing. Visit progressive.com and make sure your next adventure is unforgettable, for the right reasons. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Coverage is subject to policy terms and limits.
Speaker 7:
[20:20] Does your day move faster than you can keep up? With new Gatorade lower sugar, my family and I can stay at the top of our game. No artificial flavors, sweeteners or colors, 75 percent less sugar, and all the electrolytes of regular Gatorade. Now available nationwide.
Speaker 3:
[20:38] I wanted to ask you about the difference between writing books and writing reported pieces for the New York Times. Do you have a preference, first of all?
Speaker 4:
[20:47] Well, it's such a good question. Okay, I'm going to try to be really honest. So I say this just having finished a new book and about to publish it. So writing for the Times is a collective, it's a form, it's a sonnet. I am speaking with the suit and tie of newspaper voice. The voice is my own and I have some stylistic leeway. And I think especially in the choice of what to write about, like as an investigative reporter, I think your voice is more the stories you're telling and what you're writing about than necessarily like a sentence by sentence market style. I have a sick penchant for stories that are very hard to get, and that's part of my voice and identity as a newspaper reporter. When I read a book, it's mine all mine. It's like, I've worked at the New York Times since I was 28. Like I am a child of that newsroom. I am so completely imprinted on the place. Like my husband works there. I mean, I have a bad case of New York Times disease. And so when I write a book, I never violate the rules of the newspaper. Like God forbid you should ever catch me, you know, messing around with the truth or having a lack of evidence or getting really partisan in my writing. I don't think I would do that. But I cherish the freedom and creativity of a book and the running room. I mean, I think one thing that changes, like my first book, I was intimidated by the prospect of writing, I don't know, 80 or 100,000 words. And then by the time Megan and I wrote She Said, it was like, oh my god, this running room, like there's room to play, there's room to do things that I never would have thought to do. It's much more like holding a microphone before an audience and talking to them. And then the, so I am publishing a book in April called How to Start. And it's, it's nonfiction, but it's not exactly journalism, to be honest. It's a letter from me to younger people. It comes on the heels of, like, a particularly dramatic situation in which a bunch of people graduating from college, this was Columbia students during peak Columbia chaos about a year ago, they asked me to give the undergraduate commencement address, and they gave me a great assignment for it. They said, how in this environment are we supposed to find and start our life's work? And I was just totally taken with their question. You know, I've covered employment for many years. I have a daughter their age. I have been speaking on college campuses for a long time about journalism, but also finding work of meaning. And I had a lot to say to them about how to address this, like, truly difficult moment to enter the employment arena. And so, I really, like, for me, it was the equivalent of a wild and crazy time, because I just, it wasn't an assignment, it wasn't blessed by the management of the paper. I just decided that I had something to say to young people and wanted to say it. But I think in a way that work can also go back to the paper because the paper has to evolve and change and nobody wants, like there's, you know, it's nice that the Times calls everybody, you know, Mr. and Ms. and retains a certain polish. But I don't think we want a New York Times that's actually out of step with how people communicate. And so sometimes I feel like the things I do on the side, whether it's this podcast or that book or talking to an audience of college students in a way can come back into the writing for the paper and update it. Everything I've done and especially everything that I've done there that's been any good has been the product of so much collaboration that you can't like tell, you know, where one person starts and one person begins. The editor in a newspaper story plays a much more fulsome role than the editor of nearly any book. And like if you look at our Supreme Court team now, it's really five people, it's four reporters and an editor. And we're talking constantly. The last couple stories I've written, everybody in the group has read and commented on before they're published. There's a whole team of like other editors who are reading the story even after it's basically finished and saying, what about this thing? What about that thing? Could that be better? I tripped up on that. And then maybe most importantly, for an investigative reporter, you've got the institutional support, right? Like it would be really hard to be a, like being a freelance investigative reporter, some people manage to do it, but it's almost inconceivable to me because you are in a much stronger position. Like say, you know, for the Weinstein story, I showed up at some of the victim's houses, unannounced, trying to get them to speak to me. Doing that on your own would be even nervier. I was able to do it saying, I have the full force of New York Times and all of its public service commitments behind me as I do this kind of high wire reporting thing.
Speaker 3:
[26:31] You wrote a book, The Obamas, which speaks for itself about what it was about. And Connie Schultz in The New York Times said of your book, of you actually, a meticulous reporter, Ms. Kantor is attuned to the nuance of small gestures, the import of unspoken truths. I was struck by the phrase small gestures because it resonated to me from this podcast and the kinds of things that we hear on our show. It's part of fiction. Can you tell me about a small gesture or small detail in a piece of yours either recently or more from a while ago?
