“Cancel Culture at the NY Times” with Andy Mills

Uncomfortable Conversations with Josh Szeps

Josh Szeps

Comedy Interviews, Self-improvement, Society & Culture, Education, Comedy

4.6 • 863 Ratings

🗓️ 26 August 2024

⏱️ 87 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Andy is the producer The Witch Trials of J.K. Rowling and previously of the New York Times' groundbreaking podcast The Daily.

During the riots and racial reckoning after the killing of George Floyd, newsrooms were roiled by existential questions: Should journalists be activists? Do white male journalists hide behind "objectivity" to impose their bias? Do they get coddled by media companies who hide their misdeeds, or do they suffer extra scrutiny as targets for the social-justice mob?

Andy was in the eye of the storm. He'd been snapped up by the world's most powerful newspaper to grow its audio division, co-creating The Daily and other celebrated podcasts like Caliphate and Rabbit Hole.

Then, in a life-altering cancel-culture frenzy, he lost it all.

Andy is in Sydney for the Festival of Dangerous Ideas, where he and Josh spoke together on a panel, "Speaking Bluntly: Identity politics in journalism". He stopped by the Uncomfortable Conversations studios to share his incredible tale, warts and all.

Andy's new podcast is Reflector.

This full conversation is 2h14m long. To hear it in all its glory, and to get more thought-provoking, ad-free episodes, hit the Substack page at https://uncomfortableconversations.substack.com/subscribe

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Goody, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas. And during those heady days of
0:08.1	2020 and 2021, when the world was reeling from the pandemic and the streets were ablaze with race riots,
0:14.8	at least in the United States, it was a tricky time to express dangerous ideas, as today's guest found out.
0:22.3	Andy Mills had been a podcast producer on Radio Lab, the terrific science show, and he was working
0:27.8	at the New York Times in the job that he'd always dreamed of.
0:31.4	He actually helped to create arguably the most successful and groundbreaking podcast of all
0:36.6	time so far, the daily. The New York Times
0:39.5	has attempt to get into the podcast space with wild success. Andy found himself embroiled in something
0:46.0	of a me-to slash cancel culture slash woke imbrolio, which he did not survive. And the tale is amazing. He's very open and frank here
0:57.4	about exactly what did and didn't happen and about the extent to which he does or does not
1:01.3	blame the legacy media for the scenario he found himself in and whether or not it would pan out
1:05.9	the same way today. I'll keep my own feelings about that, uh, about that particular question,
1:10.5	private. And he's gone on to continue
1:12.8	great success independently. He did the podcast Caliphate. That was while he was still at the New York
1:17.9	Times. He did the podcast rabbit hole, which is excellent, an investigation into what the internet
1:23.4	is doing to us all. And he produced the podcast, the witch trial of JK, the witch trials,
1:29.6	rather, of JK Rowling, which is an amazing podcast if you haven't yet heard it. And if you're ever
1:34.2	tempted to check out our YouTube page, Andy was actually in Sydney for the Festival of Dangerous
1:39.1	Ideas, where he and I were on a panel together. So we get to sit together in a pretty new studio on a pretty
1:45.2	new couch.
1:46.7	So if it takes your fancy, search for uncomfortable conversations on YouTube, and you can watch
1:51.0	us there.
	...

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