Culture Gabfest - Country So Unreal
Slate Daily Feed
Slate
3.9 • 1.1K Ratings
🗓️ 13 January 2021
⏱️ 58 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
This week Stephen, Dana, and Julia talk about the National Geographic miniseries, City So Real, about the 2019 mayoral race in Chicago and the social and political issues that fueled it. Then New York Times writer Charlie Warzel joins the show to discuss conservative media outlets like Newsmax and OANN and the alternate reality of news that Trump supporters reside in. After that, the hosts talk about New Yorker writer Lawrence Wright's comprehensive article, The Plague Year, about the way U.S. officials have reacted to the pandemic.
In Slate Plus, the hosts reply to a listener who wants to know how they distinguish between works of art that are "entertaining" and ones that are "good" and whether making that distinction makes them snobs.
Podcast production by Cameron Drews. Production assistance by Rachael Allen.
Slate Plus members get a bonus segment in each episode of the Culture Gabfest and access to exclusive shows like Dana Stevens’ classic movies podcast Flashback. Sign up now to listen and support our work.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm Stephen Meckhaff, and this is the Slate Culture Gab Fest, Country So Unreal edition. |
| 0:15.0 | It's Wednesday, January 13th, 2021. |
| 0:18.5 | On today's show, City So Real is a docu-series about the city of Chicago. It's by Steve James, |
| 0:23.8 | He of Hoop Dreams, and America to Me. It's now streaming on Hulu, and it's a stunning achievement. |
| 0:29.4 | And then only some of us were shocked to see the U.S. Capitol besieged and the democratic process |
| 0:35.0 | of certifying Joe Biden's win ceremonially, |
| 0:38.4 | halted by violence. |
| 0:39.7 | Charlie Worsell of the Times will join us to discuss how right-wing media has so primed |
| 0:44.7 | the inhabitants of its echo chambers as to make what happened on January 6th inevitable. |
| 0:50.5 | And finally, the New Yorker has published a mammoth story on COVID by the veteran journalist Lawrence Wright. |
| 0:56.3 | It's a tour to force covering virtually every aspect of the pandemic with the depressing throughline that with a few important exceptions, we as a society, have utterly failed in the face of this challenge. |
| 1:07.7 | Joining me today is Julia Turner, the deputy managing editor of the LA Times. Hey, Julia. |
| 1:13.2 | Hello, hello. And of course, Dana Stevens, film critic for Slate. Hey, Dana. |
| 1:18.3 | Stephen. |
| 1:19.5 | Shall we, shall we go? Shall we go? Ready? Yeah. |
| 1:25.9 | Okay, well, typically, in a typical year right around this time, the panel figures out |
| 1:30.8 | sort of informally what was excellent in the previous year that we haven't yet covered. |
| 1:35.2 | We do a little culling and we do segments that are sort of untimely, but we think in a way |
| 1:40.5 | kind of urgent. |
| 1:41.5 | We don't want people to miss film X or TV show Y. It's been a little bit |
| 1:44.9 | different this year thanks to the pandemic, but in the following segment, we're going to talk about City So Real, which is now on Hulu. It's been out for a while, but we were committed to covering it. It premiered on the National Geographic Channel. It's now on Hulu, and I think I will pound the table on this one, I believe you really must seek it out. It's a docu-series by Steve James, who I think is still best known for Hoop Dreams. We also covered America to me a few years ago. With this series, I got to say, James is elevated to National Treasure Status. I really do think this is remarkable. It's about the city of Chicago, but that's sort of like saying Moby Dick is a book about |
| 2:17.6 | a fish, more or less begins with the trial of the white police officer who shot and killed |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from Slate, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of Slate and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.