Speaker 4:
[27:06] Yeah. Well, wait, hold on. There's something I want to read you because it's an Obama. Let's see if I can actually find.
Speaker 3:
[27:15] That is Jodi Kantor typing. You don't get that everywhere.
Speaker 4:
[27:21] Yeah, I found it. Okay. So I covered Barack and Michelle Obama for many years, starting at the end of 2006. And I think the last story I wrote was the beginning of maybe 2013. And the question I was following the whole time was, who are Barack and Michelle Obama? Which started out as an interesting question because it was like, who are these two people from Illinois? And, you know, he's running for president, and does he have a chance? And who is this guy anyway? But then it evolved, of course, to, what does it mean to become president and first lady? And what does it mean for two previously kind of everyday people, like however gifted they were, still like lived a relatively everyday life back in Chicago? What does it mean to step into those roles? So the presidency, as you know, is like kind of a personality accentuator. Little things about you that would be lost in your normal life or my normal life become very important. And the public notices those small gestures and like having watched these people for years on end, reporters notice these small gestures. So here's a story that I wrote about President Obama. This was published while he was in office. And he was running for re-election. And this was about something about him I had noticed after all these years, like over all these years of observation. The headline is The Competitor-in-Chief. And then it says, as election day approaches, President Obama is sharing a few important things about himself. He has mentioned more than once in recent weeks that he cooks a really mean chili. He has impressive musical pitch, he told an Iowa audience. He is a, quote, surprisingly good pool player, he informed an interviewer. Not to mention, though he does, a doodler of unusual skill. All in all, he joked at a recent New York fundraiser with several famous basketball players in attendance. It is very rare that I come to an event where I'm like the fifth or sixth most interesting person. And so then I'll skip a few lines. It says, AIDS and friends say so in interviews, that Mr. Obama's own words of praise and derision say it best. He is a perpetually aspiring overachiever, often grading himself and others with report card terms like outstanding or remedial course, as in Republicans need one. So that's a story about noticing how unbelievably competitive President Obama was. I mean, here he had achieved it all, right? He was in the most powerful position in the land, and yet he couldn't stop talking about things like winning at Scrabble.
Speaker 3:
[30:12] Right.
Speaker 4:
[30:12] First of all, I think that's characteristic of people who become president. They are generally like a hundred times more competitive than you or I are, Meg. But also something about him and something I think about his biography and background, and the need to keep being the best and stating that he was the best over and over and over.
Speaker 3:
[30:37] It's those kinds of details that make it so vivid. Absolutely. Thank you for sharing that with us. We have to stop in a moment, but I want to ask you, you kindly referred to my work at the top, and I'm just curious, what do you like to read when you're just not working?
Speaker 4:
[30:52] Oh, I'm so glad you asked. Well, now you'll understand part of why I love your work so much. Meg, I have a confession, which is that people are constantly telling me to like absorb me to novels or shows. That's really hard to do at 10 o'clock at night when you've devoted years of your life to chronicling sexual assault. So I turn to fiction like yours. Like one of the reasons I love the interesting so much is that I really love novels that span a long course of time and tell you what happens to the characters. Yeah, I really love novels that introduce you to the characters and keep you with them over time because that question like of what happens over a lifespan and how people change and relationships change. I really, really love that. So I look for fiction that is transporting and gripping and pretty character based. And what I want is a work of fiction that will rip me away from my life and from the New York Times and, you know, from... Like as you can imagine, my work involves a fair amount of pressure and anxiety. And I want to be lifted from my own world of words and like this intense pressure to get everything right and to somehow master this impossible moment in American life. And I want to be brought along by the mastery and authority of a fiction author who's just going to take me to some place completely different.
Speaker 3:
[32:35] Jodi, thank you again for being on the show today. It was really wonderful to hear what you had to say about story and so many other things. Really illuminating. Thank you.
Speaker 4:
[32:43] Oh, it's a pleasure to be with you.
Speaker 3:
[32:51] That was my conversation with Jodi Kantor. If you're not already doing so, follow her work at the New York Times. Until next time, I'm Meg Wolitzer. Thanks for listening. Our show today was produced with the Selected Shorts team, including Jennifer Brennan, Mary Shimkin, Matthew Love, and our mix engineer, Joe Plourde.
Speaker 6:
[33:13] Ever notice how life's best stories don't happen in your living room? They happen on the open road, out on the water, or parked under the stars. At Progressive, they get that you want to focus on the experience, not worry about the what-ifs. That's why they offer quality insurance designed for your ride, whether that's a boat, RV, or motorcycle. Adventure with confidence. Visit progressive.com and see how easy it is to protect your favorite way to get away. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Not available in DC. Prices vary based on how you buy.